The issue of sola gratia is an enormous one. We have looked at God’s motives in grace and we have seen that God must be moved by Himself or grace is no longer grace. As we have noted before in the past few months, Luther wrote his masterpiece on The Bondage of the Will in order to defend the teaching of Scripture on grace alone. Today we have people who adhere to a creed of grace alone and yet throw the teaching of Luther on the will under the bus for their own purposes. As we have noted in previous posts, though perhaps not so clearly, one cannot have Christ alone for salvation without grace alone for salvation. One can preach Christ alone in some way, and yet without the teaching of grace alone there is no Christ alone in truth. One can preach Christ alone as a creed and yet not be saved by grace alone in truth. A stated belief in a doctrine is not the same thing as the reality in the heart.
At some point the recognition of what grace alone really means must come crashing into the reality of people today. It is not just a matter of whether a person says s/he believes that salvation is by Christ alone, nor is it a matter of whether a person says that s/he believes in grace alone. What matters is if the person has grace and Christ in the heart. We can fight over the issues of free-will and so on if we wish, but that can be nothing but intellectual subterfuge and an attempt to hide our own hearts from God. The doctrine of grace alone is unassailable and when anyone attacks it in name or in reality, that person is in eternal peril. A person who claims to be Reformed can have an intellectual belief in a creed and yet deny grace alone by what s/he states about grace. We are not dealing with tinker toys here; we are dealing with the glory of God in the salvation of eternal souls. It is to be unfaithful to God to simply state that if a person has a stated belief in Christ alone or in grace alone that the person is then a brother or sister in Christ. The person must truly disbelieve in self and believe in Christ to truly be a brother or sister.
One of the things stated in the modern day during discussions about Arminianism and Calvinism is that Arminians profess to believe in salvation by grace alone and by Christ alone. That may be true, but do they mean the same thing as God does in Scripture and according to His character when He says salvation is by grace apart from works (grace alone)? When Reformed people stand up and defend Arminians as a whole or in a particular denomination rather than particular Arminians, the best we can say is that it is very naïve of them. We could also say that we have to wonder what the Reformed person believes about Christ and grace alone when s/he is so willing to receive as brothers and sisters so many who just give lip service to a teaching. In a recent discussion with two Mormon “elders” they professed to believe in salvation by Christ alone. Roman Catholics profess salvation by Christ and grace too. In other words, there are so many people out there who profess Christ and grace by word that the terms are virtually meaningless without some pointed and specific discussion. Going under a theological title has never been enough to guarantee that a person believes in justification by grace alone and it is especially not today.
In the political realm the positions of major parties are not all that clear. A person can be more in line with the platform of the Democratic Party and still be a Republican. The same is true in the reverse. If a person wants to vote according to truth and conscience rather than just according to party lines, a person must look at the individual and look past the rhetoric and try to discern what the person really stands for. The same is true in theology. We must begin to look past the theological party that a person belongs to and begin to get at what they really stand for theologically. If a person does not truly stand for grace alone in terms of what it really is and not just in words, that person is not an orthodox person. What our churches and what our nation desperately need are men and women who are willing to be called names in order to stand for the truth of the living God. It is far easier to give in and call anyone a believer who mouths the words than it is to stand for grace alone. But if we are the children of God, then we are called to love God more than the whole world.
The doctrine of grace alone as it fits with soli deo gloria and solo christo is that important. It is not enough to be a good moral person and it is not enough to adhere to an external creed that is orthodox. There is no other real Gospel but that of a real Christ who really and only saves by Christ alone. There is no other real Gospel of Christ alone but the real Christ who really and only saves by grace alone. We can say words that do not express the real convictions of our souls and we can express the convictions of our souls by orthodox words that are not in accordance with the one and true Gospel. The issue of grace alone is worth splitting churches and denominations over. If a church is not one that truly holds to grace alone, it is not a true church because one must have the true Gospel to be a church. If a denomination is one that does not stand for grace alone but simply wants to get along for the sake of the denomination, it is no longer a Christian denomination. Grace alone is that important.
God Loves... Himself 
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