Sermon Tone Analysis

With reference to the salvation of the elect, the purpose of God is, not only that they shall be saved, but that they shall believe, repent, and persevere in faith and holiness in order to salvation.

William G.T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Vol I, 400]

Every thing that has ever existed, and everything that exists, and everything that will exists and every action that has ever taken place, is taking place, and will take place, does so by the and every act performed by everything and everyone that has ever existed, that exists, and that will exist does so only because God decreed and determined that it would so exist and so act.

God’s decree is designed for his glory and his glory alone.

Recall the Pelagian controversy in the early 5th century of the church, having been settled at the council of Ephesus.

Pelagianism is heresy.

The promise of grace was given in but

Grace is that which our natural constitution has received, or it is the law of God, or it is the revelation of the gospel.

The human will may grasp grace if it chooses to.

The law of God and the gospel are alike in operation and man can enter the Kingdom of Heaven as well through the one as through the other.

What do we do with Christian sin? God may forgive, but justice demands penance of some sort.

Augustine believed that the human will was passive in regeneration and that divine grace was irresistible.

This is because the human will was itself depraved along with the intellect and emotions.

John Cassian, while he held Augustine in great veneration, disagreed with his views on human nature and divine grace and constructed what has come to be known as Semi-Pelagianism.

[The human will moves faith first by which man grasps grace; grace is not irresistible; God does not sovereignly choose the elect in eternity past.]

God’s election is based on his foreknowledge.

The Council of Orange (529) emphatically rejected Semi-Pelagianism:

The grace of God is not granted in response to prayer, but itself causes prayer to be offered for it’ (3); ‘that we may be cleansed from sin, God does not wait upon, but prepares, our will’ (4); ‘the beginning of faith is not due to us, but to God’ (5); ‘undeserved grace precedes meritorious works … Grace is not nature’ (21); ‘to love God is the gift of God’ (25).

Contextual Background

Go back to Luther’s reaction to the indulgences

What was the issue in back of the indulgences?

Selling of indulgences was a practice whose existence depended on a theological system that:

Detrimental to grace

Contrary to faith

Presumptuous of Christ

Dismissive of Scripture as our final authority for faith and practice

Exchanged God’s glory for that of the pope and the visible church

The beginning of Indulgences

The complex history of Penance is beyond the scope of this lesson.

Suffice it to say that it has early roots in the Christian church (3rd century), it was always based on an poor understanding of grace, and it fundamentally ignores Jesus’ command in to forgive the sinning brother if he repents.

Late 11th century, Ivo of Chartres worked out a theory of dispensation, that is, not applying the rules of ecclesiastical law in certain circumstances.

Forgiveness in Roman Catholicism - original sin and actual sins are forgiven at baptism.

But a different sacrament exists for sins after baptism.

Penance, confession, and reconciliation

Mortal Sin - a sin that leads to eternal hell.

It can be forgiven through confession but requires a undetermined amount of time in Purgatory.

Venial Sin - a small pardonable offense against God or our neighbor.

The Pope has the power to forgive sins: the key to the treasury of merit is in the hands of the Pope.

Sin cannot just be forgiven without some form of payment or punishment.

Justice insists on it.

In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council issues a canon obliging every Christian to confess his or her sins to a priest at least once a year and to receive an appropriate penance.

The core issue emerging at the beginning of the reformation was a realization that grace had been perverted and as a result the gospel had been lost.

The Protestant Reformation then, was about the recovery of the gospel.

Sola Gratia

Calvin’s Theology

What is it?

The reformation principle of grace alone is the belief that salvation is the work of God alone, dependent on nothing outside of God for its effectiveness.

It is also called efficacious grace because it is always effective, it never fails to produce God’s intended purpose.

The Reformation doctrine of predestination and election was based on scriptural teaching, and represents a continuation of a long-standing Augustinian legacy.

Contrary to the teaching of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, which grant a measure of human autonomy and free will in the believer’s response to the gospel call to faith and repentance, the doctrine of predestination undergirds the teaching of salvation by grace alone through the work of Christ alone.

In other words, the reformers believed that to involve human volition in any way was to contaminate divine grace.

The warrant for salvation by grace alone is located in the Scripture

Total Depravity

Unconditional Election

Why was it important to the reformation of the church?

Limited Atonement

Without sola gratia, the Christian gospel becomes just one more works-based system among many competitors.

And if that happens, Christianity collapses.

It contradicted the Roman understanding of the pope’s authority to forgive sins and to control the supposed treasury of merit.

Selling of indulgences becomes nothing more than a religious fraud perpetrated upon the Church of God.

Irresistible Grace

Eph.

1:3-

Eph. 1

Perseverance of the Saints

3. What is the greatest threat to the principle of sola gratia?

The Servetus Inc

A misunderstanding of God’s holiness and/or a deficient view of the nature of fallen man.

A false belief about the nature of God’s infinite holiness, the nature of divine love, the nature of sin and a failure to understand the true condition of the fallen nature of sinful man.

Bad theology results in a skewed view of the human will that almost always lends itself to a synergistic soteriology.

In other words, the popular view that God’s grace alone working through Christ alone is not enough to effect the saving of individual souls.

Instead, insistence on human autonomy leads to the belief that the individual soul must cooperate with God if salvation is to be actualized.

What this ultimately means is that God’s grace provided not for the salvation of any real person, but that it only made salvation a possibility for those who would exercise their free will and decide to come after Christ.

William G.T. Shedd writes:

The divine decree is the necessary condition of the Divine foreknowledge.

If God does not first decide what shall come to pass, he cannot know what will come to pass.

An event must be made certain, before it can be known as a certain event.

[Dogmatic Theology]

A right understanding of grace alone then depends on a right understanding of God’s decree to save from the beginning, those whom he chose for himself.

And this depends on a right understanding of God’s nature.

The basis for God’s election of men to salvation is located in himself.

God is working his plan for his own good pleasure and for his own glory.

The doctrine of election and predestination means that salvation is by God’s grace alone!

God chose you before he created the first blade of grass.

Sola Fide

What is it?

Justification is a forensic or legal term.

It is the declaration that we have been forgiven of all offense, that are debts are cleared, and that in their place, we have been credited with the righteousness that belongs to Christ.

The great exchange!

The most towering figure of the Reformation’s first generation, Martin Luther, was quite emphatic in his exclamation that justification was “the first and chief article” of Christian theology.

[Korey D. Maas, Reformation Theology]

Justification has to do with making one acceptable before God - righteous.

Or better, The one who is righteous by faith, shall live.

Why was it important to the reformation of the church?

It contradicted the Roman understanding of justification.

Again, Children are entitled to the kingdom of heaven, and are under the promise of the grace of God, through Christ; as has been said; and therefore we truly believe, that they are blessed, holy and pure, acceptable to God; are under the covenant, and in his church, but by no means, through any external sign; for there is not a word in all the Scriptures whereby to maintain, that children should be admitted into the covenant and the church by such a sign.

Besides, it is very evident that they cannot be taught or admonished by word, or sacrament, as long as they are without the ability to hear and understand.

Let them be accursed who make the following claims:

That the free will of man, moved and aroused by God does not cooperate at all by responding to the awakening call of God.

That God’s special grace cannot be refused.

That man’s free will has been wholly lost and destroyed after Adam’s sin.