Sola Gratia: Our Only Method

Eph. 2:8-9

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

We have so far examined two tenets of the true Christian faith, and likewise two pillars of the Reformation:

· Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone — our only Model

· Sola fide, faith alone — our only Means

We turn now to a third: sola gratia, grace alone, which is our only method of salvation. This brings us, in fact, to the very core of the Doctrines of Grace, a term that simply means that saving grace is sovereign grace, that salvation, from beginning to end, and everything in between, is by God’s sovereign grace, apart from any contribution from man whatsoever. Salvation is either all of grace or none of it is of grace. Adding anything to grace, negates grace.

In a sense, it is this point that is the crux of the whole Reformation debate. This is seen by recounting the story of Luther and Erasmus. Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. While ordained a priest in 1492, it seems that he never actively worked as a priest and, like Luther, criticized some of the Church’s excesses. He and Luther greatly respected one another, but they had a fundamental disagreement over the human will. In 1524, Erasmus published his book The Freedom of the Will, which dealt with the issue of grace, but from a subtle, roundabout way. He chose to make the biggest issue of all the question of “free will,” that is, how much impact sin had (or did not have) on man’s will. In it he wrote, “By free choice in this place we mean a power of the human will by which a man can apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation, or turn away from them.”[1] In other words, man has voluntary or free power in and of himself to choose the way which leads to salvation apart from the grace of God. In Erasmus’ mind, God and man work together to bring man’s salvation.

Luther responded to Erasmus by publishing his most famous work, The Bondage of the Will, in 1525. Amazingly, while disagreeing with virtually everything Erasmus wrote, Luther actually commended Erasmus for recognizing the real core issue separating Rome and the Bible believers. He wrote, in fact:

that unlike all the rest, you alone have attacked the real thing, the essential issue. You have not wearied me with those extraneous issues about the Papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such like . . . you and you alone have seen the hinge upon which it all turns, and aimed for the vital spot. For that I heartily thank you.[2]

In short, Erasmus was not so foolish as to defend any of the major points, for they are indefensible. Rather, he pointed out “the hinge upon which it all turns.” The issue of “free will” to Luther was the crux of the matter, namely, whether Christianity is a religion of pure grace or partial grace, that is, either all of God or partly of God with man. Would God simply supply the grace and man in his own power would supply the faith, or would God supply it all?

Sola gratia, then, declares that God supplies not only forgiveness by grace, but even faith by grace. That is why Christ is called “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2), for He is the beginning and the ending of it. He has done all of it. In fact, the doctrine of sola fide cannot be understood in its fullest apart from sola gratia. What is the source of faith? Is it the God-given means to salvation or is it a condition to salvation that man is left to himself to fulfill? Is grace God’s contribution while faith is man’s contribution? Is salvation wholly of God or does it ultimately depend upon something that we do for our salvation, namely, exercise our faith?

It was this issue that drove the reformers. Did they believe in the hated doctrines of the sovereignty of God and election, doctrines that are mocked, maligned, and mutilated in our day? They most certainly did! Why? Because they believed in sola scriptura, which clearly declares that man is so sinful that even his will is fallen. As Paul wrote to the Romans:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Rom. 3.10-12)

Scripture goes on to say that God has given man the faith to believe, as our text declares: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. The clear and obvious antecedent for the pronoun “it” is faith. Faith had to be the God’s gift, for without that gift, fallen man would never believe. Several other Scriptures strongly substantiate this principle:

And [Jesus] said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. (Jn. 6:65, emphasis added)

For unto you it is given [granted] in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. (Phil. 1:29, emphasis added)

And when [Apollos] was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace. (Acts 18:27, emphasis added)

Another often quoted verse is John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power [i.e., right] to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” Many Gospel preachers quote this verse, as they rightly should, but sadly they stop without quoting the very next one: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Where did we get the will to believe? In ourselves? No, because we were dead (Eph. 2:1-3). Rather it was God’s grace that gave us the will to believe. Man’s will has nothing to do with salvation, not even with believing. It is all of God. Were we born again because of our will? No, thank God, we were born again in spite of our will.

