Grace Alone (5 Solas)

Salvation as a Gift of God: What the Reformers Taught…and Why It Still Matters

Historians and theologians alike have long recognized that at the heart of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation were the five solas: sola scriptura, solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, and soli Deo gloria. These five solas do not merely summarize what the Reformation was all about but have served to distinguish Protestantism ever since. They set Protestants apart in a unique way as those who place ultimate and final authority in the Scriptures, acknowledge the work of Christ alone as sufficient for redemption, recognize that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, and seek to not only give God all of the glory but to do all things vocationally for his glory.

Though the context and circumstances of life, the specific struggles or events throughout the church’s history may have shifted over the past five hundred years, the five declarations that distinguished the Protestant Reformation from other expressions of the Christian faith continue to speak to us today, addressing a wide range of contemporary issues and serving as our great inheritance from those believers who have gone before us.

In Grace Alone, a volume from the Five Solas series, pastor and scholar Carl Trueman examines the historical and biblical roots of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone, a free gift unmerited by human efforts or works. Trueman explores the development of this theme across church history – from the early church through the Reformation to the Protestant confessions that still shape the church today. He also looks at the biblical means of receiving God’s grace, highlighting the urgency in which we need to recover this doctrine in the face of today’s challenges.