6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— 7 for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. 8 For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 3:6–8 (ESV)
Often at His Word Today, the subject of faith is explored. You have read many times the succinct phrase explaining the doctrine of justification. Justification, God’s declaration the sinner is righteous before Him, is by grace alone, through faith alone, in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone, according to Scripture alone for the glory of God alone.
In April 1996, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals conducted its first meeting of evangelical scholars. They comprised The Cambridge Declaration. The document “is a call to the evangelical church to turn away from the worldly methods it has come to embrace, and to recover the Biblical doctrines of the Reformation. The Cambridge Declaration explains the importance of regaining adherence to the five “Solas” of the Reformation.”
The five affirmations of the “solas” of the Reformation are as follows:
Thesis One: Sola Scriptura.
We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured. We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian’s conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.
Thesis Two: Solus Christus.
We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father. We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.
Thesis Three: Sola Gratia.
We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.
We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our un-regenerated human nature.
Thesis Four: Sola Fide.
We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice. We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.
Thesis Five: Soli Deo Gloria.
We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God’s glory and that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone.
We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.
In today’s biblical text from I Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul again affirmed the faith of the Thessalonian believers in Christ. The faith of these followers of Christ is found throughout this epistle (1:3; 3:2, 5-7, 10). True, saving faith is a trust in, a dependence upon, a commitment to, and a worship of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
“The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in this century, evangelical churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many religious institutions to serve the cause of biblical truth and Christ’s kingdom. That was a time when Christian behavior and expectations were markedly different from those in the culture. Today they often are not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical fidelity, moral compass and missionary zeal,” explained Dr. James Montgomery Boice in the declaration.
“We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the “gospels” of our secular culture, which are no gospels. We have weakened the church by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to the sins in ourselves which we see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable failure to adequately tell others about God’s saving work in Jesus Christ.”
Dr. Boice concluded, “We also earnestly call back erring professing evangelicals who have deviated from God’s Word in the matters discussed in this Declaration. This includes those who declare that there is hope of eternal life apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject Christ in this life will be annihilated rather than endure the just judgment of God through eternal suffering, or who claim that evangelicals and Roman Catholics are one in Jesus Christ even where the biblical doctrine of justification is not believed.”
Arguably, the call today is for the 21st century church to resemble the 1st century Thessalonian church. This was a church known for their faith and love and the comfort such faith brought to other struggling believers. May our faith in Christ be spoken of similarly.
May the Lord’s truth and grace be found here. Have a blessed day in the Lord.
Soli deo Gloria!
His Word Today 