The Five Solas
and how do we understand them? by
Jack
Kettler
“Shew me thy ways, O LORD;
teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)
This study is an overview of
what are known as the “Five
Solas.” How are we saved, who is gets
the glory, and what is the believer’s binding
doctrinal authority? Prayerfully, these
questions will be clarified and answered in
this theological synopsis.
Definitions from two sources:
Five Solas
Literally, the “five alones,”
the “five Latin phrases (or slogans) that
emerged during the Protestant Reformation and
summarize the Reformers’ basic beliefs and
emphasis in contradistinction to the teaching
of the Roman Catholic Church of the day
“consisting of sola
scriptura (scripture alone), solus
Christus (Christ alone), sola
gratia (grace alone), sola fide
(faith alone), and soli Deo
gloria (glory to God alone). *
The five Solas
are five Latin phrases popularized during the
Protestant Reformation that emphasized the
distinctions between the early Reformers and
the Roman Catholic Church. The word sola
is the Latin word for “only” and was used in
relation to five key teachings that defined
the biblical pleas of Protestants. **
1. Sola
Scriptura: “Scripture alone.”
2. Sola Fide:
“faith alone.”
3. Sola
Gratia: “grace alone.”
4. Solo
Christo: “Christ alone.”
5. Soli Deo
Gloria: “to the glory of God alone.”
From Scripture:
Sola Scriptura
All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness: That the man of
God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto
all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
“Knowing this first that no
prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation. For the prophecy came not in
old time by the will of man: but holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:20-21)
Sola Fide
“For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
“But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident:
for the just shall live by faith.” (Galatians
3:11)
Sola Gratia
“Being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:24)
“For by grace are ye saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves: it
is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man
should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Solo Christo
“For there is one God, and
one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus;” (1 Timothy 2:5)
“For we have not a high
priest which cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities; but was in all
points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Soli Deo Gloria
“Whether therefore ye eat, or
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the
glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)
“If any man speak, let him
speak as the oracles of God; if any man
minister, let him do it as of the ability
which God giveth: that God in all things may
be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be
praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
(1 Peter 4:11)
Comments; Sola
Scriptura still at the Center of the
Divide and Why:
Some Roman Catholics have
alleged that the Bible does not teach Sola
Scriptura. Some former Protestants, now
Roman Catholic, apologists, have said that Sola
Scriptura means “the Bible plus nothing
else.” Alleging that the Protestant position
is “the Bible plus nothing else” is a
straw-man argument and is false. Sola
Scriptura means that the Bible is the
final court of appeal, not the only court of
appeal. To the Roman Catholic, we ask, “Where
does the Bible direct God's people to an
outside authority structure such as a ‘sacred
oral’ tradition?” The force of this question
should not be dismissed. We see that Sola
Scriptura is taught all over the face of
Scripture and that the traditions of men are
condemned by Christ repeatedly. In essence,
the critics of Sola Scriptura are saying that
the Protestant must accept, as the final
authority, whatever is stated by the Roman or
Eastern Orthodox Church.
However, if the church is
always correct, why did Christ attack the
religious authorities of the Old Testament
Church? Christ did this using the most
forceful terminology, such as hypocrites and
vipers. The fact is that sometimes even the
church will err in its doctrine. If the Old
Testament Church erred, why should anyone deny
or be surprised at the fact that the church in
the gospel age can and has fallen into error
as well? What happens when the church
misinterprets the Bible? Can the believer
challenge the misinterpretation? As
Protestants, we say yes to the last question,
but this does not mean by doing so we are
disregarding or repudiating the church. It
means that we have to test all things in light
of Scripture. Testing all things in light of
Scripture includes even the rulings and
doctrine of the church. If this is necessary,
it should be done in humility. The faithful
church sees that the Scriptures always stand
as the final infallible authority above it.
Christ is the head of the church. He speaks
through the Scriptures. The faithful church
should always be reforming and checking itself
in light of Scripture.
