Sola Gratia: Grace Alone - Addressing The Erosion of The Gospel
The following is taken from the Cambridge Declaration of 1996.
Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches.
God's grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.
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 unregenerated human nature.
See Also:
- The Bondage of The Will, by Martin Luther
- Who Saves Whom?, by Michael Horton
- Altar Call or Effectual Call?, by Sam Hamstra, Jr.
- Biblical Conversion and the Modern Church, by Kim Riddlebarger
- Was Martin Luther a "Born Again Christian"?, by Rick Ritchie
- Sola Gratia: What is Reformation Theology?, by Stuart Johnson
- When Your Testimony Is "Boring", by Michael Horton
- Meriting Unmerited Favor, by Shane Rosenthal
- When the Method Obscures the Message, by Shane Rosenthal
- Grace Alone: An Evangelical Problem?, by Kim Riddlebarger
- Dead, Wounded, Or Merely Uninformed?, by Don Matzat
- Union With Christ, by Michael Horton
- Sola Gratia and Sanctification, by Rich Gilbert
- Decisional Regeneration, by James E. Adams
- Salvation by Grace, by Loraine Boettner
