The Heart of SOLUS CHRISTUS
2 Corinthians 5:18-21
January 24, 2018
Well tonight we move on to our 4th of the
5 SOLAS that came out of the Reformation.
Tonight we look at SOLUS CHRISTUS
Namely the belief that the means of our salvation is CHRIST ALONE.
And at the outset I would say that of all the 5
I think this one is the one that is the least understood.
Most of the time when you mention SOLUS CHRISTUS,
Most people think that it is referring to
The simple belief that Jesus is the only Savior.
Certainly that is included in SOLUS CHRISTUS
And certainly that is true.
John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”
There is no doubt that we would maintain that
There is no other Savior than Jesus.
(and throughout the study of this 4th SOLA, we’ll examine some of those passages)
Yes, there are some liberal theologians and even religious non-believers
Who would embrace pluralism and the faulty notion
That there are many roads all headed to the same destination.
But honestly, in most evangelical circles
I seldom run across people that hold that obviously unbiblical belief.
BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT THE DEBATE
REGARDING SOLUS CHRISTUS CENTERS AROUND.
The argument here is NOT in seeking to prove
That Jesus is the only savior.
The argument centers on the fact that
Jesus is all that is needed for salvation.
Rome would tell you that Jesus is the only savior, but they will not uphold that the work of Christ is all that is needed to be saved.
Let me read to you another excerpt from the Council of Trent
1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life: [Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1529]
Now take note of what is said there.
• First we see that Christ is called “a living victim” which of course nullifies the
effectiveness of His death and requires Him to continually sacrifice Himself.
This is the heresy of the Mass.
But the statement I really want you to grasp is this:
• Regarding justification, “It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who
makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy”
The belief is that what Jesus did,
Grants us the ability to now be righteous and live righteous,
Which we are expected to do in order to please God.
Where Jesus is important to them is because
According to them it is Jesus who gives you the motivation
And even the ability to live righteous.
I actually find this to be a common misunderstanding of the gospel.
Growing up in legalistic religion I have found that
There are many evangelical believers who do not understand
What SOLUS CHRISTUS means.
They tend to just affirm Jesus as the Only Savior
And think they have it covered.
AND THAT IS A SHAME.
So at the very outset tonight I want to just cut to the heart of the matter
And tell you what SOLUS CHRISTUS means.
HERE IS THE HEART OF IT ALL:
Solus Christus does not refer to what Christ has done IN me.
Solus Christus refers to what Christ has done FOR me.
Let me put it another way:
Christ did not come to MAKE us righteous.
Christ came to BE our righteousness.
If you misunderstand this you will misunderstand the gospel.
Now that is certainly not to disregard the work of sanctification which does occur IN us.
• We certainly affirm that Christ is at work within us.
• We certainly affirm that the Holy Spirit is working out our salvation.
• We understand the reality of “Christ in you” the hope of glory.
• We understand that God is transforming us into the image of Christ.
But that has to do with sanctification,
And a process that will never be perfected in this life.
In regard to justification (which is what the SOLAS refer to)
We don’t focus on Christ in us. We focus on us “in Him”.
Rome (and legalistic religion throughout the ages) has sought to make Jesus
• Our supreme MOTIVATION for righteousness, (because He is judge)
• Our supreme EXAMPLE for righteousness (because He was perfect)
• Our supreme POWER for righteousness (working in us)
And the weight and expectation for all salvation
Has depended upon you taking advantage of the work of Christ
And being righteous.
THE REFORMERS SAID NO!
They affirmed that even in my sinful condition I am declared holy,
Apart from my own righteousness,
And only because of what Christ has done for me.
R. Scott Clark said,
“The heart of the gospel is not about us. The heart of the gospel is Christ for us (Christus pro nobis). This was the essence of Paul’s message: that Christ came for us, to do for us what we could not and would not do. He obeyed. He was crucified. He was raised. He is ascended. He is returning. The medieval church turned the gospel into a message about what Christ is doing in us, by grace, in sanctification, and about what we must do to do our part in order to benefit: cooperate with grace. The good news is that we have no part, not in this story. We’re recipient. We’re beggars; we’re not contributors to the story.”
(https://www.monergism.com/topics/five-solas/solus-christus)
Martin Luther said,
“I must listen to the gospel. It tells me not what I must do, but what Jesus Christ the Son of God has done for me.”