How can error creep into the
church? The leaders in the Old Testament
covenant nation did not want the people to
misinterpret and break God's law. Trying to
prevent misinterpretation of Scripture and the
breaking God’s law is a worthy goal. Who would
want that to happen? To prevent this, the
elders of Israel built walls and fences
created with man-made regulations to go around
God's law. These man-made laws are found in
the Talmud. These additional laws would
allegedly keep the people from even getting
close to breaking one of God's laws. Did this
work? What were the consequences of this?
These man-made laws produced ignorance in
Israel regarding God's law. The traditions of
the elders became confused with the word of
God. They, in fact, became a significant
burden for God's people. Not only were these
traditions of men a burden, but they also made
the commandments of God of no effect (Mark
7:13).
Likewise, the Roman Church
did not want people to misinterpret Scripture
because it is God's Word. This ostensibly
sounds good, since it is wrong and sinful to
misinterpret God's Word, and it would bring
judgment upon those who did so. What was the
Roman Church's attempted solution to this
possibility of misinterpretation? The Roman
Church placed the Bible on its list of
forbidden books! If the people did not have
the Bible to read, then they would not be able
to misinterpret it. The logic may be correct,
but it is perverse. Eventually, the people in
the Roman Churches were not able to recognize
the difference between the church’s laws,
traditions, superstitions, and heresies, and
the pure Word of God. In fact, these
strategies by ancient Jewish leaders and
Romanists produced a greater ignorance of the
law of God and the Scriptures. These
strategies to keep the people of God from
breaking God's law or misinterpreting the
Bible were noble on the surface, but in
reality are evil, since they produce ignorance
among the people of God.
Does the theory of “sacred
oral tradition” invalidate the Protestant
doctrine of Sola Scriptura? How do we know
if sacred traditions are true? Is it because
the church says so? How do we know the word of
the church regarding a particular sacred
tradition is true? Is it because it is in
agreement with sacred tradition? If this is
the case, then we would seem to be going in a
circle.
In Eastern Orthodoxy and
Romanism, tradition is elevated on a par equal
with Scripture. So it needs to be asked: Has
God revealed all his revelation now?
Otherwise, is the body of revelation, i.e.,
“sacred tradition” still expanding? If it is
still expanding, how long will these alleged
traditions continue to expand or grow? If the
sacred oral traditions are written down, what
becomes of them? Are they now considered to be
equivalent to the Old and New Testament
writings? If so, why not revise the Scriptures
by adding them to the Bible? Is there a sacred
book of traditions? Are there commentaries
that explain these “sacred traditions”? If so,
are these commentaries inspired? Can every-day
men read them? Alternatively, do we need a
special leader to decipher the meaning?
Does this expanding body of
revelations or traditions ever contradict each
other? It should be noted that Roman Catholic
theology is still evolving because of the
influence of these traditions. The development
of Mariology is an example of this. One would
have to be dishonest to deny that there are
contradictions between the different
traditions. For example, Eastern Orthodoxy and
Roman Catholics have traditions that
contradict each other at various points. The
role of “feasts,” “fasts,” “festivals,” the “filoque,”
“papal claims,” “original sin,” “purgatory,”
the “immaculate conception” and the use of
“icons” are examples of different,
contradictory traditions. Moreover, there is
much debate and disagreement upon precisely
what some traditions mean in the first place.
The Eastern Orthodox Church
first acted on a fundamental principle of
Protestantism by breaking with the Roman
Church in 1054 over the filoque
controversy. The filoque
controversy erupted when a Roman Catholic
Pope, outside of a church council, changed the
Nicene Creed. The fact is, there are serious
theological differences between Roman
Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, which
include divisions or factions among
themselves, as well as with new age mysticism,
liberalism, and outright humanism, manifesting
themselves in a variety of ways.
In defense of Protestantism,
it needs to be
explained how someone may look at the
Reformation doctrine of Sola
Fide (by faith alone) and say this is
not what the Bible teaches. They might say,
“The Bible says we are saved by grace.” Yet
the Latin phrase that highlights this
Protestant doctrine does not even mention
grace, it only speaks of faith. Such
statements would reveal an appalling amount of
ignorance. Sola Fide,
or “by faith alone” must be understood in its
historical context. The debate that was raging
at the time concerned faith as the means
through which a person was saved or justified.
