The Five Solas of the Protestant Reformation
The Five Solas are a chain of doctrines which summarize the biblical gospel—that all of salvation belongs to God alone (2 Cor 5:18, Ps 3:8, Rev 19:1, Gal 1). Each sola, each alone, focuses on a particular doctrine and contrast against legalism and false religion:
(1) God’s Grace alone (sola gratia) saves depraved sinners, nothing else does or can, especially not our own works (Eph 2:5-9, 2 Cor 5:18).
(2) God’s grace gives us the gifts of repentance and faith, and this saving faith alone (sola fide) justifies, contrary to faith plus anything else, especially works, “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
(3) Christ’s active and passive (suffering) obedience unto death, His perfect righteous life and propitiatory death alone (solus Christus), and nothing else that we do or anyone else does (e.g., indulgences, etc.), is sufficient to fully forgive and legally justify sinners as righteous in God’s tribunal (Rom 3:21-31, 2 Cor 5:27-21), and which we receive through faith alone in this gospel, by His grace alone.
(4) Because God’s grace alone saves us, through faith alone, in Christ alone, God alone therefore gets all the glory (soli Deo gloria), no one else does (Isa 42:8, Rom 3:27, 1 Cor 6:20, Rom 11:36, 1 Chron 16:29).
Isaiah 42:8: “I am Yahweh, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another [any other], Nor My praise to graven images.”
(5) The ultimate, final, infallible authority by which we know and believe the truth, that we can be saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone—is Scripture alone (sola Scriptura)—no other man, no pope, and no nullifying traditions of men (Matt 5:1-6, Mark 7:5-10, Ps 138:2, John 5:39, 10:35).
Salvation, in other words, is entirely by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, based on the ultimate authority of Scripture alone—all of which is God’s gift to us.