Faith Alone (Sola Fides)
The Five Solas (“Alones”) of the Reformation
In the week leading up to Oct. 31 (Reformation Day) we will be looking at the 5 Alones (Solas), watchwords of the Reformation: Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Scripture Alone, Christ Alone, and To God’s Glory Alone.
Faith Alone (Sola Fides)
Romans 1:16,17
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”
This passage played an important role in Martin Luther’s life and is central to the Reformation. Luther could not understand why Paul was so positive about the righteousness of God, for Luther heard only judgment and punishment for wrongdoing in the phrase “the righteousness of God”. But Paul says in these verses that the righteousness of God is the source of faith. Luther’s breakthrough was two-fold. First, he heard the righteousness of God not as God judging, but God being faithful to God’s promises. That our salvation did not rest on our faithfulness, but on God’s faithfulness. This then was the second insight, the faith to believe was faith in God to be the Faithful One. Faith then became a gift received, not a work to be done. The faith to trust God was not something he was to create in himself, rather it was the gift to trust that God was faithful to God’s promise and would save people.
People have tried to turn faith into something human beings create, into a kind of work people need to do in order to be saved. Such an attempt is a violation of what the Reformation was all about. God is faithful to God’s promise to save, God can be trusted to save, God will save.
Trusting that God is faithful, that God will save, Christians have lived with extraordinary boldness. They have acted to keep warring sides from fighting, they have helped people who were sick putting their own health at risk, they have spoken up for the oppressed, they have told the forgotten and the forlorn that they are not alone. They have done all of this because they knew that God was faithful to God’s promises, and God will save. Secure in God’s faithful promise that no one can snatch us out of God’s hand (John 10:28), we are invited to live boldly.
PRAYER:
Faithful God, you are faithful to your promises, you have been faithful through the ages. Teach us to rest in your faithfulness alone. Secure in your faithfulness, give us the courage to live with boldness. In Jesus’ name. Amen.