Both positions had the doctrine of salvation
by grace in their formulas.
Although the Roman Church
uses the word “grace” in its formulation of
justification, their religious sacramental
system has subverted the biblical doctrine of
grace and turned it into a system of works.
The Protestant battle cry was “by faith alone”
in contrast to the Roman Church, which was
essentially saying “faith plus works.”
Understanding the historical circumstances of
the debate clears up any misconception about
the Protestant use of the formula “by faith
alone,” which did not leave out grace at all.
Soli
Gratia or “by grace alone” went right
along with Sola Fide.
The Romanist position
essentially said that faith plus works
produced justification, which placed a man in
a tenuous state of grace. In the Romanist
view, a man could fall from this state of
grace. The Protestant position in contrast to
this said that it was “faith alone” (the
result of God's imputing grace) that produced
justification, thus saving a man. If Sola Fideis taken
out of its historical context, it can be made
to appear to conflict with Scripture. The
Latin formula is a phrase drawing attention to
the difference between the Protestant and
Romanist positions on justification. The
Protestant position did not reduce it to
“faith only,” minus grace, as the surface
meaning of the Latin might appear. An
objection like this is nothing more than a
clever ‘straw-man’ fallacy that capitalizes on
the ignorance of modern readers.
Likewise, the Protestant
doctrine of Sola
Scriptura, if taken out of its
historical context, can be made to appear to
be unconvincing. The debate surrounding Sola
Scriptura was a debate over ultimate
authority. The Roman Church claims that it,
the church, was the infallible final court of
appeal. If time is taken to study the debate
during the Reformation, it is clearly seen
that the Protestants were claiming that the
Bible the only infallible rule of faith and is
the final court of appeal. They were not
saying, “The Bible plus nothing else.” An
ignorant person in the twentieth century
looking at the Latin formula just on the
surface may get this impression. If they
believe this is the Protestant position, it is
the result of their ignorance. To correctly
understand the Latin formula used by the men
of the Reformation, one must understand the
context of the debate at the time.
The Protestants were not
claiming that a person was forbidden to use
commentaries or to refer to church history, or
to have church synods and assemblies to help
settle disputes. To illustrate, John Calvin
produced a commentary set on the Bible that is
still the standard against which all others
are measured. Philip Schaff, a noteworthy
Protestant historian, wrote a valuable
eight-volume church history, a three-volume
work on the creeds of Christendom, and edited
the thirty-eight-volume church fathers set.
It is beyond dispute that
Protestantism has produced a rich tradition of
scholarship. Does this violate its stated
position? Of course not! The Protestant
position is not some simplistic “the Bible
plus nothing” theory. Those who allege this
are dishonest or ignorant. Since the
Scriptures are the Word of God, Protestants
have always maintained that there could be no
other authority to which they may appeal. It
should be noted that Protestants are not
against traditions. Reformation Protestants
are merely against traditions that are
contrary to Scripture. Protestants believe
firmly in the church's role in the
interpretation of Scripture. The Regula
Fidei or what is known as the ‘Rule of
Faith’, guards against the danger of the
individual setting himself up as the ultimate
interpreter of Scripture.
Radical individualism in the
area of interpretation of Scripture is akin to
anarchy. It should be noted that the
Reformation Protestants strongly condemned the
radical individualism of the Anabaptists of
their day, which sought to overthrow all
authority. The Ecumenical Creeds serve an
essential role in understanding the Rule of
Faith. In Protestantism, debates on the
meaning of Scripture take place in the church.
In Reformed Churches, in particular, there are
courts of appeal to guard against the
possibility of error at any level of the
debate. Protestants claim that the Bible is
the infallible final court of appeal in
settling debates. The Bible being the final
court of appeal is the meaning of Sola
Scriptura. ***
A Contemporary Restatement of
the Solas:
The Cambridge Declaration
of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals
Formulated April 20, 1996, by a
group of conservative evangelical theologians
and pastors, The Cambridge Declaration of the
Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is a call
to recover the historic Christian faith. The
Five Solas
of the sixteenth century Protestant
Reformation form the outline of the
declaration.
