- [Miguel Nunez] Sola fide was one of the solas of the reformation.
And it basically was a short formula, a phrase to refer to the fact that
Salvation is by faith alone.
And 500 years later, we still need to emphasize that because
there is a tendency in the human nature to believe that we could add to our salvation
or that we can earn our approval from God through works.
And most of the religions, indeed every other religion apart
from Christianity, is related to works.
So that, when you are trying to evangelize people, you need to remember all the time
these are people who believe that human works matters in their salvation,
in their earning a space or an approval from God or a space in Heaven.
Consequently, as we emphasize salvation is by grace alone through faith alone,
which is the one soul that we're dealing with now, we're trying to teach them that
Christianity has a whole different way of getting to God or getting to Heaven.
And then, you explain the reason for it.
So we are not out of the reformation forever in terms of their thinking and
their theology, we need to remember, we need to remain in the theology that
they recover, that had been lost at some point, and teach it again to the church so
that they could continue to teach to the next generation.
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- [Trevin Wax] You can't read biographies of Martin Luther, or even his writings,
and not be struck by how sinful this man knew he was.
It's something that comes out again and again in his work.
And because of that acknowledgement of his sinfulness, you also sense in his writing
this dependency on the grace of God for salvation.
It's something that comes through everything that he puts together.
And one of my favorite quotes from Luther goes like this, he's preaching and
he says, "So, when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you
deserve death and hell, tell him this, 'I admit that I deserve death and hell
what of it?
For I know one who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf.
His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also."
When I read that and I'm moved because I recognize that this comes from a man who
must have spoken this out loud about himself multiple times, that he knew,
"My only hope is in Jesus Christ, I know what a sinner I am,
I know how holy God is, but I know that Jesus Christ is the one
who has made satisfaction for me."
And so, this brings us to another core truth of the reformation,
what we call sola fide, by faith alone, that salvation is by grace through faith
in Jesus and in His work.
So, Kevin, how would you define this for us as sola fide, faith alone?
- [Kevin DeYoung] Yeah, and you set the context well with that
quote from Luther because it's really a question of justification,
"How am I declared righteous before holy God?"
- [Trevin Wax] "How could I stand before God?"
- [Kevin DeYoung] "How can I stand before Him and be acquitted of all my crimes,
and not only that, but be declared innocent before this Holy Judge?"
Or to use Luther's language, "How can I be where Christ is?"
you know, "how can I receive all of the benefits of Christ?"
And the answer that the reformers gave, because the Bible gives,
is that it is only by faith alone, meaning faith is the only instrument
by which we can receive all of Christ's benefits.
It's not faith plus something else, it is solely by our effective trust and
confidence in Christ and His finished works.
So that the confidence is not in ourselves but in the object, namely Christ,
and by faith we receive everything that He deserves as if it were our own.
- [Trevin Wax] So believe in Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
Trust in Jesus Christ...this is a personal trust, not just believing certain
doctrines about Jesus or believing certain things that the church teaches,
you use that effective language, the trust.
- [Kevin DeYoung] Yeah, the reformers often talked about faith in,
you know, a threefold sense, that it was both a knowledge and it was
an ascent and it was a trust.
There was not just, "This is true and I believe this," you know,
the devil believes right things about God and he shudders, but that you then put
your confidence and trust.
That's what faith is and it's by faith that we receive all of these benefits.
- [Trevin Wax] So, why was this controversial?
Why was the church, the reformation period such a tumultuous time of history because
of this doctrine that Luther rediscovered during this time?
- [Albert Mohler] It's because Luther pressed it to the limit, out of necessity.
You can't understand Luther without understanding terror.
Luther was afraid to go to bed every single night because he was afraid that he
would die and meet holy and righteous God as judge.
And he knew he was, by no means, anything other than a completely
violent wicked center.
And he became a monk and he thought that being a monk would make it better.
Because, after all, look at all the works that monks do, look at all the things that
monks do without...
- [Kevin DeYoung] You get the nice haircut.
- [Albert Mohler] Exactly.
And Luther, as a monk, looking back he said,
"If ever a monk could've have been saved by its monkery, he was I."
"I was that monk."
Because he gave himself to everything but he still knew himself to be a sinner.
And he knew, in his heart, that there was nothing he could do that
would ever come anything close to the righteousness that was demanded of him.
You know, Luther read the Old Testament very carefully and he came to understand
the holiness of God in such a way that it filled him with a holy terror because he
came to understand there's an infinite distance between this Holy God and Luther,
"Me, the sinner."
And he despaired that anything could justify him.
