Our purpose at the Omega Institute is to help the believer understand and appreciate the doctrines of Scripture in a way he or she can truly digest and apply. This series of devotionals cover the spectrum of Evangelical biblical doctrine in such a way that the Christian can meditate each week on a different truth from Scripture so as to master the essentials and better know and serve his or her Lord.
Key Verse:
“...23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” —Romans 3:23-28
In our last two devotionals, I mentioned that the rallying cry of the Reformation involved five phrases; all extracted from the Latin tongue and each beginning with the word Sola (meaning “only” or “alone’). This week, I would like to cover the third of these important phrases and consider why this is so critical to our walk with God today.
Sola Fide means “faith alone” and relates very closely to the term Sola Gratia (grace alone). Language is very important to understanding what the Bible has to say, and appreciating the nuances of language (the subtle aspects of words found in Scripture) can mean the world of difference. When the Scriptures tell us how we are saved: namely, how we are made right in the sight of a holy God, it uses two important prepositions. You remember prepositions, right? A preposition is a member of a set of words used in close connection with, and usually before, nouns and pronouns to show their relation to some other part of a clause. The most common prepositions are: of, to, in, for, on, with, as, by, at, from. There are two important prepositions the Bible uses to explain how God pulls off our justification: how God can make sinful people like us acceptable in His sight – by and through. By speaks of something that actually accomplishes the work of justification. If we are justified by something, then it is that something that actually makes us right before God. The Scripture tells us that we are justified by grace. Paul makes this very clear in Romans 3:24 – that we are justified by a gift of His grace. Paul also states this clearly in Ephesians 2:8, which in fact uses these prepositions: “For by grace [τ? γ?ρ χ?ριτ? ] you have been saved through faith [δι? π?στεως] …” It is the grace of God that actually saves us in the Person of Jesus Christ. This is why Paul refers to Jesus Himself as the grace of God in passages like Titus 3:4; He is the One by whom we have received the unmerited favor of God in accepting us because of what Christ has done for us.
But the fact that Jesus died on the cross for us and purchased our salvation does not apply that gift to the life of every person. If this were the case, then everyone would be automatically saved because Jesus has already given His life in time and space. However, the application of this grace is accomplished through the means of something other than the grace by which we are saved. In other words, the way we get the grace of God to save us is through the means of faith in the very gift of God given us: the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Think about how logical and consistent this is with the whole idea of grace: if we accessed the grace of God by something other than faith, then the whole enterprise of salvation is self-contradictory. How can we get grace (something undeserved) by something we do (which is what we merit)?
This is really what Sola Fide represents: only through faith; the exercise of implicit trust in Jesus and what He has done for us, can we receive the gift of God’s saving grace.
In our passage this week, Paul begins with the reason justification must be by grace and through faith: (v. 23) – we are all sinners. After describing how we are saved by the grace of God in the Person of Jesus and His saving death for us, in verse 27 he reminds us that there is no room for boasting before God because the law of salvation is a law of faith, not works – in other words, the only obligation we have before God to access His gift of eternal life is to exercise saving faith, not perform meritorious works.
What effect does this have on our daily lives? First, it is critical for us to test ourselves to see if we are really in the faith (see: 2 Corinthians 13:5) – ensure that you are truly trusting in what God alone has done and not in your own righteousness. Second, on a daily basis, it is so important that we live out our walk with God on the basis of thanksgiving and trust for what God has already done and for who He has graciously chosen to be to us: our Savior. This is the difference between trying to earn God’s favor and resting in it –- it is the difference between confidence in His grace and insecurity and uncertainty in our relationship with Him; it is the difference between condemnation and conviction as a motivator to good works.
This is why Sola Fide humbles us and keeps us humbly reliant on Him for all things: because we recognize rightly that all we have is a gift from His hand that we actively trust moment to moment – not in anything else but in Him and His character alone.
—Larry Carrino
