Sola Fide—A Doctrine To Be Beaten Into Your Head Continually

imb ^ | 10/10/2017 | David Platt

[Gamecock]

Martin Luther called it “the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls.” He called on pastors to take it back to their churches and “beat it into their heads continually.” The Reformation saw untold numbers of believers across Europe go willingly to the flames because they refused to loosen their grip on this single conviction:

Sola fide—justification by faith alone.

It’s good to remember believers who explored theology not merely as an academic exercise but as a life-and-death endeavor. It’s good for us to pause and remember the doctrines for which our forebears in the faith died. And it’s good to ask if these are the doctrines for which we are living.

By Grace through Faith

Justification is the gracious act of God by which he declares a sinner righteous solely through faith in Jesus Christ. Unearned. Unmerited. Incredible.

Let’s break that down a bit.

“Justification is the gracious act of God . . .”
No one is right before God, and absolutely no one can make themselves right before God. It is God alone who can make us right before him (Ps. 143:2). No amount of penance, regret, service, or suffering can even the scales weighed down by our wanton rebellion against a holy and righteous God. We cannot achieve salvation by works. We can only receive it by faith as a free gift earned by Christ on Calvary.

“. . . by which he declares a sinner righteous . . .”
Sinful man has no case before the just Judge of the universe. We stand completely guilty before him, but he declares us righteous. Let’s not gloss over that fact—we stand utterly guilty, yet God declares us righteous in his sight. How can this be? How can God do that and still be God? “Here is a problem,” Luther said, “which needs God to solve it.”

And on the cross, the Son of God did indeed solve that problem. God loved us so much that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to live the life we could not live and die the death we deserved to die. Christ took the wrath we rightly deserve and gave us the righteousness we cannot merit.

“. . . solely through faith in Jesus Christ.”
“Believe in Jesus Christ, and you will be saved,” Paul tells the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:31, emphasis added).

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” Paul tells the church at Rome (Rom. 10:9, emphasis added).

“Repent and believe the good news,” Jesus proclaimed (Mark 1:15, emphasis added).

Faith in Christ is the single and sufficient requirement for justification. All we can do and all we must do is trust completely in the work Christ Jesus has accomplished with his death, and we are saved.

This Changes Everything

When we turn to Christ in faith, our old, sinful selves are completely burned away by his sacrifice. We die to ourselves and to our every attempt to earn God’s favor according to our own merit. We are justified by faith alone, and we live by faith alone. Not a single corner of our lives is left untouched by this truth.

“Our every move is made in the full assurance of Christ’s power, the complete sufficiency of his sacrifice, and the overwhelming joy of his victory.”

Do not give into the subtle temptation to embrace justification by faith alone, yet try and do life and ministry in the flesh alone. Christ loved you enough to die for you two thousand years ago, and Christ loves you enough to live in you today, to enable you with his sustenance and empower you with his strength.

Every step we take away from the cross of Calvary, we take in the same faith that brought us to the feet of Christ. Our every move is made in the full assurance of Christ’s power, the complete sufficiency of his sacrifice, and the overwhelming joy of his victory.

Worth Dying For

Furthermore, if all of this is true, we cannot keep silent. If God truly justifies sinners solely through faith in Jesus Christ, then we must make this doctrine known. It is not simply a doctrine to be understood; it is an eternity shaping truth that demands to be told. We, undeserving sinners, have experienced the love of God. And when you know the depth of God’s love for sinners, you’ll lose your life that they might know his salvation.

The martyrs of the Reformation didn’t die simply because they believed the gospel. They died because they proclaimed the gospel. They didn’t just love the gospel. They loved the people who needed the gospel, and they were willing to die so others may know it. So they shared it in their homes, they taught it in their churches, they proclaimed it in their towns, and it cost them everything they had.

And it was worth it.

Salvation by faith alone is the best news we could possibly hear or deliver. If we lose that, we lose everything. So let us rejoice in that salvation, and let sola fide ring out from our lips in the church and among the lost until the day when such faith finally becomes sight.

[MHGinTN]

So let me ask you, my FRiend, what is ‘the flesh’ that Paul and others write about?

[Luircin]

Well, I always taught that the flesh in Paul’s language means the sin nature in reference to our current body and soul.

