Maybe, some readers will find it surprising that I’m using the Jesuit phrase, “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” with the first four Solas of the Reformation. In English, it means, “For the greater glory of God.” The fifth Sola is “Soli Deo Gloria” which means, “Glory to God alone.” It’s very hypocritical for the Jesuits and the other counter-reformers to use the phrase, “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” when they reject the first four Solas. It’s even called the four villains of the Reformation. These Solas are Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, and Solus Christo. In English, they mean Scripture Alone, Faith Alone, Grace Alone, and In Christ Alone. All these lead to the fifth Sola namely Glory to God Alone. I have no problem with saying the Jesuit phrase (and no, they have no monopoly over the phrase), “For the greater glory of God.” because that statement is never exclusive to the Ignatian Spirituality movement or Roman Catholicism.
It’s very easy to get lost or even misrepresent what the first four mean. We need to clarify what these first four Solas mean which I’ll take from Got Questions:
Sola scriptura emphasizes the Bible alone as the source of authority for Christians. By saying, “Scripture alone,” the Reformers rejected both the divine authority of the Roman Catholic Pope and confidence in sacred tradition. Only the Bible was “inspired by God” (2 Peter 1:20-21) and “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Anything taught by the Pope or in tradition that contradicted the Bible was to be rejected. Sola scriptura also fueled the translation of the Bible into German, French, English, and other languages, and prompted Bible teaching in the common languages of the day, rather than in Latin.
Sola fide emphasizes salvation as a free gift. The Roman Catholic Church of the time emphasized the use of indulgences (donating money) to buy status with God. Good works, including baptism, were seen as required for salvation. Sola fide stated that salvation is a free gift to all who accept it by faith (John 3:16). Salvation is not based on human effort or good deeds (Ephesians 2:9).
Sola gratia emphasizes grace as the reason for our salvation. In other words, salvation comes from what God has done rather than what we do. Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Solo Christo (sometimes listed as Solus Christus, “through Christ alone”) emphasizes the role of Jesus in salvation. The Roman Catholic tradition had placed church leaders such as priests in the role of intercessor between the laity and God. Reformers emphasized Jesus’ role as our “high priest” who intercedes on our behalf before the Father. Hebrews 4:15 teaches, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus is the One who offers access to God, not a human spiritual leader.
If what is taught isn’t Scriptura, it should be rejected
Cults always take Scriptures out of context and it should be expected of them. These people are spiritually dead. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says that the Scriptures can’t understand the Word of God. They may be physically alive but they’re spiritually dead. They’re dead to spiritual things. Their spiritual understanding is dead as dry bones. I tried studying the “biblical claims” of the cults and not just Roman Catholicism. The amount of verses taken out of context is alarming! I read through the claims of Mormonism, the Iglesia ni Manalo, Ang Dating Daan, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc., and find their use of Scriptures very loosely applied just like Rome! I used to argue a lot until I realized that I could only warn them. People who are spiritually dead, have a dead understanding of spiritual things.
That’s why one of the most hidden secrets of Rome today is that Roman Catholics weren’t even allowed to read a Catholic Bible. Martin Luther used a Catholic Bible. Jan Hus used a Catholic Bible. Girolamo Savonarola used a Catholic Bible. Even some KJV Onlyists will admit that the Reformation was launched by, again, a Catholic Bible. Most Roman Catholics believe that claim to be a fable. I guess they haven’t read older Roman Catholic literature which they may have never run into these today:
‘In early times, the Bible was read freely by the lay people, and the Fathers constantly encourage them to do so, although they also insist on the obscurity of the sacred text. No prohibitions were issued against the popular reading of the Bible. New dangers came during the Middle Ages. When the heresy of the Albigenses arose there was a danger from corrupt translations, and also from the fact that the heretics tried to make the faithful judge the Church by their own interpretation of the Bible. To meet these evils, the Council of Toulouse (1229) and Tarragona (1234) forbade the laity to read the vernacular translations of the Bible. Pius IV required the bishops to refuse lay persons leave to read even Catholic versions of the Scripture, unless their confessors or parish priests judged that such readings was likely to prove beneficial.’ (Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, The Catholic Publications Society Co., N.Y., 1887, p. 82).
‘We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old and the New Testament; unless anyone from the motives of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.’ (Edward Peters. Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, Council of Toulouse, 1229, Canon 14, p 195.)
‘Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm than good, the matter is in this respect left to the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor, who may with the advice of the pastor or confessor permit the reading of the Sacred Books translated into the vernacular by Catholic authors to those who they know will derive from such reading no harm but rather an increase of faith and piety, which permission they must have in writing. Those, however, who presume to read or possess them without such permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed them over to the ordinary. Bookdealers who sell or in any other way supply Bibles written in the vernacular to anyone who has not this permission, shall lose the price of the books, which is to be applied by the bishop to pious purposes, and in keeping with the nature of the crime they shall be subject to other penalties which are left to the judgment of the same bishop. Regulars who have not the permission of their superiors may not read or purchase them.’ (Council of Trent: Rules on Prohibited Books, approved by Pope Pius IV, 1564).
With the basis of the Scripture, the issues of salvation are addressed
Sola Fide talks about salvation apart from human merit. Sola Gratia emphasizes the grace of God from salvation and even sanctification. This was an emphasis that although we aren’t saved by good works and by grace, true faith, and true grace will beget good works. Luther, but another reformer, stated this hard truth on Sola Fide and Sola Gratia:
Faith is not something dramed, a human illusion, although this is what many people understand by the term. Whenever they see that it is not followed either by an improvement in morals or by good works, while much is still being said about faith, they fall into the error of declaring that faith is not enough, that we must do “works” if we are to become upright and attain salvation. The reason is that, when they hear the gospel, they miss the point; in their hearts, and out of their own resources, they conjure up an idea which they call “belief” which they treat as genuine faith. All the same, it is but a human fabrication, an idea without a corresponding experience in the depths of the heart. It is therefore ineffective and not followed by a better life.
