![]() ![]() According to Lord’s Days 2 and 6, the knowledge of the Christian’s misery and the knowledge of his salvation is from the law of God and from the gospel of God respectively. Articles 22 through 24 of the Belgic Confession demonstrate the practical and spiritual value of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.Īt the same time the Reformed Creeds applied themselves to the maintenance and defence of the doctrine of the authority of Scripture alone. The structure of the Heidelberg Catechism is one testimony: gratitude coming after deliverance, and instruction in the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer as the expression of gratitude for deliverance already received and possessed in the heart through faith alone. In so much of their form and content they uphold and defend these doctrines, for the confession, thought, and life of the church of Jesus Christ. This clarity is expressed in the structure and in much of the practice of the creeds. Not only are these two truths explicitly spelled out. ![]() The Reformation’s understanding of these two doctrines as fundamental and principal to the body of Reformed doctrine is made clear in the creeds of the Reformation. It also covered its pride with a veneer of its motivation for holiness: certainty and assurance of salvation takes away the incentive for a godly life justification by faith and works is a necessary incentive for good works. So tightly did Rome cling to its error of justification by faith and works and its error of the authority of Scripture and the church that it also defended with its anathemas the certainty and assurance of salvation. At the same time the pride of man wrecks the gospel as the gospel of comfort and peace in believing. What ruin to men, and what ruin to the church! The pride of man would take to himself the glory and honor that belongs to God alone. The pride of man so desperately wants to control either his salvation or the doctrine of his salvation. The pride of man wants the glory that belongs to God alone. The pride of man wants the honor that belongs to God alone. Man will work to make himself an authority alongside of God to determine what is truth. Man will work to interject himself among the works of God to have a share in the work of salvation. ![]() Devilish is the pride of man that always wants the prerogatives that belong exclusively to God. The combination of these two truths is powerful. Excluded from man in the second is authority. The “alone” of both “faith alone” and “scripture alone” are directed against man. The same relationship between the truth of justification by faith alone and the truth of scripture alone can be represented grammatically in one phrase: by scripture alone the truth of justification by faith alone.īoth of these principle truths of the Protestant Reformation are also joined together in their testimony against men. He declared that he stood on the testimony of Scripture alone. Concerning church authority Luther rejected the authority of men. In his disputations against church authorities Luther testified that his assertions rested on the testimony and authority of Scripture alone. ![]() That opposition was based on the testimony of Rome which wielded its ecclesiastical authority against the truth of justification by faith alone. The Reformer met opposition by the Romish hierarchy concerning his theses. The assertions made by Luther in his 95 theses revolved around the truth of justification by faith alone. The relationship between the two is most evident from the testimony of Martin Luther that spearheaded the Protestant Reformation. The truth of Scripture alone is called the formal principle. The truth of justification by faith alone is called the material principle of the Protestant Reformation. Both are identified as principal to the entire movement. Such is their relationship that they are given together a fundamental place in the Protestant Reformation. That doctrine is the truth of Scripture alone, sola scriptura. Next to the truth of justification by faith alone without works is another critically and fundamentally important doctrine of the Protestant Reformation. ![]()
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