Posted on 06/04/2017 12:29:15 PM PDT by ealgeone
Question: "Why is sola fide important?"
Answer: Sola fide which means "faith alone" is important because it is one of the distinguishing characteristics or key points that separate the true biblical Gospel from false gospels. At stake is the very Gospel itself and it is therefore a matter of eternal life or death. Getting the Gospel right is of such importance that the Apostle Paul would write in Galatians 1:9, “As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” Paul was addressing the same question that sola fide addresses—on what basis is man declared by God to be justified? Is it by faith alone or by faith combined with works? Paul makes it clear in Galatians and Romans that man is “justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law” (Galatians 2:16), and the rest of the Bible concurs.
Sola fide is one of the five solas that came to define and summarize the key issues of the Protestant Reformation. Each of these Latin phrases represents a key area of doctrine that was an issue of contention between the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church, and today they still serve to summarize key doctrines essential to the Gospel and to Christian life and practice. The Latin word sola means “alone” or “only” and the essential Christian doctrines represented by these five Latin phrases accurately summarize the biblical teaching on these crucial subjects: sola scriptura—Scripture alone, sola fide—faith alone, sola gratia—grace alone, sola Christus—Christ alone, and sola Deo gloria—for the glory of God alone. Each one is vitally important, and they are all closely tied together. Deviation from one will lead to error in another essential doctrine, and the result will almost always be a false gospel which is powerless to save.
Sola fide or faith alone is a key point of difference between not only Protestants and Catholics but between biblical Christianity and almost all other religions and teachings. The teaching that we are declared righteous by God (justified) on the basis of our faith alone and not by works is a key doctrine of the Bible and a line that divides most cults from biblical Christianity. While most religions and cults teach men what works they must do to be saved, the Bible teaches that we are not saved by works, but by God’s grace through His gift of faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Biblical Christianity is distinct from every other religion in that it is centered on what God has accomplished through Christ’s finished work, while all other religions are based on human achievement. If we abandon the doctrine of justification by faith, we abandon the only way of salvation. “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness" (Romans 4:4-5). The Bible teaches that those that trust Jesus Christ for justification by faith alone are imputed with His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21), while those who try to establish their own righteousness or mix faith with works will receive the punishment due to all who fall short of God’s perfect standard.
Sola fide—the doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from works—is simply recognizing what is taught over and over in Scripture—that at some point in time God declares ungodly sinners righteous by imputing Christ’s righteousness to them (Romans 4:5, 5:8, 5:19). This happens apart from any works and before the individual actually begins to become righteous. This is an important distinction between Catholic theology that teaches righteous works are meritorious towards salvation and Protestant theology that affirms the biblical teaching that righteous works are the result and evidence of a born-again person who has been justified by God and regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit.
How important is sola fide? It is so important to the Gospel message and a biblical understanding of salvation that Martin Luther described it as being “the article with and by which the church stands.” Those who reject sola fide reject the only Gospel that can save them and by necessity embrace a false gospel. That is why Paul so adamantly denounces those who taught law-keeping or other works of righteousness in Galatians 1:9 and other passages. Yet today this important biblical doctrine is once again under attack. Too often sola fide is relegated to secondary importance instead of being recognized as an essential doctrine of Christianity, which it certainly is.
“Consider Abraham: ‘He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Galatians 3:6-11).
And I think you misunderstand what Protestants think about faith. Intellectual assent is not the faith of a Christian. It may be called faith, but it is a dead faith, just as James points out. Faith must be active, resting on Jesus for our salvation, and acting out our faith. A protestant scholar said (I can’t remember who right now, and unfortunately, I don’t have a link), “We are saved by faith alone, but not a faith that is alone.”
The Christian faith should not be a legalistic path, nor should it be an antinominian path. There will be many that on the last day will point to their works, and be damned, and many who rest on their intellectual assent, and be damned.
In so far as what you describe in your current post, I would agree with you. But I am sure that on the particulars, there is disagreement.
To deny God to put the Blessed Virgin Mary, or anyone else for that matter, dead or alive, ANYWHERE HE WANTS THEM, is to DENY that He is God and to DENY so many of His works as they are proclaimed in the Bible that it makes a person a heretic! Repent, confess, and amend your life before God does.What is heretical is to believe that God has done any of that with the Biblical Mary.
Catholicism has done it with their Mary, who is, as has been proven over and over again, NOT the Biblical hand maiden of God from Biblical accounts.
Here's a good message for YOU:
Repent, confess, and amend your life before God does.
Can he still READ??
Uh; I don't think I claimed anything.
Or are you saying that these are the only sins that are forbidden.
See above answer.
I do not see murder or theft on the list. Are these OK then? And if one were to engage in sexual immorality does that negate his faith?
