Theological Term of the Week: Sola Fide

sola fide
One of five Latin statements that summarize the core teachings of the Protestant Reformation. The phrase means “faith alone,” and affirms that trust in Christ and his saving work—“is the alone instrument [or means] of justification.”¹ Justification is received by faith alone and not achieved by good works.

• From scripture:

[Y]et we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified (Galatians 2:16 ESV).

• From The Heidelberg Catechism: 

Question 60. How are thou righteous before God?

Answer: Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil;  notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

Question 61. Why sayest thou, that thou art righteous by faith only?

Answer: Not that I am acceptable to God, on account of the worthiness of my faith; but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, is my righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only.

• Augustus Toplady describes the kind of faith that is the means of our justification in the hymn Rock of Ages:

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: Why is sola fide important?
2. Daniel R. Hyde: What Does Sola Fide Mean?
3. R. C. Sproul: Sola Fide
4. Tom Schreiner: Justification = Faith + Nothing
5. Tom Schreiner: The Five Solas: Faith Alone
6. J. I. Packer: Sola Fide: The Reformed Doctrine of Justification
7. Joel Beeke: Justification by Faith Alone: The Relationship of Faith to Justification

Related terms:

• five solas
• justification
• saving faith
• sola gratia
• sola scriptura
• solus Christus
• soli Deo gloria

¹Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 11, Section 2. 

Filed under Salvation

---

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.

Sunday Hymn: Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross

Jesus, keep me near the cross;
There a precious fountain,
Free to all—a healing stream—
Flows from Calvary’s mountain.

Refrain

In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever;
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.

Near the cross, a trembling soul,
Love and mercy found me;
There the bright and morning star
Shed its beams around me.

Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day
With its shadow o’er me.

Near the cross I’ll watch and wait,
Hoping, trusting ever,
Till I reach the golden strand
Just beyond the river.

—Fanny Crosby

Theological Term of the Week: Semi-Pelagianism

semi-Pelagianism
The belief that although sinners cannot be saved without the powerful help of God’s grace, they can (and must) first cry out to God for saving grace.1 God gives his grace to sinners contingent on their taking the first step.2 Conversion, then, is a joint product of the divine and human will working together.

• From History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff, Chapter 159, Semi-Pelaginianism:

At the head of the Semi-Pelagian party stood John Cassian, the founder and abbot of the monastery at Massilia, a man of thorough cultivation, rich experience, and unquestioned orthodoxy… . [Cassian’s most important works] are his fourteen Collationes Patrum, conversations which Cassian and his friend Germanus had had with the most experienced ascetics in Egypt, during a seven years’ sojourn there. 

In this work, especially in the thirteenth Colloquy, he rejects decidedly the errors of Pelagius, and affirms the universal sinfulness of men, the introduction of it by the fall of Adam, and the necessity, of divine grace to every individual act. But, with evident reference to Augustine, though without naming him, he combats the doctrines of election and of the irresistible and particular operation of grace, which were in conflict with the church tradition, especially, with the Oriental theology, and with his own earnest ascetic legalism. 

In opposition to both [Pelagianism and Augustinianism] he taught that the divine image and human freedom were not annihilated, but only weakened, by the fall; in other words, that man is sick, but not dead, that he cannot indeed help himself, but that he can desire the help of a physician, and either accept or refuse it when offered, and that he must cooperate with the grace of God in his salvation. The question, which of the two factors has the initiative, he answers, altogether empirically, to this effect: that sometimes, and indeed usually, the human will, as in the cases of the Prodigal Son, Zacchaeus, the Penitent Thief, and Cornelius, determines itself to conversion; sometimes grace anticipates it, and, as with Matthew and Paul, draws the resisting will—yet, even in this case, without constraint—to God.

• From The Canons of the Council of Orange: 

CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, “For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is semi-Pelagianism?
2. John Hendryx: Differences Between Semi-Pelagianism and Arminian Beliefs
3. R. C. Sproul: The Pelagian Controversy
4. Nathan Finn: Is Synergism Necessarily Semi-Pelagianism

Related terms:

• Augustiniansim
• Pelagianism

1 2000 Years of Christ’s Power, Volume 1 by Nick Needham, page 258.

2 Systematic Theology by Robert Letham, page 947.

Filed under Salvation

---

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.