Yesterday, in celebration of the beginning of the 500th year of the Protestant Reformation, I started offering “A Sola A Day to Keep Heresies Away.” We talked yesterday about Sola Scriptura and the importance of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible to the Christian life.
The five Solas are Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and the glory of God alone.
The five Solas of the Protestant Reformation are biblically grounded theological principles that guided the Reformers as they sought to right what had gone wrong as Christianity morphed from a movement into an institution into something far afield from the Biblical vision of the Church in the world.
Today’s Sola is Soli Deo Gloria! For the Glory of God Alone
What part of your life — indeed what part of life itself — is free of God? There is nowhere that God is not and there is nothing over which God does not say, “Mine.” That’s doesn’t mean that God is greedy, it means that God is glorious! There is nothing and no one, at no time, in no place, under no circumstance about which God does not care and over which God is not sovereign.
The heresy that had arisen overtime was the division of life into the sacred and the secular. The reformers saw all of life to be lived under the Lordship of Christ. Just as everything is created by God for His glory, so too every aspect of life is redeemed and sanctified unto the glory of God. That is the Christian life — not that we are saved for ourselves and our own glory, but for the Glory of God alone.
The Reformation reclaimed the Scriptural teaching of the sovereignty of God over every aspect of the believer’s life. All of life is to be lived to the glory of God.
For all of our theological shortcomings as Americans this we get right. In the State of Theology survey recently conducted by Ligonier and LifeWay Research, most American’s got the answer to the first question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism right. It asks, “What is the chief end of man? Most Americans actually still answer that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”
That is a great and all-consuming purpose! That washes over and fills not only the time we spend intentionally in worship or at church, but in leisure and at work, in relationships and at school, in politics and at the ballfield. Each and all of those moments, environments and relationships are part of the life God redeems — not by conformity to the world but by the sanctifying of the Christian life, according to the Word of God and continual transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
As the Scripture says:
“Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31
“Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.” 1 Peter 4:11
“He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever.” Revelation 1:6
“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.” 2Peter 3:18
“To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.” Ephesians 3:21
“Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever.” Revelation 7:12
“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” Romans 11:36
So, today’s Sola is Sola Dei Gloria. In celebration of the 500th year of the Reformation, live today for the Glory of God, alone.
Listen to Carmen on The Reconnect as she celebrates the Reformation this week by focusing on “A Sola A Day to Drive the Heresies Away!”