Solus Christus

The 5 Solas  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Sola Review

This morning I will be continuing the Sola series that we started just over a year ago, today I will be going over Solus Christus. Please turn in your Bibles to John chapter 19. While your turning there I will go over a brief recap of what we have covered so far.

Sola Scriptura

Part one of the Sola series was Sola Scriptura, or scripture alone. This doctrine is that scripture is the divine word of God, it does not just contain the words of God, it is the word of God. There are human writers of the actual text, some like the prophets were given visions, like Habakkuk, and others God spoke directly to them and dictated what they were to record, “Thus says the LORD”. Others like Moses, Joshua, and David in the Old Testament, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul from the New testament were “inspired” by God, through the Holy Spirit, to write in their own words and styles what God intended them to convey to all mankind. The Bible is the Holy living word of God and as such is the only repository of truth given directly from God so that we can know him, his power, his will for all of us. The Bible is where we go to know God and learn what we are and how desperately we need a savior. The passage I used to illustrate Sola Scriptura was 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

Sola Gratia

Part two was Sola Gratia, or Grace alone. It is through grace alone that this whole universe keeps spinning on, it is through grace alone that each one of us takes our next breath. It is through God’s infinite grace that He chose to create everything from nothing, knowing that his creation would fall in sin and would require a savior. It is through God’s grace that any of us were chosen for salvation, and this choice was made before the foundations of the world, before creation was started. The punishment for sin is death and that is what we are due, not only bodily death but spiritual death, and it is by the grace of God alone that we were called, chosen, or elected to be saved, it is by the grace of God alone that we are made alive with the Holy Spirit, it is by the grace of God alone that we are justified in Christ Jesus, and it is by the grace of God alone that we are being sanctified day by day in preparation for our new sinless bodies when we are raised on the last day to live in our true home, the new heavens and the new earth. The passage for Sola Gratia was Ephesians 2:8–10 “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.”

Sola Fide

Part three was Sola Fide, or faith alone. This doctrine is that through the Holy Spirit we have faith in God alone, for all that we truly need. Faith in God and the coming Messiah for the Old Testament saints was counted to them as righteousness, they had faith in the one who was promised by God all the way back in Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”” The Old Testament saints looking forward with faith and anticipation, and we now in the New Testament covenant looking back to the cross with faith that God is steadfast and sure and all His promises will be fulfilled. We went over all of Hebrews 11 for Sola Fide

Solus Christus

That brings us to today to part four in our series, Solus Christus, or through Christ alone. I promise to do my best to keep this message to a reasonable length, but literally the whole Bible points to or tells about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I would like to start our reading today in John chapter 19 starting at verse ten and going to verse 30, the middle part of verse 30 is what I will be focusing on today to attempt to expound on Solus Christus, Christ alone. John 19:10–30 “So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.” From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’ ” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

It is Finished

There is a lot in that short passage and I will be touching on some other parts of it but I would like to focus in on Jesus’ own words in verse 30 “It is finished”. In the Greek the three words translated “it is finished” is actually one Greek word, teleo, it is used multiple times in the New Testament including three times in the passage we just read, twice in verse 28 and again in 30. Depending on the tense of the word or the situation it is used in, it is translated as, it is accomplished, will be accomplished, be fulfilled, would be fulfilled, are fulfilled, and is made perfect. It is also translated in two places as “make a mandatory payment”, first in Matthew 17:24 “When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?””, teleo being translated with a negative modifier as “Does not pay”. Also in Romans 13:6 “For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.” One other translation I will mention is to complete ones mission or finishing a race, as in 2 Timothy 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” teleo “I have finished” When teleo is used in John 19:30 it is signifying two things, “It” an act or payment, “is finished”, that act or payment has been accomplished or perfected. I would like to break down “it is finished” into its two parts as an illustration of Solus Christus, in or through Christ alone.

What is “It”

Firstly, what is it? What is the act or payment that Jesus made that he is referring to when he was on the cross? For a short little word, in both English and Greek, the answer is lengthy and multifaceted, and it has multiple aspects and parts.