That beloved Puritan commentator Matthew Henry (1662-1714), who could read the Bible when he was only three years old, and of whose commentary Spurgeon said, “Every minister ought to read it entirely and carefully through once at least,” said it well when he wrote:

We do not become the children of God as we become the children of our natural parents. Grace does not run in the blood, as corruption does. It is not produced by the natural power of our own will. As it is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, so neither is it of the will of man. It is the grace of God that makes us willing to be His (emphasis in the original).

Some 100 years before, John Calvin wrote:

Ought we not then to be silent about free-will, and good intentions, and fancied preparations, and merits, and satisfactions? There is none of these which does not claim a share of praise in the salvation of men; so that the praise of grace would not, as Paul shews, remain undiminished.[3]

In other words, let us stop prattling on about free-will and other human merit. It’s all of grace. Still another writer, this time a Greek authority, writes:

God does not merely give to both Jews and Gentiles the possibility of faith; He effects faith in them. Eph. 2:8 makes it especially plain that all is of grace and that human merit is completely ruled out. To understand the Pauline and then the Lutheran doctrine of justification it is essential to make it clear that faith is not a new human merit which replaces the merit of works, that it is not a second achievement which takes the place of the first, that it is not something which man has to show, but that justification by faith is an act of divine grace. Faith is not the presupposition of the grace of God. As a divine gift, it is the epitome and demonstration of the grace of God.[4]

Spurgeon also dealt with this truth in his sermon “All of Grace.” It continues to amaze me how many evangelicals argue that Spurgeon did not believe in the Doctrines of Grace, or like some choose to spit out of the mouths “Calvinism.” Well, bless their hearts, they obviously have not read very much Spurgeon, for he was a strong, staunch, and very vocal defender of the doctrines of sovereign grace. Of our present subject he wrote:

Even the very will thus to he saved by grace is not of ourselves, but is the gift of God . . . I ask any saved man to look back upon his own conversion, and explain how it came about. You turned to Christ, and believed on his name: these were your own acts and deeds. But what caused you thus to turn? What sacred force was that which turned you from sin to righteousness? Do you attribute this singular renewal to the existence of a something better in you than has been yet discovered in your unconverted neighbor? No, you confess that you might have been what he now is if it had not been that there was a potent something which touched the spring of your will, enlightened your understanding, and guided you to the foot of the cross.[5]

Dear Christian Friend, what touch your dead, depraved heart and drew you to the foot of the cross, regenerated your soul, and gave you the faith to believer? Sovereign grace.

It is truly interesting when we articulate that word grace. Why? Because there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that few words are more misunderstood, misused, or misapplied than grace. It is bandied about by just about everyone today. Two people can be discussing grace, in fact, but mean two entirely different things. Other words in this category are “election,” “predestination,” “foreknowledge,” and others, but grace is at the heart of every one of those, as well as other concepts, so to misunderstand grace is to be totally clueless as to what Biblical Christianity and its doctrines are about. If we do not understand grace, we understand nothing of the Christian faith.

A case in point again is Roman Catholicism. Yes, it most certainly speaks of grace, but it means something vastly different from what Scripture says and what the reformers defended. Here’s what the Council of Trent declared:

If anyone says that by the said sacraments of the New Law [a term that refers to the Trent’s canons and decrees on the seven sacraments] grace is not conferred through the act performed [ex opere operato, lit., “the work worked”] but [says] that faith alone in the divine promises is sufficient for the obtaining of grace, let him be anathema.[6]

In other words, grace is not received from God by faith, but is rather infused by man’s works, specifically, through his performing of the sacraments. The Catholic Church, therefore, maintains that the church is the dispensary of grace. It is through the church that grace emanates from Christ and is dispensed to the individual through the sacraments. Such blasphemy is beyond imagination, but what is worse is how many “evangelicals” are jettisoning the Reformation embracing the Roman Church.

