Author: Daniel Burton

Grace is perhaps, the simplest of all Christian doctrines and yet the one we have the most trouble believing. Grace, being the unmerited favor of God given to mankind for their salvation, remains the crux of doctrine. We contribute nothing to our salvation nor can we. Yet, we desperately want to be responsible in some manner for our salvation. Deep down, we carry a long to know we are good enough and attempt to prove it through the only way we know how to prove things; our actions. Yet, our actions produced only death within us and nothing more. On our own, our actions produce spiritual death which even goes so far to take a physical and emotional toil on our bodies. Yet Jesus Christ, by grace, as a random for our sin, died in our place in a manner only He could, so that we might obtain life.

The idea of Sola Gratia depicts the notion that we are saved by grace, with grace being the unmerited favor of God. The history of the church, while giving verbal service to grace, heaped on the requirements for salvation and forgiveness of sins. Confessions booths turned into prescriptive actions in which people must do in order to be saved. Furthermore, this act echoed the actions of the Pharisees, who understood salvation through God alone would heap the requirements of holiness beyond what God had Himself directed, on the people. Even today, most Christians would openly say they hold to this belief but still struggle with the notion of grace and how our salvation is given. the idea of grace tends to be pervasive to the every day Christian attempting to either earn the favor of God or define ourselves by our own egotistical standards of holiness. Sola Gratia means we are saved by grace alone, not by our actions or anything we do. Salvation does not mean that man attempts to approach God but instead that God elected and returned mankind to Himself.

Scripture and the canonical 66 books of the Bible are the authoritative word of God. Throughout history, multiple sources of ruling have set themselves up as authoritative in the church, some legitimate and some not. At some points, the creeds sought to define and become the authoritative word of God. At another point, the papacy set itself up as on par with scripture. Now, as individualism and humanistic tendencies are on the rise, emotion has become the North Star of faith for Christians believing that the yearning of their heart produces the word of God within us. We hold to an optimistic and idealistic view of ourselves and mankind’s ability while ignoring the fact that “now we see in a mirror dimly… now [we] know in part.” (‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:12‬, ESV)

The word of God is in errant in all that it speaks and reveals. In short, if God’s word is inspired, having been breathed by God, and if God is n all knowing God who eagerly desires to reveal Himself to us, then God’s word must be inerrant. Our culture views tends to view truth as a subjective where anyone can interpret their own reality as they see fit. Yet, this disregards the inerrancy of scripture and the role of God as divine author of all creation. God defines truth as the divine omniscient one who understands how all things come together. Furthermore, as the authoritative truth that is inspired and revealed by God, scripture speaks as the authority over other all other authorities by merit of its inerrancy. Others may fail in their understanding, interoperation, and instruction, but scripture, when properly understood, will reveal truth to the readers as the Holy Spirit speaks in conjunction with scripture.