Jesus’ Death

We could look to the words right after it is finished to look for what ‘it’ is: “and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” Jesus was fully man and also fully God, conceived through the Holy Spirit in Mary’s virgin womb as only God could. Not born under the first sin of Adam and living his whole life as Adam was made to, never, not once, sinning against God or man, and only Christ alone could do this. And as fully man His flesh could be killed by other men, but also as fully God no man would be allowed to. Jesus gave up his spirit of his own accord and died. But lets be clear, Jesus did not bow his head and allow his body to die as an end to the suffering he was in on the cross, and he was suffering greatly. In the last few hours alone his mortal body had been beaten, spit on, scourged, which is a nice way to put he was whipped with a device designed with barbs and sharp pieces of metal that have the sole purpose to dig into the flesh when it hits the body and rip and tear flesh when pulled away. He was mockingly “crowned” with a wreath made out of sharp, long thorns that was forcibly thrust on to his head. Then his hands and feet were nailed to a cross and lifted up into the air to hang on that cross only supported by the nails going through his flesh and into the wood. Jesus had suffered and was suffering from the hands of men, but this was not the reason he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Jesus’ death occurred at the right time, at the time predetermined by the triune God before the foundations of the world. And His death was not as an escape from the cruel and severe treatment from the hands of men, it was to fulfil a purpose, to fulfill God’s purpose and plan as only Christ alone could. So when Jesus said it is finished he was, in a way saying that his mortal life was finished but that was not all that was finished.

Scripture and Prophesy

When Jesus said that it is finished He was also saying that all of the Old Testament scriptures and prophesies that are not about Christ’s second coming as the true and rightful King of kings and judge of this world are fulfilled and made perfect in Him. Lets go over just a few of them, I mentioned this one earlier, Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”” The you in that passage is referring to Satan and the her is Eve, there will be war between Eve and Satan, between the offspring of Satan, the fallen unrepentant, unredeemed world who in their sin make themselves children or slaves of their sin and the Devil, and Eve’s offspring, the messiah, Jesus Christ. Satan through the evil will of the fallen world will injure Christ, but not fatally, but the offspring of Eve, Jesus will bruise or crush the head of Satan, which is a fatal blow. I promise we will speak more on this promise made by God further in a moment, but lets continue with other Old Testament scriptures pointing directly to Christ. And we don’t need to go very far, Genesis 3:21 “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” Adam and Eve sinned against God, Eve was deceived and Adam willfully ate, and the punishment due was death. Genesis 2:16–17 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” The moment they ate of the fruit and disobeyed God, they sinned and were spiritually killed, cut off from God spiritually, bodily death also started at that moment, but through the grace of God the were not immediately killed, although that was what they had earned. Before Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of Eden God clothed them with garments of skins. Scripture does not say that God had angels gather cotton or wool and weave them garments, these were garments made from animal skins. In a picture of God’s plan for the redemption of all that he would save and give to Christ as a bride something had to die in order to cover the guilty. In just a few verses there are two prophesies from God himself of the coming messiah Jesus Christ and what it would take to cover man’s sin, a pictures of something that only Christ alone could do.
Next, still in Genesis but a little further, Genesis 22. Beginning with verses 1 and 2 then skipping down to 9 through 14, Genesis 22:1–2 “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”” Now down to verse 9, Genesis 22:9–14 “When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”” Twice here there is a picture of Christ and his work that was finished on the cross, first the sacrifice of the only son, his begotten son whom he loves to be offered up as an atonement for sin. Now Isaac was not the first son of Abraham, his first son was Ishmael but Ishmael was not the fulfilment of the promise made by God to Abraham and Sarah, Ishmael was a result of the plans of man through a temporary lapse of faith by Sarah and Abraham, a lapse partially caused by their impatience of the timing of God. But we should not think too harshly of Abraham and Sarah for their impatience either lest we be made hypocrites ourselves, how often have we been impatient waiting for even small things, waiting for our food to arrive at a restaurant, waiting in line at a store, waiting for our power to be restored after a devastating storm. Back to the point, God telling Abraham that he requires the sacrifice of the son of promise is a bright flashing beacon pointing to Christ. The second picture in the passage is that God will provide the sacrifice that is required, it will not and cannot be provided by man. Abraham obeyed God, Isaac obeyed Abraham and both were prepared and willing to carry out what God commanded. But the sacrifice required to atone for the sins requires the intervention of God and would be supplied by God, pictured here by the ram provided by God on the mountain top, the required sacrifice that again could only be done by Christ alone. I do apologize for merely scraping the surface of these passages, a whole series of sermons can be written about each of these points but I must move on.
The next example is the promise or covenant made by God to David through the prophet Nathan, 2 Samuel 7:5–17 ““Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” ’ Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ ” In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.” God promised to David, through Nathan that his line, his throne will never end, it will be established forever. God promised David that the future King of kings, the messiah, Christ, will be born of David’s line. I will spare you and myself the butchering of the reading of all the names but in Matthew 1:1-16, Matthew records the genealogy of Christ from Abraham through David, then David’s son Solomon to Joseph the husband of Mary the mother of Jesus. And to hammer this point home in case anyone should think that Jesus to David was not by blood as Joseph was not the genetic father of Jesus, Luke 3:23-38 traces the line staring with Jesus all the way back to Adam through Mary. Jesus is the promised heir of David and he is sitting on the throne right now and will be for all eternity.
That is but a few examples of the Old Testament pointing towards Christ and in Him alone, Solus Christus, it is all fulfilled. Both of these aspects of Christ can be contained within the “it’ in “it is finished” but there is more, the central and most beautiful part of what was finished on the cross was the substitutionary atonement of sin taken by Jesus Christ.

