In light of Reformation Day being less than a week away, I thought it best to let Luther speak. The 95 Theses have some hard to understand theses, some brilliant and insightful theses and at least one thesis that grabs you by the heart and won’t let go, Thesis #1:
We will not be holding Bible study again tonight. Next week, however, we will begin a new study titled, The New Eve. We will be learning all we can about the Bride of Christ, from Genesis to Revelation. Hope to “see” you there.
Literally the Latin phrase simply means “Christ alone.” It is often written solus Christus and I know enough Latin to know I don’t know why. The Reformation, of course, built its message around five solas. Sola fide and sola scriptura (faith alone and Scripture alone) were front and center in the battle with Rome. Sola gratia, grace alone was not far behind. Encompassing them all was, and is, soli Deo Gloria, to God alone the glory.
Solo Christo doesn’t typically get as much press as the others, but it is of equal importance as the others. The truth is that any person or institution that names the name of Christ will, of course, posit Jesus as vitally important to salvation, that without which we could not be saved. This doctrine, however, ups the ante, affirming not just the necessity of Jesus, but His sufficiency. From there it goes further still in affirming that anything we seek to add to the work of Christ for us causes the work of Christ for us to slip through our hands. Jesus + anything doesn’t get you Jesus and more, but not Jesus and less. For whatever we seek to add, whether it be our own cooperation with His grace, the application of the sacraments, the intercessory work of Mary, or some other thing, we cease to rest fully in His work for us.
It may be that the relative lack of interest in this sola is grounded in our inability to see the ongoing danger of our losing sight of this truth. We think we’ve got this down because we’re not overt syncretists. No one we know has Jesus in a pantheon of gods beside Moloch, the Buddha and Ironman. The temptation to forget, however, is rarely so direct. We fail to uphold this biblical doctrine often and easily. We see it whenever we find ourselves saying, “No Christian could ever…” It matters little what you fill in that blank- “Have an abortion.” “Vote for candidate x.” “Offend me.” Of course it’s wicked and vile to procure an abortion. But Christians do it. Of course it’s wrong to vote for dishonorable candidates. But Christians do it. It may or may not be wrong to offend me. But Christians do it. If we allow “Christians should not” to become “Christians cannot” we have walked away from solo Christo.
The Reformation mattered and matters not because it added something to the gospel, but because it faithfully, with God’s Word, removed the barnacles that had latched on to it. We are the heirs of the Reformers when our zeal and passion is not to be identified with the Reformers, but to have Jesus, and Jesus alone be identified with us. We bring nothing to the table of our salvation but our need. He alone meets our need. Beware even those good things that become deadly things when they are made to be necessary for our salvation.
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The feint is a rather critical part of any battle strategy. There are few occasions where a direct, unambiguous assault will work out well. We want instead to keep our enemy guessing, unsure as to whether we will be coming at this flank or that, whether we will circle around his troops, or if our dive bombers will descend from the clouds. The devil is no different. He too wants to tie up our attention, our resources, defending land he is not attacking. Long after modernism lay in the ash heap of western civilization, too many Christians were still firing sorties against it. While we were guarding against Darwin, Derrida slipped between our lines.
The same is true in the church. We who are the far right side of the evangelical spectrum have stood guard over the past several decades, watching out for weaknesses in our theological defenses. We have rightly strengthened our bulwarks on the inerrancy of Scripture. We have wisely strung razor wire around the pure message of justification by faith alone. We have done our apologetical spadework on both the past resurrection of Jesus and the future return of Jesus. These are all good things, even necessary things. Despite these defensive maneuvers, however, the gates of hell have marched right into our sanctuaries, and raised up its banners in our holy places. We have not guarded that place where we are always the most vulnerable, our character, our integrity, our holiness.
Were we honest we would recognize that in our day at least, churches have been torn asunder less by sloppy theological thinking and more by sinful hearts. Church splits are rarely over an honest disagreement over a discreet biblical (or unbiblical) doctrine. Neither, despite the cliché, are they over the color of the carpet. Instead church splits happen because trust is lost, because suspicions thrive, because factions multiply. Churches are torn asunder more by roots of bitterness than they are by heresies. And it all starts with unguarded tongues. These are the flaming arrows that the seed of the serpent fires into our midst, turning the beauty of the body into ashes. While we were pulling sentry duty against Socinianism, while our floodlights searched the skies for German liberalism, whispers infiltrated the camp and we were undone.
Gossip is real. And gossip is precisely as destructive as the Bible says it is. It begins with an unguarded word, the raising of a simple question, “Do you think the elders are being sufficiently attentive to x?” What follows is open-ended speculation, “I wonder why the elders haven’t sufficiently looked into x?” The next step is a more tentative accusation, “Could it be that they aren’t paying enough attention to x because they are split on the issue?” Then we choose sides even where there are no sides. “I’m sure Elder Jones has brought this to their attention. After all, when I mentioned x to him he paid attention to me, and promised to bring it up at the next session meeting.” Eventually, either Elder Jones adds fuel to the fire by joining up with Mrs. Grundy and her complaint, or he too gets tied to the same stake, for having allowed himself to be won over by the wicked faction on the session. It doesn’t much matter what x is. It doesn’t much matter which side we are on. The hunt is afoot, and we are swept away in all the pathos. Our hunger for drama, our need to be in the know, our insatiable appetite to be engaged in the great battle will not be sated until the entire church has burned to the ground. Then we sadly move on to the next church, and start it all over again. We walk on to the next battle convinced that we have boldly defended the faith, no matter the cost.
