Soli Deo Gloria - To God Alone Be The Glory

For Protestants wishing to return to Biblical Christianity, the Five Solas became something like a battle cry. Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) is the foundational authority for doctrine and the Christian life. And this points to a gospel of Sola Gratia (Grace Alone) effected through Sola Fide (Faith Alone) and by means of Solus Christus (Christ Alone). This brings us to the final element - Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory. 

Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone

 After considering the Solas regarding Grace, Faith, and Christ, we come to the heart of the dispute between the Reformers and Rome, the question of authority. How do we know what we know in terms of God and His doctrine? For the Reformers, the very gospel was at stake in how this question is answered.

Solus Christus - Christ Alone

After working through Sola Gratia (By Grace Alone) and Sola Fide (By Faith Alone), we come to Solus Christus - Christ Alone.

Sola Fide - By Faith Alone

Continuing with the Solas of the Reformation, we come to Sola Fide or Justification by Faith Alone. Martin Luther argued this was the article upon which the Church stands or falls. The New Testament speaks of salvation in multiple ways. For example we encounter terms like adoption, justification, sanctification, election, and union and they all touch on the question of salvation and our relationship with God. Luther and the other Reformers tended to put justification at the front of the line, making its 'legal declaration of righteousness' the central and most critical aspect of our standing with God. The righteousness in question is that of Christ - His righteousness is applied to us. We are justified. How is this accomplished? Through various works? No, by faith alone.

Sola Gratia - By Grace Alone

Over the next couple of weeks I will be publishing short articles which were written for a church newsletter..... This is the first in the Sola series. Unlike most of what I produce, these articles are brief and simple. In some cases I would say a great deal more and may in fact differ (to some extent) with what I've written. 

But the purpose was not to make an argument but rather to touch on the issues of historical theology and (at most) raise a few points of consideration.

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During the centuries we call the Middle Ages, the gospel was obscured, if not buried under a mountain of tradition and theology driven more by philosophy, than a faithful reflection of Scriptural teaching. While the New Testament teaches baptism and the Early Church clearly placed a great deal of stock in the Lord's Supper, over time these simple rites were transformed into complex rituals, and many more were added to the list. Repentance became confused with penances and to this was added pilgrimages, the veneration of relics, the cult of saints, and so much more. By the time we reach the Middle Ages, the gospel of grace taught in the New Testament was all but lost. The average Catholic believed that through the ministrations of the priests, the various rituals, and after a season of suffering in purgatory, they would at last be granted access to heaven and the Divine Presence. The gospel was no longer one of grace but of man-made works and the traditions of men.

Crossing the Authority Line

I recently had a nice long chat with an Anglo-Catholic priest and we discussed the issue of authority and how their understanding differs from Rome and its Magisterium, from the models that seek to place Scripture, Reason, and Tradition on par, and Protestant understandings of Sola Scriptura.

Sacralist Judaizing and Church Architecture

https://mereorthodoxy.com/church-architecture/

This was another offering at The Aquila Report. A ridiculous article and all the more in that it's being promoted by a Reformed-affiliated website that ostensibly stands on historic and traditional principles such as the Sufficiency of Scripture and the Regulative Principle of Worship.

The Consecration of Russia and Fatima

Under the banner of co-belligerence, Evangelicals continue to deepen their ties to Roman Catholicism and openly work alongside elements within its larger order in pursuit of their political goals and aspirations. As Catholicism represents a spectrum every bit as broad as what is found under the definition of 'Protestantism', it is the Traditionalist Catholics (so-called) who are the natural allies of the Evangelical sphere – as they too labour to turn back the cultural clock. And while their conceptions of 'Christian America' or Christendom are different, they are united with Evangelicals in opposing secular humanism.

The Unity of the Brethren and the Magisterial Reformation (Part 2)

For the Bohemian Brethren, the contacts with the Magisterial Reformation produced mostly negative results. Swept up into the political struggle, the theology and ethics of the Reformation produced worldliness and compromise in their lives. The net sum was that their movement was forced to pay a vicious price in the aftermath of the Schmalkaldic War. Though attempting to keep their distance at times, they were now part of the larger Protestant movement and (willingly or not) they were caught up in the catastrophe and bloodletting known as The Thirty Years War.

Hungary: Orban and the Habsburgs Together

(updated August 2024) 

https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/hungarys-secret-weapon-catholic-nobility

It's a seemingly innocuous article and interview and yet I found it fascinating. It was an opportunity to revisit chapters of the past that I know well and to connect a few dots and explore a few avenues that I hadn't previously considered in depth.

Inbox: Kingdom Clarity and Soteriological Fog

As usual I have reworked the questions a bit but essentially I was asked the following. If God has made the distinctions between the Kingdom and the World with such lucidity and clarity, why then do I argue that issues like Justification are so nuanced? Why would God present something as critical as what it takes to be made right with Him, what it takes to possess eternal salvation... in terms that seem so unclear? Isn't Sola Fide, the question of justification the primary focus of Scripture from beginning to end?

It's a very interesting way of framing the question to be sure and one I've not encountered before.