The word grace translates the Greek charis. In Classical Greek it meant “that which affords joy, pleasure, delight”[7] and from there several meanings developed: grace, favor, thankfulness, gratitude, delight, kindness, etc.[8] Originally, then, the word didn’t carry the idea of something “unmerited” because Greek philosophy (which is at the root of our western culture) believed in human merit and self‑sufficiency. Even then, however, the Greeks thought they needed “a little help,” so they prayed to their gods for favors and gifts.

It was, therefore, in the New Testament that charis was transformed. While some of the meanings from the Classical Greek are found, the New Testament usage is unique because New Testament grace is coupled with the person and work of Jesus Christ. If you remove Christ, and therefore grace, all you have left is another religion that is based on human merit. You have ten practical commandments, many ethical principles for living, but all you have is mere religion.

One example of this appears in John 1:17: “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Does that say grace and truth came by religion, works, or human merit? No, for the ultimate manifestation of God’s grace is Jesus Christ. Throughout the New Testament, in fact, grace is coupled with Christ, for He is the ultimate manifestation of the grace of God. Christ is the focus of all Scripture, in fact. The Old Testament prepared for Him, the Gospels presented Him, and the Epistles propagated Him. Grace is about Christ. This transformation of charis is summed up by Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest:

In pagan Greece, the word referred, among other things, to a favor done by one Greek to another, out of the spontaneous generosity of his heart, without hope of reward. Of course, this favor was always done to a friend, not an enemy. When the word is used in the [NT], it takes an infinite leap forward, and acquires an additional meaning which it never had in pagan Greece, for this favor was done by God at the Cross, not to one who loved Him, but to one who hated Him.[9]

Grace can, therefore, be clearly defined as the unmerited favor of God toward man manifested primarily through the person and work of Jesus Christ, apart from any merit or works of man.

If we may be so bold, if anyone defines grace differently than that (or similar to that), let them be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9). Anyone who does not preach that doctrine of grace—and Roman Catholicism certainly does not—is a false teacher. Many verses of Scripture substantiate that definition. Especially pointed is Romans 11:5-6:

Even so, then, at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace . . . (emphasis added).

To speak of grace plus works—and “free will” is simply another aspect of human merit—is in essence to redefine grace as something other than grace. Consider just two other passages:

While by the proving of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men, and by their prayer for you, who long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift (II Cor. 9:13‑15, emphasis added).

That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (II Thes. 1:12).

Before we close, one more historical note is essential. The depth of Erasmus’ error, as well as Catholicism’s error, is Arminianism, which is no less than theological heresy. While such a statement causes a firestorm when uttered in some groups, the roots of Arminianism go back to an apostle named Pelagius (c. 360-420), a British monk and theologian. About 400 he postulated his ideas of how man is saved. He believed each person has the same “free will” that Adam had and, therefore, is able to choose good or evil for himself. He said that this is possible because each person is created separately and uncontaminated by the sin of Adam. Sin, therefore, is a matter of will, not nature. It is just as easy for a man to choose good as it is to choose evil. Why, then, is there so much sin we must ask? Pelagius maintained that the reason is not a corruption of the will by original sin, but rather by the simple weakness of human flesh. The obvious problem with that, however, is where does the weakness of human flesh come from?

After the resounding defeat of Pelagius’ views at the Council of Ephesus in 431, John Cassianus (c.360-435) tried to find a compromise. While he taught that all men are sinful because of the fall, and that the fall weakened the will, he still, like Pelagius, rejected that the fall totally corrupted the will. He taught that the will is partially free and can, therefore, cooperate with divine grace in salvation, which is exactly what Erasmus would argue a few centuries later. The Semi-Pelagian maxim, therefore, was, “It is mine to be willing to believe, and it is the part of God’s grace to assist.” While these views were condemned at the Synod[10] of Orange in 529, it is very enlightening to note one historian’s comment: “[Cassianus’] doctrine lay somewhere between that of Augustine and that of Pelagius (hence called Semi-Pelagian) and was not essentially different from the accepted Catholic doctrine.”[11] What is Roman Catholicism? It is Semi-Pelagianism, plain and simple.

