Sola Gratia

(The Thesis, A Commentary, and It’s Relevance Today)

Thesis Three
SOLA GRATIA
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.

A Commentary on Sola Gratia

In the early fifth century, a theological controversy occurred that would
forever shape the thinking of the church. In his Confessions, Augustine of
Hippo wrote in the form of a prayer the words:

“Give what Thou commandest and command what Thou will.”

The British monk Pelagius was upset by these words, believing that they
would give Christians an excuse for not obeying God.
 Pelagius believed that if God commanded something then man was
naturally (apart from grace) able to do it. He believed that this was
possible because he also believed that Adam’s sin had only affected
Adam. All human beings are born in the same state in which Adam
was born, capable of either obeying God or disobeying him. If they
obey, their good works merit salvation. If not, they deserve God’s
punishment.

Augustine, on the other hand, taught that ADAM’S SIN HAD

DRAMATICALLY IMPACTED ALL OF HIS DESCENDANTS. The early church
followed Augustine in their rejection of Pelagianism.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, has a clear

explanation of the doctrine of ORIGINAL SIN.

Adam and Eve fell from their original righteousness and fellowship
with God, and so became dead in sin and completely polluted in all
their faculties and parts of body and soul. Since Adam and Eve are
the root of all mankind, the guilt for this sin has been imputed to
all human beings, who are their natural descendants and have
inherited the same death in sin and the same corrupt nature. This
original corruption completely disinclines, incapacitates, and turns
us away from every good, while it completely inclines us to every
evil. From it proceed all actualized sins. (VI.1–4).

Since the fall, ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE BORN IN THIS FALLEN STATE
WITH THEIR WILL (one of the faculties of soul and body) IN BONDAGE
TO SIN.

Because of the fall, WE ARE BORN SPIRITUALLY DEAD, UNABLE TO

CHOOSE OR WILL THE GOOD (Rom. 3:10–12; 5:6; Eph. 2:1).
Although Pelagianism was condemned as a heresy at a number of
councils, including the third ecumenical council in 431, it has raised its
head in various forms ever since. By the late medieval period, the
Roman Catholic Church had fallen into a type of SEMI-PELAGIANISM.

They teach that the justification of the sinner was seen as a kind of
synergistic, co-operative work between God and the sinner.

The doctrine of SOLA GRATIA was the Protestant response to this.

The Protestant doctrine of SOLA GRATIA is found in all of the major

Reformed confessions.

SOLA GRATIA is simply acknowledging that the Bible teaches that the
totality of our salvation is A GIFT OF GRACE FROM GOD.

As it says in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved,

through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not
by works, so that no one can boast.”

It is the acknowledgement that salvation from the wrath of God is

BASED ON GOD’S GRACE AND MERCY and NOT ON ANYTHING GOOD IN
US.

One reason so many want to reject this important doctrine is that they
do not want to accept what the Bible clearly teaches about the basic
condition of human nature since the fall of Adam.

Rather than acknowledge our total helplessness and hopelessness apart

from the grace of God, most people want to believe that they have a
role to play in their salvation. But the Bible is clear that WE CANNOT
EARN GOD'S FAVOR THROUGH OUR OWN MERIT; IT IS SOLELY BY HIS
GRACE.
It underlies everything said regarding the state of the fallen sinner,
election, calling, regeneration, conversion, justification, and more.

The point that the Reformers wanted to make in the sixteenth century is
the same point that Augustine made in the fifth.

We are not saved by pulling ourselves up from our condition. The fallen
sinner is not a drowning man who merely needs to do his part by
reaching out to grab the life preserver tossed by God.

No, the sinner is in a far more serious condition. He cannot grab a life
preserver because he is not merely drowning. HE IS A COLD, DEAD,
LIFELESS CORPSE ON THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

IF HE IS TO BE SAVED, HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO COOPERATE WITH GOD.

HIS SALVATION WILL BE AN ACT OF PURE GRACE, AND GRACE ALONE,
ON THE PART OF GOD (Eph. 2:8).

The Erosion of The Gospel (It’s relevance today)

Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human
nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the
self-esteem gospel to the health and wealth gospel, from those who
have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into
consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being
true simply because it works.

This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official

commitments of our churches. GOD'S GRACE IN CHRIST IS NOT MERELY
NECESSARY BUT IS THE SOLE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF SALVATION.

WE CONFESS THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE BORN SPIRITUALLY DEAD AND

ARE INCAPABLE EVEN OF COOPERATING WITH REGENERATING GRACE.
 DISCUSSIONS ON “REGENERATION”

1. How will you DEFINE the BIBLICAL concept of “SOLA GRATIA”?

(Here, the mentor can ask several participants to answer this particular
questions. The mentor can also ask more related questions to make the
concept clearer to the group if he wishes.)

2. What is the error of PELAGIANISM? How about SEMI-PELAGIANISM?

So many churches today (whether intentionally or not) are embracing

this unbiblical doctrine of Pelagius. How do you recognized this
heretical teachings in out times?

3. Why can’t a sinner try to make Himself RIGHTEOUS by reforming his

life from being sinful to a good man so that God can accept him?