The Fatal Flaws of Protestant Theology - sola fide

Sola Fide
By Faith alone. The key cornerstone of Protestant theology and the center of all its disagreements with everyone else. And the key heresy underlying all the rest. The reason sola scriptura was created in the first place. The reason why church government and institution are looked down on. All to defend this one, key piece of thought.

The problem is, it isn't even remotely Biblical. At all. Blatantly and obviously.

The discussion in James 2 was written to counter this very idea, of which I'll only quote the very end:

You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

And James is not alone, here. The very concept of "faith" in the 1st century Greek world carried with it the idea of a response. The idea of something to do. Which is why James can approach the issue with such sarcasm and well and truly call any who hold this "foolish."

We see this in the words of the Lord Himself in Matthew 7, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

Simply calling on the Christ is not enough. Praying for Jesus to come into your heart and be your "personal savior" is not enough. It is doing the will of the Father who is in heaven. He said similar things throughout the gospels -- telling the Apostles in John that "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

The book of Hebrews is full of this stuff, but in more of a bent that addresses the topic of the next post -- once saved always saved -- so I'll save it, and the parallels it brings up from the Old Testament -- till then except for where I feel like it below.

OK, then what about verses like Ephesians 2:8 and Titus 3:5? How can Paul say, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast"?

First of all, in all these passages "works" are never contrasted with "faith." They are contrasted with grace. Read it carefully. This is natural because, to every NT writer faith and works are part-and-parcel of the same thing. Again, that's why the Hebrew writer at the beginning of chapter 4 can use "unbelief" and "disobedience" as synonyms.

But there is a concept here that needs clarifying. And Paul does clarify -- in the first 6 chapters of Romans. The key verse being 4:4, "Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation."

When Paul uses "works" as something man should not depend on -- something that does not save him or justify him -- he is using it to mean a very clear and concrete thing: an attempt to be, basically, an employee of God who earns his salvation as one earning a wage.

When you go to your job you do work. Your employer then owes you your pay-check. You give him something of value so he must give you something of value in return. Tit-for-tat. What Paul is saying is that there is nothing we can give God that is worth our salvation. If you want to earn it as a worker working for a wage then you will never be done. It is too costly.

But his contrast to that, for us, is simple: we are not workers working for a wage. We, if we are in Christ, are slaves to God. That's the concept.

Now, does a slave not work? Of course he does. The difference between an employee and a slave is not that one works and the other doesn't or that work is expected of one and only optional for the other. The difference is that a slave doesn't get paid. Both work. In fact, in general, a slave works far more and far harder. And not by choice, but by compulsion. If one is an employee and does not do one's work you just don't get paid. At worst, you might get fired. When you are a slave that does not work you are disciplined. In Roman times that could be anything including death -- a slave is your property and you could kill him if you wished.

So, even the consequences of not working are worse. We are slaves. We don't get paid, but work is still not only expected but completely compulsory. But, if we are slaves of the Master then we are part of His household and, as such, we enter into His house and His kingdom. Which is salvation.

This is the teaching Paul lays out and then he gives the kicker in chapter 6:

"What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."

Our status as slaves is unique. That we are slaves is not something we have any say in. That is what we, as human beings, are. But we get to choose who our master is: either slaves to sin that leads to death or slaves to God leading to life. We have the choice and the way we make that choice is through our actions: who we choose to obey.

Therefore, although one's works do not earn salvation as a wage they are still necessary because obedience determines who one's master is, and if God is not your master you are not saved. One is only saved by pledging oneself -- through one's life -- as a slave to God and then acting like it.

Hence, although Paul can say at the beginning of Romans 4 we are not justified by works James can say a man is justified by what he does. These two statements are not in conflict. They go together perfectly.

What about faith? Hebrews. Hebrews and the example from the the Israelites in the wilderness, especially at Kadesh. What went wrong at Kadesh? God said, "Go take the land I have given you." The people said, "There are giants there! We'll all die! Why did we ever come here? We're going to find a new leader and go back to Egypt. We'll be slaves, but at least we'll be alive."

Was this unbelief or was this disobedience? Nonsensical question: it was both together because the two are not independent concepts but are one and the same. They did not do what God told them to because they did not believe he would be with them and give them victory. While, as James says, the example of Abraham is one of faith and deeds working together, the example of Kadesh is one of unbelief and disobedience working together.

These things are always tied together: you actions reveal your heart. What you do is always dependent on what you really and truly believe in your heart of hearts. One cannot have faith -- faith that saves -- without it showing in your actions.

Any other concept makes the entirety of the books of Titus and Romans and Galatians and Hebrews and James all meaningless. If there is no intimate and indissolvable connection between what you believe and what you do then these books are meaningless because the entierty of their teaching is, basically, "because this is what you claim to believe, this is how you MUST live."

The idea of sola fide makes the New Testament witness completely break down. It makes the whole thing meaningless. It is not just a small error -- this is building a theology on a set of concepts that are antithetical to what Christ taught.

Lies do not save. Lies built on other lies do not save. When one builds a theology on concepts that are, from the very foundation, not according to truth one does not create something with the power to save from the fires of hell.