The text
Evangelical churches today are
increasingly dominated by the spirit of this
age rather than by the Spirit of Christ. As
evangelicals, we call ourselves to repent of
this sin and to recover the historic Christian
faith.
In the course of history words
change. In our day this has happened to the
word “evangelical.” In the past it served as a
bond of unity between Christians from a wide
diversity of church traditions. Historic
evangelicalism was confessional. It embraced
the essential truths of Christianity as those
were defined by the great ecumenical councils
of the church. In addition, evangelicals also
shared a common heritage in the “solas”
of the sixteenth century Protestant
Reformation.
Today the light of the
Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The
consequence is that the word “evangelical” has
become so inclusive as to have lost its
meaning. We face the peril of losing the unity
it has taken centuries to achieve. Because of
this crisis and because of our love of Christ,
his gospel and his church, we endeavor to
assert anew our commitment to the central
truths of the Reformation and of historic
evangelicalism. These truths we affirm not
because of their role in our traditions, but
because we believe that they are central to
the Bible.
Sola Scriptura: The Erosion of Authority
Scripture alone is the inerrant
rule of the church's life, but the evangelical
church today has separated Scripture from its
authoritative function. In practice, the
church is guided, far too often, by the
culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing
strategies, and the beat of the entertainment
world often have far more to say about what
the church wants, how it functions and what it
offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors
have neglected their rightful oversight of
worship, including the doctrinal content of
the music. As biblical authority has been
abandoned in practice, as its truths have
faded from Christian consciousness, and as its
doctrines have lost their saliency, the church
has been increasingly emptied of its
integrity, moral authority and direction.
Rather than adapting Christian
faith to satisfy the felt needs of consumers,
we must proclaim the law as the only measure
of true righteousness and the gospel as the
only announcement of saving truth. Biblical
truth is indispensable to the church's
understanding, nurture and discipline.
Scripture must take us beyond our
perceived needs to our real needs and liberate
us from seeing ourselves through the seductive
images, cliché’s, promises and priorities of
mass culture. It is only in the light of God's
truth that we understand ourselves aright and
see God's provision for our need. The Bible,
therefore, must be taught and preached in the
church. Sermons must be expositions of the
Bible and its teachings, not expressions of
the preacher’s opinions or the ideas of the
age. We must settle for nothing less than what
God has given.
The work of the Holy Spirit in
personal experience cannot be disengaged from
Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in ways
that are independent of Scripture. Apart from
Scripture we would never have known of God's
grace in Christ. The biblical Word, rather
than spiritual experience, is the test of
truth.
Thesis One: Sola
Scriptura
We reaffirm the inerrant
Scripture to be the sole source of written
divine revelation, which alone can bind the
conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that
is necessary for our salvation from sin and is
the standard by which all Christian behavior
must be measured. We deny that any creed,
council or individual may bind a Christian's
conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks
independently of or contrary to what is set
forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual
experience can ever be a vehicle of
revelation.
Solus Christus: The Erosion of
Christ-Centered Faith
As evangelical faith becomes
secularized, its interests have been blurred
with those of the culture. The result is a
loss of absolute values, permissive
individualism, and a substitution of wholeness
for holiness, recovery for repentance,
intuition for truth, feeling for belief,
chance for providence, and immediate
gratification for enduring hope. Christ and
his cross have moved from the center of our
vision.
Thesis Two: Solus
Christus
We reaffirm that our salvation is
accomplished by the mediatorial work of the
historical Christ alone. His sinless life and
substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient
for our justification and reconciliation to
the Father.
We deny that the gospel is
preached if Christ's substitutionary work is
not declared and faith in Christ and his work
is not solicited.
Sola Gratia: The Erosion of the Gospel
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.
Sola Fide: The Erosion of the Chief
Article
Justification is by grace alone
through faith alone because of Christ alone.
This is the article by which the church stands
or falls. Today this article is often ignored,
distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders,
scholars and pastors who claim to be
evangelical. Although fallen human nature has
always recoiled from recognizing its need for
Christ's imputed righteousness, modernity
greatly fuels the fires of this discontent
with the biblical Gospel. We have allowed this
discontent to dictate the nature of our
ministry and what it is we are preaching.