Paul also preaches a bodily resurrection, but shames those who sow confusion by trying to determine what kind of form the new body will come in.

If I remember my research correctly, Paul is very deliberate on when he chooses to use flesh and body.

[fortes fortuna juvat]

More Catholics than non-Catjolic Christians are baby-killers, genius, and Dan here has posted the evidence many times before.

And then there’s your sodomy-loving Pope.
.....................................................
Yeah but as usual you’re ignoring a major consideration. Catholic doctrine stipulates that this Pope and the Catholics who support abortion, and who remain unrepentant, will soon be burning in Hell. And, they cannot be saved by embracing the false doctrine of Sola Fide, and neither can you.

[daniel1212]

More Catholics than non-Catjolic Christians are baby-killers, genius, and Dan here has posted the evidence many times before.

Well, in the US, higher than Protestants and much higher than evangelicals in particular according to the 2007 stats I had.

More recently (and note that the more adherents there are then the higher the % of them being abortion patients is likely, and while that is revealing in relation to the % of the population, yet the more revealing number would be the % of each group that obtained abortion, and how many each had):

2014: Many abortion patients reported a religious affiliation—24% were Catholic, 17% were main-line Protestant, 13% were evangelical Protestant and 8% identified with some other religion. Thirty-eight percent of patients had no religious affiliation - https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/characteristics-us-abortion-patients-2014.pdf

WORLDWIDE: Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholic women account for 31.3%, Jewish women account for 1.3%, and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as "Born-again/Evangelical". - http://ww1.antiochian.org/node/16950

As far as views are concerns, Pew finds ,

And note the Rome manifestly considers Teddy K RCs as members in life and in death.

[Luircin]

Rich, we already went over that the “condemnation” was temporal because of the next verse.

You mocked me for believing what the Apostle wrote, remember?

This setting aside that I’m Lutheran and believe in the Real Presence anyways.

Which I’ve ALSO told you before.

Is this some kind of shared account? Your memory seems bad enough that I have a hard time believing it’s one person.

[Luircin]

LOLOLOL

My face when the Catholic rageposts hard enough that he disproves Catholicism with his rageposting.

LOLOLOL.

Thank you for proving to me that Catholicism is the devil’s religion, LOL.

[Luircin]

Whoops, read the wrong post.

Ignore my last one, haha.

[fortes fortuna juvat]

Thank you for proving to me that Catholicism is the devil’s religion, LOL.
..........................................
You need to put that pipe away and go find your Rosary!

[daniel1212]

(See below) So tell us, folks, are all of you in agreement with this Protestant (Methodist) pastor on this issue? I presume that he too firmly asserts that he has ALREADY been saved and therefore can do whatever he pleases regarding this matter! Sola Scriptura? Sola Fide? Give me a break! https://www.lifenews.com/2020/01/30/methodist-pastor-prays-for-women-to-have-the-right-to-kill-their-babies-in-abortions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lifenews%2Fnewsfeed+%28LifeNews.com%29https://www.lifenews.com/2020/01/30/methodist-pastor-prays-for-women-to-have-the-right-to-kill-their-babies-in-abortions/

How can one be a believer in SS when they can hardly believe in Scripture being the wholly God-inspired and accurate word of God, and have a perverse view of what saving faith is, which is contrary to how Reformers taught?

Citing some liberal non-evangelical is hardly an argument against SS and SE, as instead it is a support of it. For he stands in contrast to those who most strongly esteem Scripture as the accurate and wholly inspired word of God, which have long testified to being the most unified major religious group in conservative values , much more than Catholics.

But tell us what you think SS and SE means as regards your objections to it and how you think this liberal pastor is a product of it.

[Luircin]

LOL.

My face again when the Catholic, after realizing that her own logic condemns Catholicism, ad hominems desperately to try to save face.

Perhaps she should try posting smarter, not harder.

LOL.

[imardmd1]

My Body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, as is yours hopefully.

Misinterpretation of 1 Cor. 6:19,20. Grammar requires that it is the local church of regenerated constituents that is a (not the) temple of the Holy Spirit.

In the inspired Greek (an in my grammar-accurate KJV) the pronouns "ye," "you," "your," and "yourselves" are plural, whereasbdy" and "temple" are singular, which requires the "body" to be the term describing a unit of congregated individuals (see Ephesians 2:20-22). Furthermore, "temple" is the predicate nominative of "body,," and it is anarthrous, meaning it is one of many such temples.

