Salvation is a Gift of God
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Have you ever heard of the Five Solas?
The Five Solas are Latin phrases we see traced throughout the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Translated, they are:
- Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone
- Sola Fide – Faith Alone
- Sola Gratia – Grace Alone
- Solus Christus – Christ Alone
- Soli Deo Gloria – Glory of God Alone
It is through these five phrases that we find the truth of salvation, and that truth is echoed throughout Paul’s letters to the churches, being carried away by the doctrine of the Judiaizers.
Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.
Salvation = Christ + nothing.
In Acts 21, Paul returns to Jerusalem, where he meets with some Jewish men who had received Christ.
These men shared with Paul that many Jews had received Christ, but that they continued to strictly observe the Jewish law and were very concerned because they had heard that Paul was leading Jews who were living in Gentile communities to forsake their Jewish heritage and customs.
This was not true.
What he taught is that these laws and customs were a shadow of Christ and were not essential to their salvation; that salvation was a gift, not something that could be earned by our works.
Salvation is a Gift of God
Over and over again, Paul wrote letters warning the churches not to pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ by teaching that Messianic Jews and Gentile Christians must fulfill Jewish customs to complete their salvation.
So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Romans 3:28 [emphasis mine]
Other passages where we find these warnings are:
- The entire book of Galatians
- Much of the book of Colossians
- Romans 10:3–4
- Philippians 3:2–9
- Titus 1:10–16
- Ephesians 2:8–9, 14–15
Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.
If we can do anything at all to add to our salvation, it is no longer a gift but a wage.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23
You see, the only wage we deserve is death, because we are sinners and are utterly incapable of doing any good on our own.
Even our obedience to God and His word is so often perverted and defiled by our own wrong motivation and attempt at manipulation.
That is why Isaiah 64:6 says, “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.”
But Jesus Christ gave us a gift.
Now, if my friends were to bring me birthday gifts, it would be insulting for me to pay them for the gifts they brought me.
Gifts are free.
Gifts are not earned.
Gifts are not deserved, and we do nothing to receive a gift except to reach out and receive it.
If we do anything at all to add to our salvation, we have not received a gift but earned a wage.
However, there are Judaizers in the church today who teach that to be fully saved, or as evidence of our salvation, we must:
- Be baptized in water
- Speak in tongues
- Take communion
- Keep the Sabbath
- Keep certain dietary regulations
- Keep to certain holiness standards (how we dress, no jewelry, cut your hair, no entertainment, and keep to certain behaviors)
These doctrines teach another Christ.
Those who teach this kind of doctrine have taken verses out of context to create a burdensome gospel that has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We cannot earn the gift of salvation, nor can we, through any effort on our own, give evidence of our salvation.
Fruit is the only evidence of our spiritual maturity
Some years ago, my husband and I planted three fruit trees.
One tree dried up and died almost immediately. The second tree grew for a while before becoming diseased and dying.
The third tree gave us some fruit, but only after a few years.
There are two things we must understand about the fruit of spiritual maturity:
1. A tree does not try hard to bear fruit
When was the last time you drove by an orchard and saw trees trying hard and making a giant effort to bear fruit?
Probably never because it doesn’t happen.
Fruit is the natural byproduct of a healthy, thriving tree.
If a tree is healthy, it will bear good fruit. If it is unhealthy, it will either die or bear rotten, infested fruit.
We cannot bear fruit in our lives by our own effort. The fruit of salvation, and the fruit of the Spirit, in our lives are a natural byproduct of a healthy, thriving walk with Jesus Christ.
2. Fruit takes time
If you plant an apple seed, it can take 6-10 years before you harvest apples.
It takes years for a seed to grow into a mature, healthy tree. In fact, a tree will bear leaves for years before it begins bearing fruit.
And in the beginning, a tree will bear one or two fruits that are not edible, because it’s still not mature enough to give a harvest of edible fruit.
So, in the beginning, the fruit it bears is still not perfect or fit for human consumption.
And dear sisters, it is by fruit that we can determine if someone is a true disciple of Jesus Christ, not by our works.
And that fruit can take a long time to grow.
It is pride that leads us to believe that we can do anything at all to complete or give evidence of our salvation.
Salvation demands that we lay down our pride and self-sufficiency and receive with humility the gift of salvation that only Christ can give.
This doesn’t mean that obedience to God’s Word isn’t important.
What it means is that our obedience to God’s Word and holy living come from a motivation of love, not earning God’s favor.
If we obey God to earn something, it isn’t obedience but robotic compliance.
My children do not obey me to earn the right to be my children or to prove they belong to me. They are my children because they were born into my family.
Obedience to God’s Word is about a relationship.
We don’t obey God to earn our right to be His child or to prove that we belong to Him. We belong to Him because He has made us to be born again into the family of God.
It is all HIS work. None of OURS.
But just as my children obey me out of love and honor and a desire to keep our relationship open and loving, we should obey God out of the same motivation.
Dear sisters, do not be led away by a false doctrine and a false gospel.
In the coming weeks, I will be sharing more about why we believe what we believe and how we can find the answers to these questions in Scripture.
- Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone
- Sola Fide – Faith Alone
- Sola Gratia – Grace Alone
- Solus Christus – Christ Alone
- Soli Deo Gloria – Glory of God Alone
Find all the free resources for this study here below:
