This wonderful teaching is what Luther was defending when he wrote his magnum opus of Bondage of the Will. Whatever else theologians and Christians must do, they must preserve the Gospel of grace alone. By grace alone the Reformers meant that human beings are saved by the grace of God and nothing within man and nothing that man can do. No works can assist or contribute to the Gospel in any way at all. Romans 3:24-25 and Ephesians 1:3-14 and 2:1-10 shine forth the glory of a Gospel of grace apart from works (or alone). The Gospel is by grace alone so that it will set forth the love of God as uncaused and merited by man. It is grace that teaches us that the love of God is caused within the triune God alone. Until man has been humbled to the point where he trusts in nothing of himself and nothing that he can do, he is not ready to trust in grace alone. The Gospel is to the praise of the glory of His grace and nothing of man. Grace points to the unworthiness of man and the worthiness of Christ, not to how man deserves to be saved. The fact that God saves on the basis of a sheer and utterly beautiful grace shows how the five solas are linked. It is grace that shows that the Gospel is all to the glory of God. Grace must be revealed in and taught by Scripture or else no one would believe it. It is grace alone that shows how it must be Christ alone or there is no salvation and no Gospel. It is grace that teaches us that faith must receive the grace of God apart from any merit or works of man or it would no longer be grace. “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly” (Galatians 2:21). For any person to attempt any work to add to or assist in grace is to imply that there was no need for Christ. As Romans 11:6 so forcefully puts it, “but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.” Any addition of man’s works to grace makes grace to be something other than grace. That is why it must be grace alone or it is no longer grace. If it is no longer grace, it is no longer to the glory of God alone.
The wonder of justification by faith alone has received a lot of treatment from academic theologians throughout the years, and is beginning to receive some renewed attention. The problem, however, is that if sola gratia (grace alone) is not also dealt with, the whole issue of sola fide (faith alone) is in reality lost. The heart of the biblical doctrine of justification is not just that it is by faith alone, but that in the biblical context it is by faith alone in order to preserve the doctrine of grace alone. A quote from the Historical Introduction to the 1957 edition of Luther’s Bondage of the Will shows this: “the doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace” (p. 58). Going one step further, when a person teaches that it is the will of man that comes up with faith; this is also is a step away from the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone. Is salvation wholly the work of God or partially the work of God with some assistance of man? Our answer to that in some way determines how we view the Gospel and the biblical teaching of grace alone.
I hope that the issues are clear at this point. The focus on justification by faith alone is needed, but for the Reformers the real issue was justification by grace alone through faith alone. The real issue is grace in order to set forth the glory of God in the Gospel and salvation. No one is really protecting justification by faith alone as the Reformers meant it unless they are dealing with it in such a way as to show that the Gospel is by grace alone in order that it may be to the glory of God alone. This is why I have set out sola gratia last. It is not in order to minimize it in the slightest, but to throw extra attention on it. The glory of God is the primary cause and reason of the Gospel. The real issue of the Gospel is whether it is Christ alone that saves or not. If so, then the Gospel is all of grace. If so, then justification by faith alone is for the sole purpose of protecting the Gospel of grace alone in a way where it is God alone who shows forth His glory in it.
“In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-6).
Here we see the reason that God saves. It is to the praise of the glory of His grace. The Gospel does not provide a way of salvation that man may apply to himself, but it is all of grace. It is a grace that will allow no pretenders to its throne. It is a grace that will not allow any rival the slightest power or pretense to any of the glory. It is a grace that erects its throne on the sovereignty and glory of almighty God. It is a grace that is the outshining of the glory of God that tabernacled itself in the Person of Jesus Christ while on earth (John 1:14). In that it shows that whatever is all of grace is all of the glory of God. In that it is a grace that shows itself as the love of God that is moved solely from the self-existence of God and not by anything in man. An attack on the teaching of sola gratia is an attack on the teaching of the Gospel and the very glory of God Himself. We must defend this teaching with our breath and our lives. If we should die for the Gospel if need be, then we must defend grace to that degree too.
God Loves... Himself 
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