Which brings us to James Arminius (1560-1609), who became the spokesman for several ministers in Holland who did not agree with the Doctrines of Grace. Reluctant to make his views public, Arminius finally agreed to do so at a national synod. He died, however, nine years before it was called in 1618. His followers, therefore, presented his views in a five-point statement, called the “Remonstrance” (protest, opposition). While many today enjoy blasting away at the so-called “five points of Calvinism,” it was actually the “five points of Arminius” that came first and attacked orthodox doctrines of sovereign grace that had stood for centuries. In essence, the Remonstrance stated:

· While man did inherit Adam’s sin and is under God’s wrath, he is still able to initiate his salvation after God grants him grace to cooperate.

· God’s election had “its foundation in the foreknowledge of God.” Therefore, election is conditional on man’s acceptance.

· Christ’s death did not actually save but made salvation possible to those who believe.

· While God’s grace is needed, God doesn’t draw man effectually, rather man believes only in his power and can resist the Holy Spirit’s call.

· Finally, God gives believers the ability to win out over all sin and not fall from grace, but Scripture also seems to indicate that it is possible for a believer to fall away from salvation.

That is the Arminian system, a system that rejects sovereign grace to the extent that grace can even be lost and regained. How unthinkable it is!

Once again, however—and for the third time—these views were totally rejected, this time at the Synod of Dort in 1618. Of the 130 present, only thirteen defended these views. Is it not instructive that on three separate occasions false doctrine on the same subject was rejected? Three times men tried to water down the Gospel, and three times those who wanted a pure Gospel did “earnestly contend for the faith which was once [for all] delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). “No,” they cried, “it is all of God!”

In spite of it all, however, it is now happening again! Proving that something is wrong doesn’t make it go away, and the same was true of Arminianism. On the contrary, Arminianism deeply imbedded itself into theological thought. In his Introduction to Luther’s classic, The Bondage of the Will, J. I. Packer wrote that “the present-day Evangelical Christian has semi-Pelagianism in his blood.”[12] How true this is! Countless evangelicals hold the Arminian view because they fail to stop and just think what the words for by grace are you saved really mean. Arminianism (historically and today) is nothing but warmed-over Roman Catholicism, with which we can have absolutely no compromise, regardless of what many “evangelicals” are saying today to the contrary. While there are a few who are standing today and condemning this fourth attack, their voices are being overpowered by the masses of preachers and teachers who are Arminian, that is, to be frank, Roman Catholic. They market Jesus like they are selling shoes, tell people to “walk the aisle” and “say this prayer,” and turn have turned the Gospel into just another religion.

A case in point was the 19^th Century so-called revivalist Charles Finney, who has become virtually the “patron saint” of many evangelicals. His errors, however, are almost unimaginable. Finney was, in fact, no less than a full-blown Pelagian; he denied original sin, the substitutionary atonement, justification, and the need for regeneration by the Holy Spirit. He also invented the modern staple of evangelism that we call the “altar call,” in which he would pressure people to “make a decision for Jesus,” “a commitment to Christ,” and other clichés we have adopted as though they were biblical. “Finneyism” is, in fact, one of the biggest contributors to today’s predominant Arminian theology, which we deal with in a little more detail in our final study in this series. Doctrine always works itself out in practice, and the practice of Arminianism demonstrates its series doctrinal foundation.

We close with this statement on sola gratia, as stated in The Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals on April 20, 1996:

We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

What is sola gratia? It is that salvation is solely by grace from beginning to end, that grace is the only method. If we do not embrace this core tenet of the Reformation, we have returned to the errors of Pelagius and the darkness of Rome.

Back to The Five Solas Back to Home Page