The Need and The Deed

This section of what the it is, the substitutionary atonement, I would like to call the need and the deed, and before I go into the atonement part, the deed, of what Christ did on the cross we must first make sure we all understand the need, the substitutionary part of it. I have said it multiple times already and I will keep saying it till my last breath, we are all sinners. Read Romans 1-3 I will quote Romans 3:10–18 and also verse 23 “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”” Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” This is the state of fallen man, this is what we must know about ourselves, truly know. That we are, from birth from Adam, and by willful deed of our own guilty of active and willful disobedience to the Holy God that created everything and as a result the only thing we deserve is death. Bodily death yes but that is only the beginning, it is the spiritual death that will be punishment for our willful sins for all eternity in Hell, the literal lake of fire where the worm does not die and the fires do not consume. Again from Romans, Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death,” We must first know what state we are in and fully understand what we require salvation from. We must know that we are in need of a savior. If we think that, yes I may have done some wrong things in my life here and there but deep down I’m a good person we are lost. If we think that, yes I have done wrong in my life but I can do good things to make up for it and in the end I will have done more good than bad and I’ll be OK. If you think that this world is all that there is and after we die there is nothing, or there is not God, there is no after-life, there is no heaven or hell, if you think any of those then you are going to go to Hell when you die. I know that may sound mean and rude but that is the truth. Trying to work off the debt you are in due to even just one sin is like trying to empty the oceans dry with a thimble, and the thimble is full of holes, and the water you empty out just flows back in. Its impossible through any perceived good works of man to atone for one sin, and I wont even say one small sin, because there is no such thing as a small sin. One thought, one act, one deed, done against the will and command of God is a, humanly speaking, insurmountable debt against God. If you think that God does not exist, I will only say this, your denial of the one true God, who is the creator of everything does not and will not excuse from your fate. This is the state man is in and this is the reason that we are in need of a savior. We are in need someone who has no debt owed of his own to be our substitute, and this is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ alone.
As I said earlier, Jesus was born into this world from the virgin womb of Mary and was not stained by the sin of Adam. Born fully man and fully God, living his whole life with out breaking one commandment, with out one errant thought, without one rebellious deed, tempted from the world all around him, tempted by the Devil himself but never bending, never failing, so when his time came according to the will of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, it is Christ alone who could take the punishment that was not due to him, but was due to all that the Father has set apart for salvation. This is what Jesus did on the cross, this is what Jesus and Jesus alone could have done, he was beaten and tortured by man, nailed to the tree by his hands and feet, left to die lifted high on the cross, but that is merely what man can do to the body. Matthew 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” The real deed, the main meaning of “it” is the cup or wrath, God’s full punishment, the full atonement for every sin, for every ill deed done by all people that God has called out to save, all the way in the past back to Adam, all that are called out as saved saints of God now, and all that will be saved in the future until Jesus Christ’s triumphant return at the end of days. Christ alone paid it all, every bit, every drop. Matthew 27:45–54 “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”” Three hours of taking the wrath of God for us, so that our debt, our punishment, our need can be paid. Only God the Son, the Messiah, Jesus Christ alone was able to do this, this is the deed, this is the “it”, and it is in Jesus Christ alone and his substitutionary atoning work on the cross for us that we can say Hallelujah, I am saved!