And this is consistent with Matthew 18:19-20 which, in the context of talking about a local church, it only takes anytwo (or three if one of the group happens to be only a professor but not a possessor of the indwelt Holy Ghost) gathered together in His Name to constitute an assembly, a Body of Christ, and that without any heiratic wafer-offerer.

Are you regenerated? That is, reborn--as a sentient accountable human adult responding by unreserved faith alone in Jesus' Blood alone--in the Spirit? If not, The Holy Word says that you are not yet one of His, nor were you when a Protestant.

[MHGinTN]

Amen.

[Religion Moderator]

Personal and mind reading.

You need to slow down some.

This is your second warning.

[imardmd1]

The only true church stands on Christ alone.

Amen. Amen.

It is His Body. How can it be combined with--or stand on--anything else?

He is King of kings, He is Lord of lords,
Jesus Christ, the first and last;
no one works like Him.

[daniel1212]

The Church stands on scripture, tradition and the Magisterium.

A another mere argument by assertion which is contrary to Scripture , while you need to answer questions already asked before you dig a deeper hole.

And as showed, Church effectively stands on her own authority, for she claims that one cannot assuredly know what Scripture all contains or its meaning apart from here, and since she has defined herself as infallible and protected from salvific error in doctrine then scripture, tradition and history can only authoritatively mean what the Magisterium says it does.

Thus it is taught that RC doctrine should be the supreme law.

[daniel1212]

Council of Rome 382 included it. When did you guys take it out 1500 something

Once again you are revealing your education is simply from RC propaganda.

The claim that the Council of Rome (382) approved an infallible canon is contrary to Roman Catholic statements which point to Trent, and depends upon the Decretum Gelasianum , the authority of which is disputed (among RC's themselves), based upon evidence that it was pseudepigraphical, being a sixth century compilation put together in northern Italy or southern France at the beginning of the 6th cent. In addition the Council of Rome found many opponents in Africa.” More: http://www.tertullian.org/articles/burkitt_gelasianum.htm

Meanwhile there simply was no infallible indisputable settled canon from which to remove books until after the death of Luther. Who, along with other RC scholars, had freedom to doubt or reject the Deuteros (deuterocanonicals=second canon) as being Scripture proper, as he did in in his expressly personal noner dogmatic opinion, though he did include apocryphal books in his translation.

For in reality, scholarly disagreements over the canonicity (proper) of certain books continued down through the centuries and right into Trent, until it provided the first "infallible," indisputable canon after the death of Luther.

Read the link for substantiation and more, by the grace of God.

As even the Catholic Encyclopedia states as regards the Middle Ages,

In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)

[daniel1212]

As St Paul said, “If you eat the bread, and drink the wine and do not recognise His Body and Blood, you bring condemnation down upon yourself.”

Which contextually is referring to not recognizing the church as the body of Christ since they were treating some as lepers in the LS. But since you are still making assertions on this then you need to answer the questions asked you in response to your polemical invocation of Jn. 6:53: “Unless you eat My Body and drink My Blood you will not have life in You.”

So give us a straight answer: Can a baptized believer have spiritual life/be born of the Spirit if one does not receive the RC "Real Presence?" And if such dies denying the RP is he damned?

[daniel1212]

this Pope and the Catholics who support abortion, and who remain unrepentant, will soon be burning in Hell

Add that to the collection.

[daniel1212]

Why are you citing Scripture? I thought that Church teaching superseded the Bible.

See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3807769/posts?page=1395#1395

Good night zzzz

[imardmd1]

aMPU: The only true church stands on Christ alone.I absolutely know that you are wrong if that is your assertion.

Absolute?!! What are you going to prove that with? Repeating it over and over again?

By "tradition"? The superstitious practices and ornate garments of egomaniacal power-hungry tyrants usedto subdue ignorant peasants?

By the . . . Magisterium of fallible men, the cream of the religious pantokrators??

With Scripture?? Is He not The Word personified? Did He not cause them to be written according to His Determined Will?

Are they so unreliable that your cult needs to prop them up with idiosyncratic allegorical interpretations?

Come now, let us reason together sanely.