Sermon Tone Analysis

Jesus Alone is Lord

As we continue our series on “Convictions that Connect,” our study of the Five Solas, we come to the one on Christ.

Sola Christus.

Christ alone.

The concept behind this sola is that our salvation was secured by Christ alone.

That means that Jesus was exclusively the only one able to save us and that his saving work on the cross was sufficient for all of us to be saved.

It also means no one else has saving authority and that no other attempts bring the forgiveness of sin.

So far, so good, right?

But we’re the church.

We live and breathe this stuff.

We know that salvation is only in Jesus.

We just sang In Christ Alone – one of my favorites, by the way.

Many of us can give chapter and verse to prove it.

, “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.’” , “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

That’s the gospel in a nutshell.

Jesus is our exclusive Savior.

So why do we need a sermon devoted to something we already know and embrace?

Here are the lingering issues, the nagging questions that need to be answered.

The first is, Why is salvation in Christ alone part of Reformation theology?

Isn’t it standard, 2,000 year old church doctrine rather than a new discovery 500 years ago?

We’ll take a look at that.

The second is, If this doctrine matters so much, how does it impact your daily life and mine?

We want to take an unshakeable theological conviction and draw out the practical day to day impact.

Third, if these are truly “Convictions that Connect,” how will this truth help us connect better with God and each other?

We have a lens through which we are viewing these convictions.

You may have studied and are already familiar with salvation in Christ alone, but have you ever looked at it through this “connect” angle?

Speaking of which, I think it’s helpful to see how these five solas themselves connect together.

There may be other ways to view them, but here is one I put together that helps me.

If these five convictions were like a house here is what you would have: The glory of God alone is the roof.

It points up to God, it is the completion of the entire house.

Without the glory of God as the ultimate aim, the home is exposed to other elements and ultimate ruin.

The foundation of it all is the bedrock conviction in the word of God.

It’s firm.

It’s true.

It’s worth building our lives on.

The walls represent God’s saving grace he gives us and the simple faith we exercise in him for our salvation.

And how do we access this house of God’s gracious salvation?

Through the only entrance, Christ, the door.

This teaching of faith in Christ alone is absolutely central.

It’s in the middle for a reason: the other truths are understandable through this one.

Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck wrote over hundred years ago that “The doctrine of Christ is not the starting point, but it certainly is the central point of the whole system of dogmatics.

All other dogmas either prepare for it or are inferred from it.

In it, as the heart of dogmatics, pulses the whole of the religious-ethical life of Christianity.”

In other words, we want to get this right.

Christian theology professor Stephen J. Wellum simply writes, “Christ alone is what makes all Christian theology coherent.”

So if we misunderstand this, we never fully understand all the other teachings of the Bible.

But on to our first question.

Why is salvation in Christ alone part of Reformation theology?

We’re using a 2,000 plus year old book to explain truths that were argued 500 years ago.

We see Martin Luther, one man standing against the established Church, the most central and powerful institution of the day.

How do you think the Church leaders responded when Luther claimed things like this?

Jesus is God’s Son.

He’s fully God and fully man.

He came to earth, was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, and he died on the cross to save us from our sins.

He rose again, stands at the right hand of the Father, and he calls us to follow him?

Do you know how they would have responded to this?

They would have said, “We agree completely.”

They agreed with all of that.

They would agree that Jesus is our Savior.

They would agree with the sermon title on the front of our bulletin, “Jesus alone is Lord.”

So again, why is this Reformation doctrine?

What was the dispute with the Catholic Church that the Reformers had?

It was that the saving work of Christ on the cross is applied to us by God as through faith.

In other words, Jesus’ work was sufficient to save us, so sufficient that no works on our part could ever add to what he did.

If you want to trace some of the history here, this goes back to the medieval era.

Theologians, including Anselm, wrote extensively about the person of Christ but very little about the work of Christ.

Who Jesus is rather than what he did.

Both are of course important, but Jesus was not viewed as our substitute on the cross.

He was instead seen as the one who secured saving grace that could be applied to us through works.

In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas developed an idea called “supererogation,” which basically means Jesus’ work on the cross is applied to us through faith and sacraments.

Under the Catholic system, people had to perform certain sacraments to earn the forgiveness of sins, and a lifetime of those good works can never apply enough grace to cover them all, so people were told they’d have to spent several thousand years or more burning off the extra sins in the torments of purgatory.

Does that sound like salvation in Christ alone to you?

All of this reminds me just a little bit of football.

If you’re interested getting season tickets for your favorite football team, you’d need to buy a set of eight tickets for each home game, right?

It turns out the answer is no.

In an effort to generate even more revenue, about half of the NFL team stadiums have developed PSLs – Personal Seat Licenses.

What this means is that you have to make a one-time purchase of a PSL so that you have the right to purchase the tickets.

I suppose that’s a similar concept to member’s shopping clubs or time shares or even airlines that have you pay extra for luggage.

The Rams are having a new stadium built at a projected cost of $2.6 billion, and the Rams are offering premium PSLs at a minimum price of $175,000.

Then you have the right to purchase tickets for at least $300 apiece for club level.

I looked up the average lifespan of an NFL stadium, and its 31 years.

If you want to maximize your PSL value, you’ll pay a total of $249,400 over that span, which equates to $1,000 per game.

So your $300 ticket has more than tripled in price.

It got me thinking, so I asked Pastor Mark this week if we could maybe institute a Purple Seat License right here in our sanctuary.

Let’s just say that there are a few details to work out on that front.

But I am amazed at the human ability to take a simple concept and complicate it, exploit it, add layers of detail, you name it.

These are the kind of ideas that are so audacious that I can’t imagine them getting out of the board meeting.

And yet they do.

What the Church did with Christ alone was shackle it with layers of effort.

It reminds me of a beautiful example of our salvation, a courtroom scene.

The accused has just been found guilty and sentenced to death, and the judge’s son steps in to take the punishment instead.

In the time of the Reformers, that had become twisted to the point where the judge tells the accused, “You’re in luck.

My son has died in your place and secured a spot for you in a hard labor prison where you can work until your death.

With any luck you’ll be exonerated in a few thousand years.”

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Luther’s favorite book of the Bible, we see warnings of something very similar.

Some false teachers came in after Paul established the church there and told the Galatian believers they had to obey all of the Old Testament law for their salvation to stick.

This is why Paul wrote to them and said, “If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” () Our text makes it clear that no hard labor is required for our salvation, and any trust in our efforts to bring salvation or open up that treasury of forgiving grace are futile.

declares God’s righteousness to be revealed – both to us and through us – “apart from the law.”

Verse 22 says this happens through faith in Jesus Christ.