Until he was reading the Book of Romans, Chapter 1, and his eyes fell on Romans,
Chapter 1, and Verse 16 where Paul writes, "For I'm not ashamed of the Gospel for it
is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and also
to the Greek." Good, good, good. Good so far.
And then, he went on to the next verse, "For the righteous shall live
by his faith."
And that to Luther was a complete opening.
Luther said, "It was like Heaven's windows were open to him having
been shuttered closed."
And he came to understand that it was by faith that he would be declared Christ and
would receive all of Christ's benefits, as Kevin said.
And here's the thing. What does that mean?
That means that Luther came to understand that there was no righteousness he could
ever achieve that would come anything close to what was necessary for salvation.
But the Christ's own righteousness was imputed to him.
That changed everything.
- [Trevin Wax] So, when we think about faith alone, faith alone in Jesus Christ
as the source of our salvation, faith alone being what brings
justification so we can stand before God.
There are ways again in which all of these solas can wind up taking us not simply
to press the limit, as Luther did, but to go beyond what actually Scripture
teaches is the relationship between faith and works.
Because Luther never would've said, "Good works don't matter," that good works
are not important.
That good works, in some sense you might say, are even necessary
as fruits of salvation.
So, what's the difference between saying we are justified by faith,
apart from works, but also we would not go so far to say, "Well,
that means that good works don't matter, as long as you simply believe and have a
heartfelt trust in God and mentally ascent to a few things, you can be saved no
matter how you live."
- [Kevin DeYoung] Because works are a part of the equation.
But what matters to get the Gospel right is, on which side of the equation,
you put those works.
So, if it's faith plus works equals justification, that's anti-Gospel.
If you do faith in Christ equals justification which yields good works,
then that's New-Testament Christianity.
Because, of course, Paul didn't finish Romans after Chapter 11, or 12,
but he goes on, you know, in the beginning of 12, to say,
"Therefore, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as living sacrifices."
So what does it mean in view of this righteousness that has been counted
to our stead, how then shall we live?
So this is one of the reasons why the Catholic Church, in the 16th century,
you know, felt so strongly that, you know, faith alone was such a danger and why they
pronounced anathemas, which means, "Let you be accursed," and those things
are still on record in the Catholic Church.
Because they felt wrongly that, if you have justification by faith alone,
you will lead to people that are wicked and indifferent to righteousness.
Of course that's not the way the motivation works anywhere
in the New Testament.
How could we not respond with gracious obedience, you know,
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit enabling us to do what we could not do apart
from faith and now the work of Christ in our lives?
- [Albert Mohler] You know, I mentioned that Luther came to understand
the holiness of God in the Old Testament.
Once he began to understand justification by faith alone, he found that in the
Old Testament too.
And I think the very issue you raise is answered for us, for example,
by the example of Abraham in the New Testament.
So, we say, "How did Abraham please God?
How was he justified?"
Well, we are told in Genesis that he believed in God and God accounted it
to him for righteousness, he believed God's promises.
In Romans, Chapter 4, Paul comes back to say, "Look,
justification by faith isn't something new.
It's right there in Genesis with Abraham."
Abraham is also an example of good works.
When you come to Hebrews, Abraham is celebrated precisely
because he, on the basis of his faith in God, acted obediently and followed
everything that God commanded him to do.
And Luther and the other reformers would say, "That's exactly the formula.
Abraham was justified not by his works but by his faith."
But justifying faith was translated into massive works of obedience that become a
part of the legendary faithfulness recorded in the Book of Hebrews.
- [Kevin DeYoung] And this is really key that we don't ever leave faith behind.
It's not faith gets you in and then the rest of your life is just slogging
through to do good works.
Those passages in Hebrews, for example, it's by faith, it's by believing the
promises of God that He will be with us and never forsake us, that there is a,
you know, great inheritance awaiting us.
All of the things that God promises us.
That's why the christian discipleship is the fight of faith.
We never have to leave faith behind, faith in Christ justifies, and then,
it's by faith that we pursue, as a result, the fruit of that justification,
which is obedience in Christ.
- [Trevin Wax] So the order really matters here. That works are always
the fruit of salvation, never the root of salvation. Right?
- [Kevin DeYoung] That's right.
- [Trevin Wax] And also it's interesting, talking about good works toward God and
toward our neighbor, Luther certainly understood that,
as long as it was faith plus works equals justification, that your works were always
tinged with this element of self-interest.
Right?
If you're somehow trying to work your way to God, when you're doing good
to your neighbor, you're doing so really for your own good.
So there's an element of selfishness even in the good works that we're doing,
as long as we're moving to salvation.
It's interesting how, when Luther talks about works,
he talks about the freedom to do good works.
Because it's no longer something that is demanded in order of salvation,
it's something that we are now free to love God and to love our
neighbor as required.