Is Finished

So that is the “it”, now the “is finished”. And this may on the surface seem pretty self explanatory but I feel like we need to know a few things here. Firstly the substitutionary atoning work of Christ alone is done, complete, finished. This work is done and it never has to be done again. All of our sins were paid for by Jesus on the cross, it's not just the sins we committed before we were saved are paid for by Christ on the cross and all the sins we commit after still have to be paid for, because do not be fooled we are still going to sin, we are still going to fail and fall short. But we now have the helper with us, the Holy Spirit that convicts us of these sins so that we know we need to repent, to turn away from them and back to God, but this does not mean that they need to be paid for, either by Jesus again or somehow by us. It is finished, not it is almost finished, or it is finished except your part. Jesus alone paid it all, for all time, for all the saved saints of God. If we are saved by the blood of Christ we are now at peace with God, and even more adopted sons and daughters of God, but being saved does not mean that we ourselves can now atone for any sin we commit. We must repent and turn away but the penalty has already been paid by Christ alone.
Secondly, I am very carefully saying the chosen, the set apart, or the elect when I talk about Jesus’ work on the cross because the substitutionary atonement taken by Christ was not for everyone, past, present, and future. He did not pay the penalty of sin for those who are not to be saved, he did not suffer the wrath of God in vain, for those whom it was not intended. It is a work of grace from God that anyone will be set apart and saved, but we do not and cannot say that everyone, regardless of faith in the need for, and faith in the full complete substitutionary atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ alone will be saved from their due punishment. But we can and do say that those that are set apart for salvation will never be rejected or cast aside. Again from Romans, Romans 8:38–39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Or from the mouth of Jesus himself in John 10:25–30 “Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”” In Christ alone it is finished. But wait there’s more. Going back to Genesis 3:15, Jesus did die on the cross of his own accord, he gave up his spirit and his body did die. But as I said earlier even though he did die this was not a fatal blow. Because just as he told his disciples time and time again and they did not understand, he would die but, thank the Lord, this was not the end. In a display of his being fully man he did die, and in an awesome joyous display of Jesus being fully God he raised himself from death to life never to die again. Hallelujah Jesus lives. And because he lives, those that are now in Christ Jesus will also be raised up in the last days with perfected sinless bodies so that we can enjoy eternal life in the also made new and perfected heaven and earth. Revelation 21:1–4 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.””

Closing: The Five Solas

In closing, Sola Scriptura, in the bible, in scripture alone is the true and living word of God, infallible and containing God’s wisdom and knowledge that he has given us. Sola Gratia, it is through God’s grace alone that anything was created, through God’s grace alone is anyone given their next breath, through God’s grace alone is anyone chosen and set apart for salvation and eternal life. Sola Fide, through faith alone, made possible through the grace of God alone is our faith counted as righteousness. Solus Christus, in Christ alone is our debt paid in full and through Christ alone do we have eternal life and in Christ alone do we have saving faith in. All of the Old Testament is prophesying about, and showing types of, or pictures of Christ to come. The Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John telling of Jesus’ birth, life, work, death, and resurrection. Acts telling of the spreading of the Faith, Romans through Jude expounding on and going deeper into Jesus’ work, what it did and what means. Revelation prophesying of the second coming of Christ, the end, and renewal of all of creation. Next is the last Sola, Soli Deo Gloria, for the glory of God alone, this sola will answer the questions, what is life for, what is our purpose, why are we here. For the glory of God alone.
Closing prayer
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