Many in the church growth
movement believe that sociological
understanding of those in the pew is as
important to the success of the gospel as is
the biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a
result, theological convictions are frequently
divorced from the work of the ministry. The
marketing orientation in many churches takes
this even further, erasing the distinction
between the biblical Word and the world,
robbing Christ's cross of its offense, and
reducing Christian faith to the principles and
methods which bring success to secular
corporations.
While the theology of the cross
may be believed, these movements are actually
emptying it of its meaning. There is no gospel
except that of Christ's substitution in our
place whereby God imputed to him our sin and
imputed to us his righteousness. Because he
bore our judgment, we now walk in his grace as
those who are forever pardoned, accepted and
adopted as God's children. There is no basis
for our acceptance before God except in
Christ's saving work, not in our patriotism,
churchly devotion or moral decency. The gospel
declares what God has done for us in Christ.
It is not about what we can do to reach him.
Thesis Four: Sola
Fide
We reaffirm that justification is
by grace alone through faith alone because of
Christ alone. In justification Christ's
righteousness is imputed to us as the only
possible satisfaction of God's perfect
justice.
We deny that justification rests
on any merit to be found in us, or upon the
grounds of an infusion of Christ's
righteousness in us, or that an institution
claiming to be a church that denies or
condemns sola fide can be recognized as a
legitimate church.
Soli Deo Gloria: The Erosion of
God-Centered Worship
Wherever in the church biblical
authority has been lost, Christ has been
displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or
faith has been perverted, it has always been
for one reason: our interests have displaced
God's and we are doing his work in our way.
The loss of God's centrality in the life of
today's church is common and lamentable. It is
this loss that allows us to transform worship
into entertainment, gospel preaching into
marketing, believing into technique, being
good into feeling good about ourselves, and
faithfulness into being successful. As a
result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to
mean too little to us and rest too
inconsequentially upon us.
God does not exist to satisfy
human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for
consumption, or our own private spiritual
interests. We must focus on God in our
worship, rather than the satisfaction of our
personal needs. God is sovereign in worship;
we are not. Our concern must be for God's
kingdom, not our own empires, popularity or
success.
Thesis Five: Soli
Deo Gloria
We reaffirm that because
salvation is of God and has been accomplished
by God, it is for God's glory and that we must
glorify him always. We must live our entire
lives before the face of God, under the
authority of God and for his glory alone. We
deny that we can properly glorify God if our
worship is confused with entertainment, if we
neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching,
or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-
fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives
to the gospel.
Call to Repentance and
Reformation
The faithfulness of the
evangelical church in the past contrasts
sharply with its unfaithfulness in the
present. Earlier in this century, evangelical
churches sustained a remarkable missionary
endeavor, and built many religious
institutions to serve the cause of biblical
truth and Christ's kingdom. That was a time
when Christian behavior and expectations were
markedly different from those in the culture.
Today they often are not. The evangelical
world today is losing its biblical fidelity,
moral compass and missionary zeal.
We repent of our worldliness. We
have been influenced by the "gospels" of our
secular culture, which are no gospels. We have
weakened the church by our own lack of serious
repentance, our blindness to the sins in
ourselves which we see so clearly in others,
and our inexcusable failure adequately to tell
others about God's saving work in Jesus
Christ.
We also earnestly call back
erring professing evangelicals who have
deviated from God's Word in the matters
discussed in this Declaration. This includes
those who declare that there is hope of
eternal life apart from explicit faith in
Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject
Christ in this life will be annihilated rather
than endure the just judgment of God through
eternal suffering, or who claim that
evangelicals and Roman Catholics are one in
Jesus Christ even where the biblical doctrine
of justification is not believed.
The Alliance of Confessing
Evangelicals asks all Christians to give
consideration to implementing this Declaration
in the church's worship, ministry, policies,
life and evangelism. For Christ's sake. Amen.
