Sola Fide

 

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:4-8 ESV).

 

The next truth we come to is Sola Fide, “Only Faith.” It has been so subtly changed through the years that we have come to believe that it is a requirement for becoming a child of God. You may have heard someone say something like, “Just have faith and you will be saved.” And, while that sounds very close to what the Apostle Paul teaches in our reading today, it is dangerously close to great heresy. Understanding this is essential. If any part of our redemption can be attributed to our work, we are hopeless in view of the fact of our basic bent toward sin and rebellion.

 

Let’s start by understanding what faith is. The word faith can have several meanings. Sometimes it means simple assent to a fact or an idea as true. Sometimes it refers to a body of religious teaching. In the Bible it can sometimes refer to a special amount of faith, as in “a faith that can move mountains” (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:2). But the most common use of faith refers to an implicit trust or reliance on something or someone. For believers, that sense of trust or reliance points to saving faith in Jesus Christ. As our reading declares, we are saved by grace “through faith” (v. 8). In contrast to the church teaching of his time, Martin Luther asserted that salvation is by grace and is “received” through faith. Grace wrapped in faith is the gift of God.

 

Instead of seeing faith as something required in order to receive grace, Luther found that faith is a channel of God’s grace. In other words, even the faith we need in order to acknowledge Jesus as Lord comes graciously from God through the power of the Holy Spirit. If it were any other way, we could boast: “I found Jesus!” God finds us. Even the faith to accept Jesus comes through grace alone. Indeed, grace alone and faith alone are like two sides of the same coin. Nothing we do will gain eternal life for us. That is the foundation of our hope!