Sola Series: Sola Gratia (Grace Alone)

 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. – Ephesians 2:8-9

Many evangelical Christians may not realize it, but much of their doctrine came from the Protestant Reformation. Most notable among the doctrines which emerged from that Reformation was what we know as the “Five Solas of the Reformation.”  The word sola, if you didn’t know, is Latin for alone, and the five solas would serve as a summary of reformed doctrine, in particular, the reformed view of salvation.  These five pillars of reformed doctrine were found in the writings of reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, although they did not name them as solas within those writings.  The five solas as we know them were not officially categorized and named until the 1900’s, and they have been used as a summary of reformed doctrine and salvation ever since. These doctrines, or “solas” are as follows: Sola Gratia (Grace Alone), Sola Fide (Faith Alone), Solus Christus (Christ Alone) Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) Solei Deo Gloria (to the Glory of God Alone). In this first of five articles on these five solas, I will examine the doctrine of Sola Gratia, or Grace Alone.

Grace Defined

To begin with, we need a working definition of biblical grace, so let us say that grace is simply unmerited favor.  The God of creation and salvation, for reasons that are His own, has chosen to show favor to those He has saved.  What favor is it that He has shown?  If you are a Christian, you are one because God opened your heart and mind to understand the need for your salvation.  Had He not done this in you, you would never have done it on your own. According to Romans 3:10-12, “As it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.’” Simply put, in our total depravity (another reformed doctrine for another time) we are so void of righteousness that we lack the ability to see the truth we are sinners in need of salvation.  We do not seek God nor do we even want to seek God.  Jesus would say something akin to this in John 3:19, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

The concept of how deep the grace of God is gets lost on us when until we understand how far from God we really are. Despite how sinful we were, despite our rebellion and lack of interest in God, despite the fact that we loved darkness, shunned light, and were outright enemies of God and children of wrath (Romans 5:10, Ephesians 2:3), God chose some such people upon whom He would lavish His favor, opening their heart, shining light into their darkness, so that they may come to Christ for their salvation.  Without unmerited favor, no person is saved.

Not by Works

When we say that salvation is by grace alone, we say that there is nothing a person can do that would merit God saving them.  Isaiah 64:6 says, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”  No work we could do would ever earn us the right to be saved because God owes salvation from sin to no one.  According to Paul’s words to the Ephesians, salvation is not from us at all, but it is a gift from God as a result of His grace.  Works absolutely do have a place in the Christian life as a means of justifying evidence that we have been saved, but they have no place in the actually saving of the lost sinner.  We could remember it this way, works are the result of salvation, but they are not the cause of salvation. Grace alone is the cause.

Now, some people really struggle with a few aspects of this. First, they have a hard time grappling with the fact that God would choose to save some but would not save others.  This is a hard concept, I agree, but it is one that Scripture teaches clearly.  Acts 13:48, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”  Please note that Luke tells us that those who were appointed (chosen) believed.  We lack the ability to choose God until God has chosen us and poured out His grace on us.  This means that there will be some He does not choose, so why?  There is an element of this that is mysterious, but we must remember that the very concept of grace is unmerited favor, meaning again, that God does not owe it.  All any person is owed is just punishment.  Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Wages are what is owed. We earn them. In this analogy Paul uses, what we have earned is death. In contrast to that, God has instead offered the free gift of eternal life. By saving some and not others, we see the fullness of the character of God.  We see that He is gracious to some even though they don’t deserve it since no one does, but also that He is just in the punishment of sin.  Offensive though it may seem to us, salvation is not universal but is exclusive.  This means it only applies to those who repent and believe, which, according to Scripture we cannot do without God’s saving grace.

The second reason some will struggle with this is that it will mean there are good people in hell. Many people who do good works such as loving people, donating to charity, adopting children, etc., are considered good in our eyes because of the work they do.  We may even admire them for it, but good works do not equal good people. If these are to be treated as the means through which someone is saved, these works come to nothing, because we cannot earn our salvation (Is. 64:6). No act of charity will ever cleanse the unrighteousness of our sin, only Christ’s blood can do that.  I will add to this that if we hold to the doctrine of total depravity as explained in Romans 3:10, we will be confronted with the reality that there are no good people in hell, only bad people who tried to be good enough and inevitably failed. 

Grace-Based Theology

This doctrine of Sola Gratia needs to undergird the entirety of our theology.  The God who was gracious to us in the forgiveness of our sin in turn calls us to be gracious to others and forgive those who sin against us.  This grace should motivate us to act in fulfillment of the Great Commission, preaching the gospel of grace to the nations so that they too may have their hearts awakened by the grace of God leading them to repentance.  It should also humble us immensely because God would not have been unjust in any way to pass over us.  We are no different than anyone else, no more virtuous, no more righteous, it was simply God’s good pleasure to open our hearts and minds to the need for our salvation from sin. This is why we cannot boast according to Paul, we did nothing to earn it, God gave it freely.  We would do well to never forget this, and daily thank our God for saving us. 

Summary

Our salvation is by grace alone.  God has poured out His unmerited favor upon His people so that they would repent and believe His gospel and thereby be saved.  We can do nothing to earn salvation, it is a free gift that God has bestowed up on us as an act of love through His Son Jesus Christ.  Next week, we will look at the next sola, sola fide.

Soli Deo Gloria