I recently wrote about “sola Scriptura” or “faith alone”. The point is that Christians don’t only have Scripture on its own in isolation. They do have things like experience, their ability to reason things out and prophecy. The point is that Scripture alone and uniquely is our sole authority for knowing and serving God.
So, the Protestant Reformers didn’t just talk about Scripture alone. They in fact referred to 5 “solas”: Scripture, faith, grace, Christ and God’s glory.
If Scripture is the sole authority we have for the Christian life, faith is the sole basis for our justification, our right standing and relationship with God. It is only by grace that we receive forgiveness and salvation. In other words, it is a free gift that we cannot earn. It is solely through Christ’s death for us
However, this doesn’t remove good works. We are saved by grace, according to Ephesians 2, for works of service. As others have put it, we might be justified by faith alone but that faith never comes alone.
What is important is that we do not do our good works to save ourselves, to impress others or so that we have got anything to boast about. Our good works are solely for God’s glory.
Faithroots 