ACE Council Members the ACE
council members at the time of the declaration
were:
See below ****
In closing:
“Unless I am convicted by
Scripture and plain reason-I do not accept the
authority of popes and councils, for they have
contradicted each other-my conscience is
captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will
not recant anything, for to go against
conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I
stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me.
Amen.” - Martin Luther
“Holy Scripture is the highest
authority for every believer, the standard of
faith and the foundation for reform.” - John
Wycliffe
“The existence of the Bible, as a
book for the people, is the greatest benefit
which the human race has ever experienced.
Every attempt to belittle it is a crime
against humanity.”-
Immanuel Kant
“The Bible is the only force
known to history that has freed entire nations
from corruption while simultaneously giving
them political freedom.” - Vishal Mangalwadi
“It is impossible to enslave,
mentally or socially, a Bible-reading people.
The principles of the Bible are the groundwork
of human freedom.” - Horace Greeley
“Ignorance of the Bible is
ignorance of Jesus.” - St. Jerome
“I know not a better rule of
reading the Scripture, than to read it through
from beginning to end and when we have
finished it once, to begin it again. We shall
meet with many passages which we can make
little improvement of, but not so many in the
second reading as in the first, and fewer in
the third than in the second: provided we pray
to him who has the keys to open our
understandings, and to anoint our eyes with
His spiritual ointment.” - John Newton
“I want to know one thing, the
way to heaven: how to land safe on that happy
shore. God himself has condescended to teach
the way; for this very end he came from
heaven. He has written it down in a book! Oh,
give me that book! At any price, give me the
book of God! I have it: here is knowledge
enough for me. Let me be: “A man of one book.”
- John Wesley
“I began to read the Holy
Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all
other books, and praying over, if possible,
every line and word. This proved meat indeed
and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received
fresh life, light and power from above.” -
George Whitefield
“The Bible has always been
regarded as part of the Common Law of
England.” - Sir William Blackstone
“I saw that the most important
thing I had to do was to give myself to the
reading of the Word of God, and to meditation
on it…. What is the food of the inner man? Not
prayer, but the Word of God; and….not the
simple reading of the Word of God, so that it
only passes through our minds, just as water
runs through a pipe, but considering what we
read, pondering over it, and applying it to
our hearts.” - George Müller
“The Scriptures teach us the best
way of living, the noblest way of suffering,
and the most comfortable way of dying.” -
Flavel
“The Bible as a book stands
alone. There never was, nor ever will be,
another like it. As there is but one sun to
enlighten the world naturally, so there is but
one Book to enlighten the world spiritually.
May that Book become to each of us the man of
our counsel, the guide of our journey, and our
support and comfort in life and in death?”- A.
Galloway
“The more you read the Bible, the
more you meditate on it, the more you will be
astonished by it.” - Charles Spurgeon
“The Bible is the light of my
understanding, the joy of my heart, the
fullness of my hope, the clarified of my
affections, the mirror of my thoughts, the
consoler of my sorrows, the guide of my soul
through this gloomy labyrinth of time, the
telescope went from heaven to reveal to the
eye of man the amazing glories of the far
distant world.” - Sir William Jones
“The Holy Scriptures are our
letters from home.” - Augustine of Hippo
“Let us therefore yield ourselves
and bow to the authority of the Holy
Scriptures, which can neither err nor
deceive.” – Augustine of Hippo
“I exhort and entreat you all,
disregard what this man and that man thinks
about such things, and inquire from the Holy
Scriptures all these things.” – John
Chrysostom
“The Bible is worth all other
books which have ever been printed.” – Patrick
Henry
“Blessed
art
thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.” (Psalm
119:12)
“Study to shew thyself
approved unto God, a workman that needeth not
to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
“To God, only wise, be glory
through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans
16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.”
(Galatians 3:28, 29)
Mr. Kettler has previously
published articles in the Chalcedon Report
and Contra Mundum. He and his wife
Marea attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA
Church. Mr. Kettler is the author of the book
defending the Reformed Faith against attacks,
titled: The Religion That Started in a
Hat. Available at:
www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For more study:
* For a great source of
theological definitions go to Rebecca writes
at Rebecca Writes:
http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/