Tag Archives: Mediator

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Sola Scriptura
Solus Christus
Sola Gratia
Sola Fide
Soli Deo Gloria

God alone be Glorified.

I saved this one for last, because the other four are truly summed up here.

Sola Scriptura: in Scripture alone is our only ultimate and infallible source of authority. The proper roles of tradition or the officers of the church are equal - in submission to Scripture. Through Scripture, God alone is glorified.

Solus Christus: the second person of the Trinity, it is to Christ that the prophets and Scripture point. There is no other mediator, no other redeemer, no other sacrifice. In Christ's finished work on the cross, God alone is glorified.

Sola Gratia: it is only by God's grace that we stand before Him blamless, Christ's righteousness imputed to us. Through His grace, God alone is glorified.

Sola Fide: it is through faith that God's grace has its effect. If it were not faith, it would not be grace. Even this faith is a gift of God. By grace, through faith, only God is glorified.

Whenever we cease to put God first, to give God alone the glory, it falls apart. When we glorify the church, we find abusive clergy. When we glorify a man, we find a cult. When we glorify the culture, we find all kinds of bad things. When we glorify the family, we find good things, but in the wrong order. When we glorify freedom, we find unsubmission.

When we glorify God alone, everything else falls into place more easily.

To God be the glory, great things He has done;
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life gate that all may go in.

O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

Great things He has taught us, great things He has done,
And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
But purer, and higher, and greater will be
Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father, through Jesus the Son,
And give Him the glory, great things He has done.

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Sola Scriptura
Solus Christus

If we believe that Scripture is our only infallible and ultimate authority for faith and things of faith, it follows that all other theology must flow from Scripture. When when theology comes from extra-Biblical writing and/or historical writings and/or tradition and cannot be backed up by Scripture, the theology must be discarded.

Solus Christus - Christ alone. By Christ's finished work on the cross, alone, are we saved.

There is no other mediator (or mediatrix) (1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus...

There is no other Redeemer (or redemptress) (Hebrews 9:15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. )

John Calvin said in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, "Christ stepped in, took the punishment upon himself and bore the judgment due to sinners. With his own blood he expiated the sins which made them enemies of God and thereby satisfied him...we look to Christ alone for divine favour and fatherly love!"

The Heidelberg Catechism, Question 30 asks, "Do such then believe in Jesus the only Saviour who seek their salvation and happiness in saints, in themselves, or anywhere else? They do not; for though they boast of him in words yet in deeds they deny Jesus the only deliverer and Saviour: for one of these two things must be true that either Jesus is not a complete Saviour or that they who by a true faith receive this Saviour must find all things in him necessary to their salvation."