(ibid)
John Calvin said,
“Hence also it is proved, that it is entirely by the intervention of Christ’s righteousness that we obtain justification before God. This is equivalent to saying that man is not just in himself, but that the righteousness of Christ is communicated to him by imputation, while he is strictly deserving of punishment. Thus vanishes the absurd dogma, that man is justified by faith, inasmuch as it brings him under the influence of the Spirit of God by whom he is rendered righteous. This is so repugnant to the above doctrine that it never can be reconciled with it. There can be no doubt that he who is taught to seek righteousness out of himself does not previously possess it in himself. This is most clearly declared by the Apostle, when he says, that he who knew no sin was made and expiatory victim for sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21)”
(From Institutes of the Christian Religion, III. xi, 2, 21-23)
I am not saved because He has made me righteous.
I am saved because He has become my righteousness.
And still just by way of introduction I can tell you how a proper understanding of this doctrine can have a profound effect on your life.
Don’t raise your hand, but I would wonder if anyone in here has ever struggled with assurance of salvation?
• Let me just tell you that I struggled with it for years.
• And because of that struggle and victory over it I can tell you now where a lack
of assurance comes from.
It comes directly from a misunderstanding of SOLUS CHRISTUS
Now, even in the years when I doubted my salvation,
I would have absolutely affirmed and even fought to the death
That Jesus is the only way of salvation.
That was never an issue.
The problem where my theology was bad
Was in how much of a savior Christ was.
I knew Him to be the only Savior, the question is what percentage of the saving is up to Him, and what percentage was up to me?
Now, I never actually debated it like that,
But looking back now, that was precisely the issue.
Because even in my desire to love and trust Christ
It was the presence of legalism which was the root cause of my doubt.
Do you remember what Paul said about legalism?
Galatians 2:21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
Remember we said that legalism nullifies grace
And renders useless the death of Christ.
Let me tell you how it worked in my life.
(And I give a lot of credit for this to the legalistic Baptist doctrines that I grew up under)
Baptists love moralism and we love to pretend that
Somehow morality and salvation are linked.
AND FOR ME MORALITY BECAME THE TRUEST BASIS OF SALVATION.
I felt the most saved when I was the most moral,
And I even used morality as a basis of whether or not someone else was saved.
In short, I judged everyone by their level of righteousness.
Now Jesus taught us the problem with that.
Matthew 7:1-2 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”
What does that mean?
• Well, for example, I could follow Jesus and my love for Jesus would cause me
to want to be at church every time the doors were open. I just loved being
there.
• And in my commitment I could even pass judgment on those who weren’t
there. “I just don’t know if they’re saved, because I can’t understand
them not wanting to be at church.”
And that mindset served me well so long as I was faithful to attend.
The problem was I just set up for myself a standard of salvation.
In my heart I built a standard that said,
“Saved people never want to miss church.”
And then, inevitably there would come a day,
When I didn’t feel like coming,
And my own standard would condemn me.
“What’s wrong with me that I don’t want to go to church tonight, I must not be saved.”
And that is just one example, but it happened in many areas.
My own judgment standards actually
Only condemned me over and over and over.
Let me tell you what I was doing, and I think this will help.
I WAS TRUSTING IN MY FRUIT (my inward righteousness) FOR MY SALVATION INSTEAD OF IN JESUS FOR MY SALVATION.
Does that make sense?
• So long as my fruit appeared to be legitimate, I was doing great.
• But on the days that I failed, and my fruit was absent, I doubted and struggled.
It was evidence of a misunderstanding of SOLUS CHRISTUS
• What I was actually believing was that Jesus saved me to make to me righteous.
• And on the days that I felt righteous I had no problem.
• But on the days when my lack of righteousness was revealed to me, I was overcome with doubt and anxiety.
That’s not to minimize the importance of fruit, so long as you understand that the presence of holiness is not the fruit, the desire for it is.
I was a victim of legalistic religion and I failed to understand that the work of Christ was not to make me righteous
(which let’s face it, if that was His work, He was unsuccessful),
But that the work of Christ was to be my righteousness.
Now, even when I fail, I don’t despair as though the work of Christ in me has failed.
I can still rejoice because of the work of Christ done for me.
There’s a great song about this that we sing from time to time:
“When I look all around me And all I can see Are my mountains of failure and sin I will hope in the One Crucified in my place Jesus Christ the Redeemer of men
When I’m standing accused And I’m guilty as charged And I’ve nothing that I can defend I will trust in the righteousness Given to me By Jesus my Savior and Friend
When I measure my heart By Your holy decrees All my motives and deeds I despise I will claim all Your sacrifice Purchased for me By Your death I will stand justified
I look up to the Cross Where I see my Sin-Bearer Hanging there in deepest agony I look up to the Cross Where Your cleansing blood flows And I feel a great weight lift from me”
And I just share that with you because it has been my observation that
The rise of moralism and legalistic religion in the church
Has really done a number on the truth of the gospel.