I was not there to correct the thinking of the LEADERS of the ONE TRUE CHURCH who wrote the letter.
You'd best direct your questions their direction.
(I've heard they HEAR any prayers sent their direction.)
God places us where we have, by our own free wills in this encounter, told Him He needs to put us. Either where we will serve Him or where He can protect Himself and those who will serve Him against the ones who won't. Since He gives us a free will, to be true to Himself, He must allow us to use it no matter how much it may hurt Him or us. This is the Meekness and Humility of our God! His Power as He told St. Paul is made perfect in our infirmity.
Romans 8:1-8 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
So in spite of that struggle and our propensity to sin, THERE IS THEREFORE ***NO*** CONDEMNATION FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS!
We sin and are NOT condemned.
Then we are even; for I refuse to join you in the waste of time you Catholics use up, praying to a Rome designed 'Mary'.
Well, then it IS far from what Catholicism teaches.
Saving faith is not intellectual assent nor is it intellectual assent that someone decides to add works to.
Intellectual accent does not procure salvation.
This is God's definition of faith.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
placemarker
What Does Sola Scriptura Mean?
But there are many important questions on which Scripture is silent. Sola Scriptura makes no claim to the contrary. Nor does sola Scriptura claim that everything Jesus or the apostles ever taught is preserved in Scripture. It only means that everything necessary, everything binding on our consciences, and everything God requires of us is given to us in Scripture (2 Peter 1:3).
The Reformation principle of sola Scriptura has to do with the sufficiency of Scripture as our supreme authority in all spiritual matters. Sola Scriptura simply means that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture. It is not a claim that all truth of every kind is found in Scripture. The most ardent defender of sola Scriptura will concede, for example, that Scripture has little or nothing to say about DNA structures, microbiology, the rules of Chinese grammar, or rocket science. This or that “scientific truth,” for example, may or may not be actually true, whether or not it can be supported by Scripture—but Scripture is a “more sure Word,” standing above all other truth in its authority and certainty. It is “more sure,” according to the apostle Peter, than the data we gather firsthand through our senses (2 Peter 1:19). Therefore, Scripture is the highest and supreme authority on any matter on which it speaks.
Furthermore, we are forbidden to add to or take away from Scripture (cf. Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Rev. 22:18-19). To add to it is to lay on people a burden that God Himself does not intend for them to bear (cf. Matt. 23:4).
Scripture is therefore the perfect and only standard of spiritual truth, revealing infallibly all that we must believe in order to be saved and all that we must do in order to glorify God. That—no more, no less—is what sola Scriptura means.
“The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.” —Westminster Confession of Faith
This excerpt is taken from John MacArthur’s contribution in Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible.
You left the most important part out: faith THAT SAVES.
If you have the faith that saves-and therefore you become born again into Gods Kingdom-you will not persist in your sins.
Search your heart. Is your old heart gone and do you have the new heart that Gods gives to his own?
"...we believes that God judges actions, but that actions are the result of faith, and it’s faith that saves."
If God is omnipotent, then none can defy Him, unless He permits it, as shown in Job where God deals with Satan.
And Mary did not have a choice in being the mother of Jesus; God chose her and she acknowledged God’s sovereignty.
Thank you.
Our sins are forgiven through Christ Jesus and through confession to God.
God never adds anything about intent.
Also, even if there are sins we have not confessed, we are still saved and going to heaven. Because....
Colossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 2:13-15 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
In the spiritual realm, those born again believers are already seated in heaven with Christ.
Ephesians 2:1-10 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Very thorough and edifying.
P:Are you claiming that I eat food sacrificed to to idols or engage in sexual immorality? Or are you saying that these are the only sins that are forbidden. I do not see murder or theft on the list.
Nice try but you left off the part about not eating blood.
The letter in Acts was addressing the controversy in Antioch on the question of whether the Gentile converts had to be circumcised and obey the Mosaic Law. The answer was no. To expand this to be a summation of the entire faith is foolishness.
Acts 15:12-29 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
“‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’
Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter:
“The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Gentile converts were told they did not have to obey the Law of Moses but the prohibition against eating blood was NOT removed.
That prohibition was given BEFORE the Mosaic Law, was reiterated IN the Mosaic Law and was reiterated yet again AFTER the Mosaic Law saw its fulfillment in Christ Jesus.
The prohibition against eating blood is not only found in the Law and God is reinforcing it.
Then I am trying to understand what you mean by saving faith. As I have pointed out before, Paul stated that there can be faith without charity and James that it can be without works. They both said that such faith is useless. That not all faith is saving faith. This distinction, too, is in the Bible and comes from God. I am trying to understand you, I would hope that you would try to understand me.
Sigh, spell check does not catch what is spelled right.
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