From Proclaim 17 ORLANDO, Fla.
(NRB)
Five evangelical preachers highlighted the five “solas” of
the Protestant Reformation to mark the 500th anniversary of Martin
Luther’s 95 Theses at Proclaim 17, the NRB International Christian Media
Convention in Orlando.
Dr. Tony Evans,
Senior Pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, preached on “Sola
Gratia” (by grace alone); Dr. Erwin Lutzer, Pastor Emeritus of Moody Church in
Chicago, addressed “Sola Fide” (by faith alone); Dr. Mac Brunson, Senior Pastor
of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, preached on “Solus Christus”
(through Christ alone); Dr. R.C. Sproul, Founder and Chairman of Ligonier
Ministries, spoke on “Sola Scriptura” (by Scripture alone); and Dr. Barry
Creamer, President of Criswell College, addressed “Soli Deo Gloria” (glory to
God alone).
By Grace Alone
Evans preached
from Ephesians 2:1-10, noting that the Roman Catholic Church had been trying for
centuries to get people to atone for their sins through indulgences and
other means, but Luther proclaimed that biblical acceptance with God was by
grace alone.
“At the heart of
grace is unmerited favor,” Evans said. “Grace can be defined as the goodness of
God to people who do not deserve it, could never earn it, and could never pay
it back. For it is the God of grace that offers His goodness to undeserving
mankind.”
Knowing that man
would sin, God “had to come up with a plan for His attributes to get along,”
Evans said, meaning justice and wrath would have to be at peace with the
expression of love and mercy.
“Since He could
not look to His creation in order to resolve the problem because the creation
was the problem, He had to come up with an answer to address the conflict within
the attributes given the sinfulness of man combined with the desire of God
expressing His love, and so He came up with a plan to resolve the problem in
Himself, by Himself, for Himself to benefit mankind who could not help
themselves because they were stuck in a graveyard,” Evans said.
By grace, Jesus
says to believers, “‘You’re with me, and the rights and privileges of grace get
transferred to you, not because of who you are but because of who I am,’” Evans
said.
By Faith Alone
Luther, Lutzer
said, struggled with a sense of alienation from God. “Imagine the freedom that
Luther was finally able to have when he said, ‘My sin doesn’t belong to me. It
belongs to Jesus,’” Lutzer said.
“What Luther
discovered was the Gospel itself buried under centuries of traditions and
prayers and candles and all of those things,” Lutzer said.
“The truth was
there,” he later added. “The Catholic Church believed in Jesus Christ as God,
they believed in the Scripture, though tradition usually trumped the Scripture.
But the fact was it was all there and the reformers came along and weeded the
garden.”
Lutzer noted five
characteristics of saving faith: It involves the acknowledgement of personal
sin; it involves the understanding that Jesus died to take our penalty; it involves
a transfer of trust to Jesus Christ alone; it involves a growth in faith; and
it results in good works.
“The Jesus who
saved you is just as strong and just as trustworthy as the Jesus who saved me
or anyone else,” Lutzer said.
Through Christ Alone
Brunson noted
that Hebrews 1:3 says Jesus is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact
representation of his nature,” and, as Brunson said, “That doesn’t happen with
anyone else.”
He pointed to the
exclusivity of Christ’s redemptive activity recorded in Hebrews 10:4, which
states, “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away
sins.”
“All of that
sacrifice for all of those years never dealt with a single sin of the Jews,”
Brunson said.
“Christ came in
not only as High Priest to offer up the sacrifice,” he added. “He offered
Himself up as the sacrifice because Christ and Christ alone can die for sins.
Nobody else has ever tried.
“You don’t read
that in the Koran,” Brunson said. “Allah doesn’t give that a shot. Neither does
Mohammad, Krishna, Buddha, Shiva, any of the Hindu gods. Not even Shirley
MacLaine. Nobody can die for sins but Jesus Christ, and He makes purification
of them, and to show how complete that is, He sits down.”
By Scripture
Alone
It’s customary,
Sproul said, for historians to indicate two chief causes of the Protestant
Reformation: the material cause and the formal cause.
“We know that the
material cause of the Reformation, or the question of what was the matter at
the time, focused on the issue of the Gospel and the answer to the question,
‘How are we as unjust people justified in the presence of a holy God,’” Sproul
said. “So the central material aspect was the debate over the issue of
justification by faith alone.
“But throughout
that discussion of the material principle of the Reformation, there was always
just beneath the surface – and quite frequently bubbled to the surface – of the
controversy the issue of the formal cause of the Reformation and that issue was
the question of authority,” Sproul said. “By what authority did Luther declare
his doctrine of justification by faith alone?”
Luther said he
had been captured by the Word of God. “My conscience is bound by sacred
Scripture, and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I
stand. I can do no other. God help me,” Sproul said, noting the great
reformer’s famous assertion.
“What Luther said
in the 16th Century and what we say today is – as important as the
instruction that we received from the great theologians of the past, from the
commentaries, from the creeds, from the confessions – there’s only one source
that has the authority absolutely to bind our consciences. It’s sacred
Scripture,” Sproul said.
If believers want
to realize an awakening or a sort of new reformation in this day, Sproul said,
“what we’re going to have to see are Christians whose consciences have been
captured by sacred Scripture and can say, ‘Here we stand. We can do no other.’”
Glory to God
Alone
The five solas,
Creamer said, declare that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in
Christ alone, revealed through Scripture alone to God’s glory alone.
The fifth sola
“is actually unique for a couple of reasons,” Creamer said. “The other four are
all means to salvation itself. This one is different. The glory of God is not
the means of salvation. It is the purpose of salvation, and to that extent, it
applies to all the others together.”
Creamer cited “an
objective sense of God’s glory that is in Him. That is, the attributes of God
that lend to His gravity are His glory. They just belong to Him. But then there
is a sense in which we use the word ‘glory’ to talk about the appropriate
response we have to that truth about God. … Our praise is of His glory.”
The glory of God
is independent of man and is eternal, universal, objective, and absolute,
Creamer said, “but it’s not fully realized until we participate in it.”
Referring to
Psalm 8:5, which says God crowned man with glory and honor, Creamer said God
“bestows it on us, but He expects it to come back to Him. The fruit of our
lives is only when we are consumed by Him.”
By Erin
Roach (here's a link to the NRB and Proclaim 17
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