What I want to make sure you understand is that
Salvation is only possible because of what Jesus did for us.
We are NOT saved because we take advantage of the work of Christ and use it to finally live righteous lives and become pleasing to God.
We ARE saved because even in our wretched beggar state, Christ saved us apart from any help of our own.
When we say that we are saved by Christ Alone,
We are not saying that Jesus is the Only Savior (though He is).
When we say that we are saved by Christ Alone
We are saying that Christ Alone saves us without any help from us.
He did for me what I COULD NOT and even WOULD NOT do for myself.
• And I stand saved, not because I am now righteous.
• I am saved because He is righteous and He has imputed that righteousness to me.
And that thought is where I want to start our study.
And to do that, we are going to look at 2 Corinthians 5:18-21
Now, allow me to briefly set the stage.
• In 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 we find that passage where Paul talks about that right
now we are present in the body and absent from the Lord.
• He admits that right now we dwell in a tent, but what we really long for is our
heavenly building.
2 Corinthians 5:4 “For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.”
• And Paul even says that the reason we have this yearning or desire is
because God placed His Spirit in us which causes us to desire this.
2 Corinthians 5:5 “Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.”
• And so, because we long to be with the Lord and because we know that
someday we will be with the Lord, Paul says that right now our goal is
please Him.
2 Corinthians 5:9-10 “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
So in those first verses Paul admits that
• Though he longs to go and be with Christ,
• He knows that he has been left here for a purpose
• And it is a purpose which he wants to fulfill well.
And incidentally, that purpose is missions.
• In verses 11-17 Paul actually reveals that he is on that mission and his sole objective is to fulfill it in a way that pleases God not man.
(2 Corinthians is letter Paul wrote in defense of his ministry)
• He’s not particularly worried what men think about how he ministers since his sole objective is to please God.
For time’s sake I want you to skip down to verse 18
Where Paul reveals this mission he is on.
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:18-21
Now hopefully you picked upon the key word of the passage.
It is “reconciled” or “reconciliation”
Paul uses that word 5 times in this passage.
It is all about how God reconciles man to Himself.
And first and foremost I would remind you that
RECONCILIATION IS SORELY NEEDED.
Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned”
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Isaiah 59:1-2 “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”
Man has been estranged from God because God is holy and man is not.
And I suppose this separation would be less severe
Were it not for the fact that GOD WILL NOT TOLERATE SINNERS
As He currently does FOREVER.
Matthew 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;”
So, the obvious point is that sinful man must be reconciled to Holy God.
That is really the heart of salvation.
And that is the heart of the 5 SOLAS
We ask: HOW CAN SINFUL MAN BE RECONCILED TO A HOLY GOD?
Well Scripture Alone says that it is by Grace Alone through Faith Alone
In Christ Alone for the Glory of God Alone.
And what we want to look at here specifically is
The role Christ had in that reconciliation.
There are 4 points here tonight, and we will hit them quickly.
#1 THE MAKER OF RECONCILIATION
2 Corinthians 5:18
We see it right off the bat.
It is a tremendous testimony to SOLA GRATIA
“Now all these things are from God…”
WE AFFIRM AGAIN THAT
Salvation begins with the will of God not the will of the sinner.
• Salvation did not occur because sinful human beings decided they needed to approach God and ask for forgiveness and beg Him to save them.
• If God didn’t originate salvation it would not occur, namely because sinful man could care less.
God instigated it.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
And Paul said that God did this for him personally.
God first “reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
Now already Paul has identified the means of this reconciliation.
For Paul says that God “reconciled us to Himself THROUGH CHRIST”
And we’re going to talk more about that in a moment.
But all that God did in regard to reconciliation was done through Christ.
But Paul notes that after God RECONCILED him,
God then COMMISSIONED him into service.
After being reconciled Paul says that God then “gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
And again we note where that came from.
It also came from God.
SO THE MAKER OF RECONCILIATION IS OBVIOUS TO US.
• God is the instigator.
• He reconciles men and He commissions men with “the ministry of reconciliation”
Well that in itself brings up a question.
WHAT IS THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION?
The Maker of Reconciliation
#2 THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION
2 Corinthians 5:19
There again we cannot escape SOLA GRATIA or SOLUS CHRISTUS
“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”
God alone was doing it through Christ alone, it’s inescapable.
The “ministry of reconciliation” is this:
“He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
Paul didn’t reconcile anyone
The church didn’t reconcile anyone
Paul merely went and proclaimed to people that
God was reconciling men to Himself through Christ.
That is the whole ministry in a nutshell.
(And it is a pretty fitting discussion as we are here in Missions Month.)