Aeons Contrasted: Kingdom Visions in Conflict (Part 4)

Rome's model was developed under the auspices of Late Antiquity and their version of Christendom was forged in what we now call the Middle Ages. They needed kings, knights, bailiffs and all the rest. And yet many thinkers within the Roman Catholic fold recognised problems with one being engaged in these occupations while at the same time holding a Christian profession. This tension is something Magisterial Protestantism failed to recognise and in fact rejected. The Reformers and their descendants saw no difficulty with these professions at all and in fact blessed those who endeavoured to fill them. Over time Roman Catholic theologians developed spiritual frameworks for Christian knighthood etc... and while Rome long resisted usury, even while utilising loopholes, by the time of the Renaissance and Reformation, Rome would cave on this issue too.

Trinitarian Nomenclature, Progressive Orthodoxy and the Sufficiency of Scripture (Part 2)

There was resistance to the progressivist trajectory among the Medieval proponents of Sola Scriptura. While many of the groups were essentially orthodox (by Protestant standards) they nevertheless did not share the later Protestant views and narratives with regard to the (progressively orthodox) development of Roman Catholicism and its theology.

On what basis did they reject it? For them a commitment to Sola Scriptura was buttressed in many cases by a distinct ideological narrative that utterly rejected the Papacy and its claims and believed it not to be representative of the Bride of Christ in a somewhat defective but contextually understandable form, but the Antichrist, the Babylonian Harlot of Revelation. The fact that these groups had some of the developmental details wrong (regarding the Donation of Constantine for example) in no way detracts from the realities of Papal history, its claims, its deceptions and certainly the principles at stake.

Final Salvation and Today's Calvinism

The question of Final Salvation is further clouded by what could be described as Today's Calvinism and the metanarratives it has attached to Historical Theology. I'm not merely referring to the so-called New Calvinism or movements like Young, Restless and Reformed. 

By Today's Calvinism I'm speaking of Reformed Theology and Calvinism in general terms. Specifically I'm speaking of North American Calvinism in the wake of the 19^th century. While international Calvinism went into decline and largely succumbed to Liberalism, the remaining sectors of conservative Calvinism underwent changes.

Criticisms of Klinean Republication

GPTS president J. Pipa acknowledges there is some historical precedent in the Puritan tradition which understood the Mosaic epoch as containing elements of Edenic symbolism. Meredith Kline and others have argued there is, on a typological level, a replication of the Edenic administration in Israel's presence in Canaan. Israel, a type of the Second Adam was placed in the land of milk and honey and given commands to keep that would determine whether or not Israel would be permitted to stay in the 'holy place'. A failure to do so would result in expulsion and exile.

Inbox: Acts 19 and Cultural Transformation

The Burning of the Books in Ephesus

Is this an example of cultural transformation?

It points to transformation but it's not the same as what is being pushed on the Church in our own day.

Sometimes the Two Kingdom position is caricatured suggesting that Christians in old India wouldn't be challenged to abandon suttee, or that Christians in China wouldn't be encouraged to do away with foot binding.

This is just that, a caricature.

Inbox: Denomination Clarification

(Answering Questions #23)

Q. Regarding your post on Denominations- If the unity is found in the Spirit, how are denominations a hindrance? Don't they help bring groups of like minded people together? You said congregations will fellowship. Don't denominations create a way for that to happen?

A. No. They promote schism and try to find and establish unity in a man-made form.

Whether the denomination is rooted in a tradition... cultural, theological etc... or, in a lowest common denominator approach, it's still trying to find the unity through the creation of some kind of factional bureaucratic affiliation. The Scripture knows nothing of this.

Two Articles on Reformed Two Kingdom Theology (II)

For some readers this is revisiting old ground. But some find it helpful to continually revisit these basic themes. These two posts are responses to two articles. The articles are fairly brief and helpful in providing a matrix for this discussion. I hope that those who are still struggling with understanding these issues can read these pieces and my responses and in the end come to a fuller understanding of just what is at stake.

 

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/the-two-kingdoms-doctrine-whats-the-fuss-all-about-part-one.php

The second piece by Tuininga is actually much less helpful and far more guilty of generalization and at times misrepresentation. But it's still worth looking at.

Two Articles on Reformed Two Kingdom Theology (I)

For some readers this is revisiting old ground. But some find it helpful to continually revisit these basic themes. These two posts are responses to two articles. The articles are fairly brief and helpful in providing a matrix for this discussion. I hope that those who are still struggling with understanding these issues can read these pieces and my responses and in the end come to a fuller understanding of just what is at stake.

Spinning the Reformation: The Propaganda Mill and Christian Media (2/2)

As regular readers will know I am not an Anabaptist, but when it comes to issues regarding the Kingdom, Christian ethics and the Church's relation to culture the Anabaptists are correct and essentially perpetuate the view of the Medieval Dissidents with which I would identify. While there are many similarities between the Waldenses, Chelcicky and the Anabaptists, I stand with the pre-Anabaptists and embrace the inclusion of the children of believers within the context of the visible covenant, the manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Trueman in this interview chose to largely ignore the role of the Magistrates. He mentions them commissioning catechisms and creeds but fails to mention that politics did in fact play a great role in the Reformation and the reason Luther and the Reformation succeeded (at least on a human level) was due to political power... and the potential violence that backed it.