We have been looking at Solo Christo (Christ alone) in the last few posts and in this one we will turn to consider Sola Gratia (grace alone). What is vital to understand about grace alone is really the same issue with Christ alone. The core teaching, motives, and real issues have to do with the relations of God within the Trinity rather than human beings in and of themselves. If grace is a power or something that God does that is not moved from within the Trinity, then we have an insurmountable problem within the Godhead. That leaves us with a god that loves human beings more than Himself which would not be consistent with the Greatest Commandment nor with the way God has revealed Himself in Scripture. Grace alone is founded within the biblical God who loves Himself and will do nothing that is not moved by love for Himself as triune. Without this teaching of God whose very holiness consists in His love for Himself within the Trinity, we are left without a real teaching on grace alone.
The order of the five sola’s (as presented here in this series) is then seen as logically consistent but more importantly as consistent with God Himself as triune. We started with Soli Deo Gloria and saw that God is moved to do all that He does from within Himself and in order to manifest His own glory. This can surely be seen as linked with the teachings of grace when Ephesians 1:6 teaches us that God saves to the praise of the glory of His grace. God does all that He does to the praise of the glory of His grace and so we see that for God Himself there is meaning in grace alone. When we teach that the Gospel is grace alone we are teaching what is consistent with God’s desire to manifest the glory of His name. We are teaching a Gospel that is consistent with God Himself and of the eternal fact that all He does is to manifest His own glory in Christ.
We then moved to Solo Christo by which we saw that God glorifies Himself in and through Christ because Christ is the very outshining (radiance = shining out) of His glory (Hebrews 1:3). It is not that God shines something else in Christ, but that Christ Himself is the outshining of the glory of God. The very nature of the second Person of the Trinity is to be the image of God, which is to be the perfect reflection of God. In a spiritual being this is for the Father to shine out of Himself and for that shining to be Christ. We saw that this is utterly vital in terms of what it means for God to do all things in and through Christ alone. The Gospel is Christ alone because that is how God saves. It is God saving sinners by and for Himself. It is easy to see that the Father shines out His glory in Christ and so loves the Son as the image and reflection of His own perfect glory. It is then easy to see why the Father only works and loves in Christ. Therefore, we have Christ alone. Christ alone teaches us that salvation is by God’s love for Himself alone or that it is the love of God for His own glory as it shines out in Christ.
As we move to consider grace alone, we can see how beautiful grace really is. Grace is not just something that God does, it is something that God is in Christ. When God gives grace to sinners, it is actually God giving Himself because there is no grace apart from God and God only gives grace in Christ. We saw that God saves to the praise of the glory of His grace. We know also that God never does anything but what glorifies His name in Christ. What we must see is that grace is the shining forth of God in giving Himself to human beings in Christ. The Gospel is by grace alone because God does nothing but through Christ alone. The Gospel is by grace alone because in doing all through Christ alone God is doing all to His glory alone.
The study of grace when looked at in this light is really a study of the glory of God in Jesus Christ. Many in the modern day want to look at grace in terms of human beings as the focus of grace. In some way they set out human beings as the focus of grace and as the standard of grace. When that is done, it destroys any true idea of grace. True grace is nothing else but the love of God for Himself being His own motivation in saving those who are at enmity with Him and doing that to manifest His love for His Son which is His own glory. What an impoverished idea of grace we have in our day and that includes many in the Reformed camp. Grace is more than a proposition encased in a tomb of theological accuracy; it is Christ Himself at work in human souls with the motive of changing those souls to make them instruments and partakers of the divine glory. Grace is not just an abstract noun or thought; it is Christ Himself being given to sinners because of the love of God for God. Christ Himself is the shining out of the glory of God’s grace. No sinner will have any more of the love and grace of God than that sinner has of Christ. This is a grace that must be applied by a Divine Being because no finite sinner can apply God to his or her own soul. No sinner can reach inside God and make Him shine Himself out in Christ and apply that glory by the Holy Spirit to him or herself. All that God does for sinners in salvation is by grace because all He does is for His own glory as it shines out in love for Himself in Christ. No one can deserve that as this is grace Himself.
God Loves... Himself 
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