We don’t save people.
We don’t reconcile people.
We don’t regenerate people.
We don’t justify people.
Our job is simply to go and proclaim to the world
That God is reconciling men to Himself through Jesus Christ.
That was the sum total of Paul’s ministry.
And that leads to the third point.
The Maker of Reconciliation, The Ministry of Reconciliation
#3 THE MESSENGERS OF RECONCILIATION
2 Corinthians 5:20
It only makes sense doesn’t it?
• If God committed this message to us, then it stands to reason that we would go and preach it.
And that is what we do.
“Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ”
We go and proclaim Christ.
As we preach it is as though “God were making an appeal through us”
There is SOLA GRATIA again.
Even in this ministry where we go out and preach,
Even that would be for not, if God didn’t actually do that to.
And you understand that.
So, because this is our ministry, and because this is the way God wants it, and because God actually makes His appeal through us
HERE WE GO…
“we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
Incidentally, do you want a good “one liner” for evangelism?
Do you struggle with a good question or statement to make?
There it is.
In that one statement is the accurate assessment that
• Man is sinful,
• Has become estranged to God,
• He needs to be reconciled,
• That this reconciliation is found in Christ.
Paul does that because he knows
That is why God has chosen to leave him in this tent
Instead of taking home to heaven and letting him dwell in his building.
And all of that really sets the stage.
God wants men to be reconciled and God has commissioned us to preach it.
But none of those fully answer the question of reconciliation.
That is the final point.
#4 THE MEANS OF RECONCILIATION
2 Corinthians 5:21
Here is how reconciliation occurs.
“He made Him who knew no sin”
Here we examine what is called:
THE ACTIVE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST (and it is very important)
Namely that He lived a sinless life.
• He didn’t just drop out of heaven one day, die on a cross and skirt back up to heaven.
• He lived here for 33 years and He lived here in perfect obedience.
The writer of Hebrews said:
Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”
And if you won’t take his word for it,
Then listen to the voice of God the Father.
Matthew 3:16-17 “After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
We even saw this displayed during His temptation in the wilderness.
What we are talking about when we talk about Jesus Christ
Is absolute perfection.
He never sinned, not even once.
• He never broke a single command.
• He never had an evil thought.
• He never sinned in His anger
• He never had a lustful thought
• He never held bitterness in His heart
• He never coveted someone else’s possession
• He never blamed God
• He never cursed God
• He never did anything that was even close to sinful in the eyes of God
When God looked at the man Jesus Christ, God saw nothing against Him.
He “knew no sin”
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin”
Now first let me tell you what that does not mean.
It does not mean that Christ became a sinner on the cross.
The previous phrase “who knew no sin”
Completely rules that possibility out.
Christ did not become a sinner.
He remained pure and sinless throughout His life and death.
We even have testimony of this from the one who died next to Him.
The thief on the cross boldly stating that this man has done nothing worthy of death.
Christ did not become a sinner.
WHAT DOES PAUL MEAN?
The answer was given centuries earlier by the prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah 53:1-6 “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.”
And this is precisely what Paul is referencing.
The One who was totally pure and sinless in every way
Actually took upon Himself the sin of God’s elect.
He bore our sin.
He was sinless, He was pure,
And yet He was treated as though He was a sinner.
• When you look at the suffering of the cross…
• When you look at the torment…
• When you look at the grief…
That is what God’s justice demanded should happen to you and I.
It was the punishment for sin.
But God took the sinless pure Savior and imputed our sin to Him.
1 Peter 2:24 “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.”
He took the fall for sin He did not commit
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,”
Now we could go into again the debate of who Christ actually died for,
But go back and listen to those sermons on the actual atonement.
If you say that it is for everyone, then you have to a universalist.
The reality is that Christ did this on behalf of the elect,
Those who are saved.
It was done on behalf of the elect who needed to be reconciled to God.
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
It was in fact the trade of the century.
He was treated as though He committed my sin
And I am now treated as though I fulfilled His righteousness.
He became sin
We become righteous
Now again, Christ did not become a sinner on the cross, He was merely treated as though He was.
Even so I am not now perfectly righteous, I am merely treated as though I am.
And now when I read verses like “You shall be holy as I am holy”
Or “You shall be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”
I no longer have to hang my head in shame.
Because of what Christ did in bearing my sin and sharing His righteousness, I am now viewed as holy. I am now treated as perfect.
I am treated perfect not because I am righteous.
It is not what Christ did IN me.
It is what Christ did FOR me
And apart from any help FROM me.
That is what we mean by SOLUS CHRISTUS
And we’ll discuss it more in the weeks to come.