- [Kevin DeYoung] And we see this going back to the Old Testament.
I mean look at Exodus.
God didn't tell the Israelites' bondage in Egypt, "All right.
I have a bunch of commandments for you, I want you to test them out for 40 years.
If you do a good job, then I'll set you free."
No, he came unilaterally of grace to set them free, led them through the Red Sea,
and now they are free people.
They don't have to be in bondage to pharaoh anymore.
But, as you said, it's not, you know, from bondage to complete self-autonomy,
it's now to worship the living God.
And now, having been set free by grace, God does give commands because this is
what it means to follow him.
- [Albert Mohler] Luther also understood that we have the very great temptation
to trust in our own works because we can see them and we can feel good
about ourselves when we do them.
And so, Luther understood that the temptation was always to try to work
ourselves into the front part of the equation, that somehow we could have
confidence in ourselves.
And Luther saw right through that, he saw the absolute impossibility of that.
Because Luther kept peeling back the onion that was the problem, you know, "So,
why did I do that?
Well, I did that because I wanted to please my father.
Why do I want to please my father?
Because I wanted to have his favor.
Why did I want his favor?
Because I want him to think well of me."
And Luther would just go back and back and, you know, he came to understand that,
if he puts himself in the front end of the equation, if it's justification by faith
and anything else, then it's not justification by faith.
It has to be justification by faith alone.
That's one of the things that, again, we're calling them the solas,
the onlies, the alones.
It's not just justification by faith, it's justification by faith alone.
- [Kevin DeYoung] None of these are controversial if you take away the sola.
If you take away the alone.
- [Trevin Wax] The word alone. - [Albert Mohler] That's right.
- [Kevin DeYoung] And they don't have power without that alone.
That's what makes them such good news.
- [Albert Mohler] There would be no reformation without the alone.
- [Trevin Wax] How do we connect this to the ordinary Christian life today?
What is the significance of knowing that, "By faith, I am united to Jesus Christ.
That by faith I am in Him and He is in me."
What does that do for the daily walk of us, as believers?
- [Kevin DeYoung] Well, it has everything to do with it.
At the heart of the reformation was a desire to have confidence, assurance,
"Can I really know that God is for me?
Can I really be certain that, when I breathe my last breath in the
hospital bed or some, heaven forbid, accident, when I stand before God,
what confidence do I have?"
And what we've heard from Luther is he didn't have it.
And so many people in the medieval church didn't have it or they were relying
on their performance or the rituals or the church itself.
So it has everything to do with our standing before God,
our confidence before God.
And then, if we are justified by faith, what does that mean for how we
treat each other?
I will say often in a wedding sermon, "Look, if you are justified by faith,
why would you make your wife be justified by works?"
You know, if we really believe that's how we're right with God, then, as Christians,
we treat each other in a similar way, not demanding this sort of perfection
meritorious sacrifice that none of us have obtained but it's by faith
in Christ, by grace.
And that's what makes the Christian life Christian.
- [Albert Mohler] The reformers in preaching justification by faith alone did
not invent a new doctrine.
They were at pains to point out, "In the Old Testament,
it's in the New Testament, this is what Jesus preached,
this is what the apostles preached."
But they did preach something new that hadn't been heard in a very
very long time.
And that was the doctrine of assurance.
Justification by faith alone pointed to the Christian's assurance that
we are saved.
Because it's not up to us, it was accomplished by Christ,
it is appropriated by faith.
And having believed in Christ in all that faith means in the New Testament,
"I'm secure in Him."
And so, justification by faith alone explains how the Christian can close their
eyes at night and know that, if we die, we are safe in Jesus.
- [Trevin Wax] That doctrine of assurance is so precious and is so easily lost.
I was talking to a Catholic friend, just a couple of weeks ago,
and was listening to the way this friend was talking about family members that
had died, that had shown fruits of salvation, according to his doctrine.
But of course he's still praying that somehow the Lord will receive them.
And I remember talking with him about that and also thinking, even
in reformational traditions, we can slip back into this lack of assurance.
You see it sometimes with the over introspection in some of the puritans,
you say, "Am I really saved? How do I know?" and that lack of assurance.
You see it in some other traditions where this idea that you're saved by faith,
justified by faith, but then you must work your way forward.
And so, that doctrine of assurance is something that is precious,
must be guarded.
Something that Apostle John says, and he's written to us,
that we would know that we are in Christ, that we are Children of God.
And so, as we take this message forward, let's pray that it'll be a balm to our
souls and to the souls of the people that are watching, studying these core truths
of the reformation, but then also will be part of the great hope that we proclaim
as we share the Gospel with others.
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