Faith, however, is something that God effects in us. It changes us and we are reborn from God, John 1. Faith puts the old Adam to death and makes us quite different men in heart, in mind, and in all our powers; and it is accompanied by the Holy Spirit. O, when it comes to faith, what a living, creative, active, powerful thing it is. It cannot do other than good at all times. It never waits to ask whether there is some work to do, rathe rbefore the question is raised, it has done the deed, and keeps on doing it. A man not active in this way is a man without faith. He is groping about for faith and searching for good works, buit knows neither what faith is nor what good works are. Nevertheless, he keeps on talking nonsense about faith and good works.
…It is impossible, indeed to separate works from faith, just as it is impossible to separate heat and light from fire.
Later, John Calvin (a former classmate of Ignatius of Loyola), from whom we get the nickname Calvinism sometime after he passed away, also had a debate with Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto. He wrote:
We deny that good works have any share in our justification, but we claim full authority for them in the lives of the righteous… It is obvious that gratuitious righteousness is necessarily connected with generation. Therefore, if you would duly understand how inseparable faith and works are, look to Christ, who, as the Apostle teache (1 Cor. 1:20) has bene given to us for justification and for sanctification. Wherever, therefore, the righteous of faith, which we maitnain to be gratuituous, is there too Christ is, and where Christ is, there too is the Spirit of holiness, who regenerates the soul to the newness of life. On the contrary, where zeal for integrity and holiness is not vigor, there neither is the Spirit of Christ nor Christ Himself, and wherever Chris is not, there is no righteousness, tnay there is no faith; for faith cannot apprehend Christ for righteousness without the Spirit of sanctification.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Canon Law obviously adds works to faith, in contrast to Catholics’ claim they don’t work for their salvation:
Canon 11. If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, excluding grace and charity which is poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inheres in them, or also that the grace which justifies us is only the favour of God, let him be anathema.
Canon 12. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.
Canon 24. If anyone says that the justice (righteousness) received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of the increase, let him be anathema.
Canon 30. If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.
Canon 32. If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ (of whom one is a living member), the justified does not truly merit an increase of grace, and eternal life, provided that one dies in the state of grace, the attainment of this eternal life, as well as an increase in glory, let him be anathema.
The object of faith is through Christ alone
The problem with the Catholic hierarchy has been it has added so much red tape. To get to Christ, you have to pass through Mary the earthly mother, the saints, etc. Even more, people had to confess their sins to priests instead of directly confessing them to God. The problem had become that instead of pointing people to Jesus, the priests themselves tried to become co co-mediators between God and man. People pray for each other to Jesus directly, not through dead people, priests. etc. The communion of the saints is where people pray for each other and pray together. That’s why we have prayer meetings. However, dead people can’t join prayer meetings on Earth at all! The dead are either in Hell or in Heaven depending if they received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, or not!
The problem that Rome (as well as similar cults) is that they have made the church a means of salvation rather than a place for saved people to join:
In the early sixteenth century, the church was at the center of people’s lives in Western Europe. Over the previous centuries, the Roman Catholic Church had devolved from the “Company of the Saved” to the “Salvation Company.”
What is meant by “Salvation Company”? Luther recognized that in his day people had become enslaved to the sacramental system of the Roman Catholic Church, and instead of looking to Christ for their standing before God they looked to the Church. It was thought that because of Christ, Mary, and the saints there was a storehouse of grace in the Catholic Church. Priests were its sole dispensers and the faithful had to come to them.
In 1520, Luther wrote The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, where he attacked the sacramental system of the church. That system, Luther said, represented a captivity that had become its own Babylon, holding captive the people of God from cradle to grave: In the church one was baptized as an infant, confirmed as a youth, married as a mature person, and received extreme unction on one’s deathbed. Each of these sacraments, along with ordination, were seen as conveying grace when administered by a priest. The grace conferred was supplemented throughout one’s life by two further sacraments: regular confession of sin to a priest and the reception of the Eucharist through a priestly Mass.
From cradle to the grave, the Christian was dependent upon the Catholic Church, tethered to the sacraments in order to receive the grace by which one can be saved.
Joining the church is never for the unsaved. The Church is the body of Christ, which is composed of believers. It’s not some visible earthly organization. The term catholic used by Ignatius of Antioch isn’t the name of the Church but an adjective. Notice that earlier translations of the Apostles’ Creed use catholic instead of the Christian church. I have no problem using the term catholic church. Even Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion described the church to be holy and catholic. Yes, the Church is catholic meaning universal. I have no objections to using the phrase “holy catholic church”. Roman Catholicism, on the other hand, tries to present itself as the true catholic Church in 33 A.D. while teaching a lot of stuff that can only be supported by taking Scriptures, out of context, and forcing people to rely on the priests than read the Scriptures for themselves.
With Scripture alone, it points to faith alone, grace alone, and Christ alone. It’s because the object of faith and grace is in Christ alone. These five solas are not solos. They are cooperative and it’s all about the finality of the authority. of the Scriptures. Every church tradition must be taken from the Scripture. Even the good works that come out of faith are by faith alone, grace alone, and in Christ alone. The end result of a life of good works only by the grace of God is truly Soli Deo Gloria. It can still be said “For the greater glory of God.” because from salvation to sanctification, it has never been about personal achievement but for the greater glory of God, when salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus, as stated by the Scriptures alone as the final authority.
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