[SUB12] AS CINCO SOLAS DA REFORMA PROTESTANTE - Luciano Subirá

Folks, we have here at the bottom, popularly known as the "Wall of the Reformers" here in Geneva, Switzerland. A place where the Protestant Reformation gained strength and voice. In this place, I made a point of recording the video talking about the five solas. The "sola" is a Latin word that means "only" that the reformers so supported. Stay with me and in the next few minutes we will talk about it.

The Protestant Reformation made a huge contribution to the church for a simple reason: to take us back to the pattern of the Word of God and the Scriptures. Much more than trying to understand history, we need to understand the return to the Word because what northens us is the Word of God. And during this time, what we can call the "five solas" stood out.

The Latin word "sola" as we have already said, means "only". So the declarations made by the reformers of the five "solas" were as follows: "Sola fide" - "only faith", "Sola Scriptura" - "only Scripture", "Solus Christus" - "only Christ",

"Sola gratia" - "only grace" and "Soli Deo gloria" - "glory only to God." I would like us to be able to understand this aspect quickly and obviously in a very summarized way. For a long time the Roman Church

proclaimed a salvation that was based on works, on merits and that could even be bought through not only works but also donations. Luther mainly positions himself in the opposite direction saying: "The Scripture tells us something else.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says: "By grace you are saved through faith. This does not come from you, it is a gift from God." This positioning was very clear and strong. Obviously the intention was not to deny what Tiago, for example, says about a faith that is also expressed through works. We are not saying that works are not part of Christian life. I believe that the basic understanding that we need to make

It is in the following verse, after the verses 8 and 9 that I mentioned, comes the affirmation of 10: "For we are his works, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God in advance prepared for us to walk in them." The proclamation of Solafide, speaking of salvation, does not deny the importance of the works but establishes a very clear distinction. And the distinction is as follows: we are not saved by the works but we were saved

works. This places the works as part of Christian life, but not as what will lead us to experience salvation. The second raised and proclaimed sola is sola scriptura, or only the scriptures.

is the highlight that the Word of God is our only rule of faith and conduct and that it is interpreted by itself, regardless of any external source and even the oral tradition. We look at the Word of God itself and see this. For example,

The Berians were distinguished as nobler than the others because they would check in the Scriptures if things were really like that. When Philip, the evangelist, preaches the Gospel to that Ethiopian, he demonstrates through the Scriptures. Christ himself proved through the Scriptures his mission, his work, his role, not only to the disciples of the way of Emmaus,

but to all his apostles. All the time we perceive a faith that is allotted and based on the Scriptures and by the Word of God and none of that has changed. The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:6 and says: "So that you may learn not to go beyond what is written." Therefore, raising this flag had a fundamental role: to refer us to the place where we should never have left.

the conviction of our faith, generated, established and always defined by the Word of God, by Scripture as the only guidance, our only rule of faith and practice. Third, the declarations of the reformers were "Solus Christus" or "Only Christ." And here we have something very important in biblical doctrine.

Jesus himself said to the Jews of his time: "Examine the Scriptures, for they are the ones that bear witness to me." In theology we call this biblical convergence. Everything converges in the person of Jesus. Jesus himself declares that, just as Moses raised the serpent in the desert,

so also the Son of Man would be raised. The work of Christ was already being announced in acts like this one from the Old Testament. When we study the typology of the tabernacle, for example, we realize how it converges in the typology of the person and the work of Christ. In all the scriptures we realize this convergence

this convergence in the person of the Lord Jesus. This truth needs to be understood together with the highlight that they gave the most on the days of the Reformation. In 1st Paul's letter to Timothy, in chapter 2 and verse 5, he says: "There is only one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, the man."

In Acts chapter 4 we read that there is only one name given among men, for which it matters that we be saved and this name is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The declaration of "Solus Christus" made it very clear that there is no other mediator,

nor mediator. Only one mediator between God and men: the incarnate God who becomes one of us to replace us, to be punished with the punishment we deserve, thus providing us with the rights that only he had and could enjoy in God. He is the reconciler. He is the one who reconnected us with God.

Jesus is the true religion, considering that the word "religion" comes from the Latin "religare", he is the one who reconciled us. And this proclamation of the reform was nothing new. It only referred to the original message, that message that could never have been changed or negotiated.

the message that you and I continue to have to proclaim in our days because the biblical message is the only truth of salvation that we can announce, based on the Word of God. The fourth sola proclaimed by the reformers is the sola gratia or only grace.

As we mentioned, Ephesians 2:8-9 says: "By grace you are saved, by faith." Here, in addition to highlighting, as we said in the first verse, faith as access to the grace of God, the manifestation of the grace of God was obviously defined as an essential, indispensable factor, in fact,

unique in salvation. This grace of God is received by the human being through a position of faith and there is no salvation outside of these terms. The Calvinists, a very strong teaching here, well-founded in Geneva, where we are, began to proclaim the irresistible grace. The movement of the so-called

monergism, which speaks of what God does without any interaction from man. Other groups rose up, such as the Armenians, to say: "No, grace is not irresistible and is not a single, isolated act of God. It needs to be received by man. It is necessary that there is correspondence from man, because the front door to grace is faith. And if man does not believe, he does not enter into the grace of God and it is man's responsibility

to believe in order to enter into grace. So, regardless of the technical terminology that these groups gave themselves in history, the monergists, the Aminians, not liking the term "synergism" a lot, people talking about grace, irresistible, preeminent, regardless of that, all these groups supported the message of the Reformation that salvation was only by grace, regardless of how one would interact with it.

Fifth and last, we have the declaration "Solidio gloria" or "Glory only to God." The reformers believed that not even the saints already canonized by the Catholic Church, or even the popes and other expressions of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, deserved the glory that was given to them.

In fact, they recognized the importance of giving oneself the due honor and learning from outstanding people without ever placing them on a level where they received no kind of glory. When we look at the Word of God from the beginning, we realize that this has always been the attitude and conduct of the apostles, for example.

In Acts chapter 10, we see that when the apostle Peter announces the Gospel in Cornelius' house, to whom an angel of the Lord had said that he should call Peter, therefore he knew that it was an emissary, a messenger of God, when he arrives at Cornelius' house, Cornelius stands at his feet to worship him. Verse 26 of Acts 10 says: "But Peter raised up, saying, 'Rise, for I am also a man.'"

In Acts 14:8-18, when Paul and Barnabas perform a miracle and a paralytic is cured, the city wanted to sacrifice him as if they were gods and they don't accept that, saying: "No, we are here to just preach to you that you leave these things, the idolatry, to become a living and true God. How could we get you to glorify us?

to God only glory. It has always been the declaration of our leaders, those who proclaimed faith from the beginning. And I want to finish by highlighting Romans 11:36, which says: "For through him and for him are all things. To him, then, is glory, eternally

Amen. When we understand these foundations that the reformers recovered, did not create, and we understand the importance of keeping ourselves fixed on them, because we should never have separated and throughout history, after leaving them, we need to return to them, this reminds us of the idea and understanding that, again, we cannot negotiate them. May God give us grace

of having a firm and well-informed faith, a solidified practical understanding of the Word of God and that we should not allow ourselves, in any time, as Paul said to the Ephesians, to be like boys, carried and shaken by all the wind of doctrine. May the Lord help us. May God give us grace.