UPWARD GLANCE: Sola Fide

Sola Fide means “Only Faith.”

Martin Luther is most commonly associated with the Reformation as a whole, and with the Solas in particular. Whether he should be is debatable, but his contribution to rescuing the idea that salvation comes by Faith alone cannot be questioned.

Luther was a monk and college professor in Wittenberg, Germany. After traveling to Rome and seeing the excesses of the church there, he returned to his parish disillusioned with the Roman church. In his disillusionment, Luther did the best thing anyone can do when they look around and see a world not working like it should: he read his Bible.

Specifically, Luther read Romans. Unfortunately, ideas like doing penance for forgiveness, suffering for sin in purgatory and the sale of indulgences to avoid said suffering don’t square very well with passages like Romans 3:28, which says, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”

Luther put his faith in Christ, got saved and sparked the Protestant Reformation shortly thereafter by writing the 95 theses and posting them on the doors of the Wittenberg church on October 31, 1517.

Only faith in Christ’s atonement for your sins can save you and restore your relationship to God. There is nothing you can do. There is nothing anyone can do. The only thing that can fix the problem at the core of who you and I are is faith in Christ.

Faith alone in Christ alone saved Martin Luther and helped him stand through the pope’s subsequent persecution. Faith alone in Christ alone can save you and enable you to stand through hard times, too.

What do you think?

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