You are out in the countryside on a beautiful day, admiring the view, enthralled by the trees and the songs of the birds. What is your response? How does a dramatic sunset affect you? When you see a field of wheat, ripe and ready for harvesting, do you congratulate the farmer? Or do you think of our Creator God, who made the heavens and the earth? (Psalm 124.8.)
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One of the Protestant Reformation’s five solas is solus Christus, or Christ alone. But what, exactly, does this sola mean and why is it still important to Christians five hundred years later? The answer to this question lies in the Reformation’s reawakening to the authority of Scripture, especially the Pauline epistles.
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A wonderful thing it is, this being justified, or made just. If we had never broken the laws of God we should not have needed it, for we should have been just in ourselves. He who has all his life done the things which he ought to have done, and has never done anything which he ought not to have done, is justified by the law. But you, dear reader, are not of that sort, I am quite sure. You have too much honesty to pretend to be without sin, and therefore you need to be justified.
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One reason many believers lack assurance of faith is that they lack clarity on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, often confusing it with sanctification. Justification is clearly spelled out in the Word of God in Romans 4:5: ‘To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness’, and in Galatians 2:16, ‘Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.’
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