It is not a hard thing to cast yourself as the hero. It is not a challenge to stand firm on your convictions. It is not a hard thing to pick up the prophetic mantle and expose those we think have lost their way. What is hard is keeping on the path. What is difficult is cultivating the fruit of the Spirit, like love, and patience. What stretches our faith is the practice of humility. We all want to be Luther, when God has instead called us to be quiet.
Jesus promised the disciples that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church. This, of course, is because Jesus builds His church upon the rock. That rock, contra Rome, isn’t Peter, but is instead the profession of Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. As we plant ourselves on that truth, then we can fight back. First, we remember that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the one who came to save us from our sins. When our focus is what Jesus has done with our sins, it is difficult to focus on the sins, real or imagined, of others. I’m not the Christ. I wasn’t put on the planet to save anyone. I’m the one that needs to be saved.
Second, we remember that He is the Son of the living God. He is almighty, all powerful. He sees all things and knows all things. If our elders are plotting evil, He is able to stop it. We are to look to Him, rather than to take these things upon ourselves. Our calling is to pray, and to pray in all confidence. We pray that the church would be pure, knowing that Jesus has promised to purify His church. Our calling is to rest in Him, to be still and know that He is God.
This too we must do when, despite our best efforts to stay outside the fray, our local church implodes. It is a tragedy when this happens. But the church moves on, carried forward by the prayers of its people, and by the power of its Lord.
There are people who preach a false gospel of prosperity. There are people who are bought by the blood of Christ who believe wrongly that God wants us all to be healthy and wealthy. There are people who teach a false gospel that salvation comes when we cooperate with God and become good. There are people who are bought by the blood of Christ who believe wrongly that they repented out of an island of righteousness in themselves. There are people who falsely divide the world into two kinds of people, wicked sinners and people of color. There are people who are bought by the blood of Christ who believe wrongly that colorblindness is a bad thing.
Then there are the people that can’t tell these people apart, and who wrongly believe that we have peace with God if we trust in Christ, reject the idea that God wants us all healthy and wealthy, reject any notion that we cooperate with God in our salvation and reject any kind of awareness of ongoing racial issues. The Judaizing heresy, which taught in the first century that we have peace with God if we trust in Christ and obey the ceremonial law, didn’t go away with the Jerusalem Council which condemned it. We, however, continue to flirt with it.
We all agree in principle, all proclaim with our lips, this well-known mantra, “In essentials, unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” Where we disagree, and thus lose sight of charity, is in which things are essential and which things are not. The broad evangelical church tends to have a rather narrow view of the essentials. The cranky Reformed wing tends to have a rather broad view. The trouble gets worse, however, because instead of learning from our brothers we lean farther off our side of the horse.
The solution? To repent and believe the gospel. Repenting means owning our own sins, acknowledging that we have weaknesses, that even our valiant efforts to keep the gospel itself pure from intrusions can unintentionally bring intrusions. We repent such that we know that however bad it might be to believe God wants us all healthy and wealthy, I believe things that are just as bad. We repent of our own propensity of wrongly thinking our right thinking makes us better than those who live more faithful lives than we do while espousing less biblical theology than we do.
We also, however, believe the gospel. That is, we rejoice to know that God’s grace extends to sinners that are as far away from perfection as me. When we believe the gospel and start to get hot under the collar because a professing believer has said, or done X, we not only remember that if X is actually wrong, it is covered by the blood of the Lamb, but remember that we have said or done Y which is just as bad as X. We believe the gospel as we rejoice that He has reconciled all manner of sinners to Himself. We believe the gospel when we are able to see our brothers and sisters with whom we disagree on secondary matters as beloved of the Father, just as we are. Not outside the camp. Not on the outer limits of the camp. But encamped in the heart of the Father.
Yes, and no. First to the no. Theologians, who like to make distinctions, distinguish between God’s communicable attributes and His incommunicable attributes. The former are those which He can and does share with us, though of course in lesser degrees. God, for instance, knows things and we know things. He, however, knows all things and knows them exhaustively and we do not. The latter refer to those qualities that are His alone. God, for instance, is immutable, while we are not. He cannot change, and we do in fact change. If ever there were an incommunicable attribute, however, it would be this- God is self-existent and eternal. We assuredly are not. God alone is self-existent and eternal, and all other things are dependent upon Him. Are we then creators in this sense? Of course not. I’m confident as well that your pastor would agree.
We are, however, God’s vice-regents, the stewards of His creation. And in calling us to exercise dominion over the creation, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, He is calling us to reflect His glory, to be images of what He has done in the creation. As we bring all things under subjection, by His power and for His glory, as we the church act as a helper to our husband, the Second Adam in His call to bring all things under subjection, we enter into His work with Him. In this sense it would be fitting to say that we are “co-creators with God.” I suspect that your pastor had something like this in mind.
That said, there are at least two different groups that are terribly confused on this issue. Prosperity preachers have been known to teach what has come to be known as the “little-gods” doctrine. These folks, many of whom glut our airwaves, suggest that just as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so God begets little gods. This ancient heresy is explained and answered well in a fine book titled The Agony of Deceit, edited by my friend Dr. Michael Horton.
The second group is the eastern Orthodox church with its doctrine of theosis. Here salvation is less about our being declared just by the finished work of Christ on our behalf, and being adopted into God’s family, and more about how God’s grace is poured into us, making us partake more fully in the divine nature. You can read more about theosis in any dictionary of theology.
It is important for us to keep always before us, not just touching on creation, both the similarities and differences between us and God. The classic doctrine of our being made in the imago dei gets it right. We affirm the imputed dignity of man when we remember that we are made in the image of God. We escape the temptation of the Serpent when we remember that we are made in the image of God. We are neither cosmic accidents, nor gods. We are men, made in His likeness, for His glory. I trust, once again, that your pastor understands this as well. Always listen as a Berean, but always listen with a judgment of charity.
