What does it mean to be protestant? What are you protesting against? By definition protestants are Protesting against the false teaching of Roman Catholicism. These days many see creeds, affirmations and denominational affiliations as barriers to unity. The danger with this is we could loose everything we claim to stand for that our forefathers have fought so hard to preserve. We cannot know what we stand for until we know what we stand against. So what is it we stand for, and what is it we as protestants stand against?
If you had to use a title to define your belief and conviction as a Christian what would it be? One such title became a noun during the reformation. The term was 'evangelical'. It was coined by the Protestant reformers as they underwent their work of bringing the "one holy, catholic and apostolic church" back to the message by which and for which it was created. The term itself derives from the Greek word euangelion, translated "Gospel". The belief was that the gospel was the grounds for our unity against the false teaching of Rome in the 16th century and later as the grounds against the creeping secularism of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century.
However as a result of the John Wesley's zeal for arminianism which divided evangelical Christianity, and Charles Finney's emphasis on experience in the Second Great Awakening, the "evangel" has been radically altered away from the object of faith and in a sense brought "evangelical" Christianity to a Crisis and a return to Rome. Faith was no longer the grounds of assurance but experience and works became the focus of assurance. Although the Reformation emphases of sin and grace continued to exercise some influence, they were being constantly revised to make the "Gospel" more acceptable to those who thought they could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
It is at this point that those of us who are heirs to the Reformation--must fight to return protestant evangelical Christianty's distinct theological identity that has been since lost--And the heart of that which we must call attention to are the solas (only or alone) that framed the entire sixteenth-century debate: "Only Scripture," "Only Christ," "Only Grace," "Only Faith," and "To God Alone Be Glory."
In the 1500s occurred the largest split in Christendome in the history of the world. Where the protestants broke away from the Romans Catholic Church. It is where we as Anglicans along with all other protestant denominations such as Baptist and Presbyterian have gained our theological convictions as we trust the bible alone to be the authority on all matters of the Christian belief. And the protestants were severely attacked for their convictions. And it came about chiefly through the work of two reformers: Martin Luther and John Calvin as they laboured to recover what they saw had been lost since the time of Jesus and the apostles. And this began when Martin Luther, an Augustinian Monk, came upon the book of Romans and found that in the gospel " the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” They were martyrd for this conviction. In fact an ancient relative of mine was martyrd in the reformation for the same reason. His name was Nicholas Ridley. Our family tree is printed in Australias National library and it dates back to this man.
The most significant teaching that they were argueing against was that we were saved ultimately through the sacraments of the roman catholic church, a belief that is still held by them today. As much as we might find it uncomfortable to discuss the differences between the roman catholic church and the reformers, it is necessary for us to do as the differences surround the most fundamental issue of the Christian faith, that question we begun with: How will we be justified, which means to be given a right standing, before a just and a holy God? Rome teaches that “’justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 492, Quoting the Council of Trent (1574))
Rome teaches that Christ’s righteousness is given to the Roman Catholic Church in what is called a treasury of merit and then distributed through the sacraments. Justification begins with the first sacrament of baptism which removes original sin. Grace is infused into the soul of the recipient beginning a process of making the person actually morally perfect and righteous. The person is then to cooperate by having grace infused through the sacraments: such as penants-involving confession and priestly absolution, mass, becoming a preist, your prayers, the eucharist and communion. Whilst it is grace that is being infused, Final Justification depends on the works of the believer, which God graciously accepts as meritorious.
Since the believer’s progress in holiness is never adequate to cancel the guilt of actual sins, he or she must be refined by thousands of years in purgatory before being welcomes into heaven. By contrast, the Reformers taught, that justification (a right standing before God) is separate from our personal growth in godliness. Whereas Rome teaches that one is finally justified by becoming personally righteous, the reformers conviction is that one grows in godliness out of the gratitude of having already been justified. All of Christ’s gifts are given in our union with him through faith and this faith is given by the grace of God, ascribing no merit to man in Salvation.
There were 5 doctrines that Crystilized the Christian reformation- called the 5 solas. Grace alone, through faith alone by Christ alone for the glory of God alone. With Scripture alone as our authority, not tradition which the Roman Catholics relied heavily upon. The heart of the reformation was the doctrine justification by faith alone, but the undergirding conviction was that it was by grace, through God's spirit that faith is exercised. Expressed by the latin term Sola Fide. Sola means alone. Fide comes from the word faith.
Martin Luther and John Calvin were chiefly concerned with How is a person justified before the sight of God. The urgency that the reformers, who had rejected the teaching of rome, thought about this issue was of the highest degree- it was an issue of salvation.
The 5 Sola's refute the the central tenants of the Roman Catholic view of salvation in the following way:
Protestant Roman Catholic
Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) Scripture and tradition
Faith alone (sola fide) Faith and works
Grace alone (sola gratia) Grace and merit
Christ alone (solus Christus) Christ, Mary, and intercession of saints
Glory to God alone (soli Deo gloria) God, saints, and church hierarchy
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