UPWARD GLANCE: The 5 Solas
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In 313 AD, something terrible happened to Christianity: it became a legal, state-sponsored religion in the Roman Empire after Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan. Sixty-seven years later, it became the single official religion of Rome under Theodosius I. The separation of church and state is valuable primarily because it protects the church, and this new way the Roman government was now interacting with the church did more to harm it that any amount of persecution could have ever hoped to.
Namely, the church began to move further and further away from its core, foundational beliefs like salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, and it added the authority of tradition as an equal to that of Scripture.
Over the next 1,200 years or so, this downward spiral continued to the point that much of the church was funded not by cheerful giving, but by the promise that you could buy your way out of a pseudo-hell known as purgatory wherein you suffered for a period of time for all the sins which had already been forgiven by Christ. This was known as the sale of indulgences.
This idea, in its repugnance and completely opposition to Scripture, upset a certain monk and college professor in Wittenberg, Germany. He sparked-off a movement later called the Protestant Reformation when he wrote against the sale of indulgences and posted his ideas publicly on the church doors.
While the movement was unimaginably diverse - geographically, culturally and theologically - it was characterized by five doctrines later known as the 5 Solas. Sola means “only” in Latin. The idea is that there are five exclusive truth claims that represent an orthodox Christian faith.
I’ll be spending the next two weeks in Upward Glances talking about a) what each doctrine means, b) how each doctrine is supported by Scripture and c) why each one is immediately relevant to your life and mine.
Stay tuned for more, and have a great week!