The two Pillars of the Reformation Movement led by Martin Luther are the Sola Scriptura or Bible Alone Doctrine and the Sola Fide or Justification by Faith Alone Doctrine also short for Justification. According to the words of the founder of Protestantism, "Justification is the Article of Faith on which the Church stands or falls". The Church here for Luther is not the Catholic Church but the Protestant church he founded when he protested against the practices of the Catholic Church during his time starting with his 95 Thesis which he posted on the door of the Church as an act of protest. The author accepts that there are practices in the Catholic Church which have been done by the leaders to the extreme which needed correction and reformation since the church is run by the same sinful men who may commit mistakes but they are not reasons for leaving the true church and founding a new church.
READING THE SCRIPTURE WITHOUT REFERRING TO THE TEACHING AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH CAN BE MISLEADING AND CAN BE USED BY THE DEVIL TO TAKE OUT THE SOUL FROM THE TRUE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD.
Luther's state of mind and the condition of his weakening faith at that time fell exactly on the very same trap that the Evil One, Satan tried unsuccessfully to use against our Lord Jesus Christ in the story of the Temptation of Jesus in the Bible. The action of Luther started with a protest based on his own understanding of the scripture then followed by his act of defiance and obedience against the orders of his superiors being a member of the Catholic Church as a former priest and monk himself. He then ultimately got out of the Catholic Church as many of the heretics like him did from the early beginning of the Early Church founded and built by Jesus Christ through the Apostles led by St. Peter sometime in 30 AD. All of them who have listened to their own voices and their own personal interpretation of the Scriptures have ultimately ended up leaving the Catholic Church. They have gone out of the church of the Living God and chose to found and build their own churches thereby opposing the original and the true church. They chose a different path instead of submitting themselves to the authority of the church of God they instead followed their own authority and build their own church of Man. Instead of helping in building the church of Jesus Christ by calling for true reformation within the Catholic Church as St. Athanasius did when some leaders of the Catholic Church were taking the wrong direction as the Protestants/Reformation did, they opted to have their own founded churches according to their own desires and oppose the only one true Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Having gone out of the Catholic Church and building their own churches, they have to take an opposite position otherwise there is no justification for their reckless and irreversible action of leaving the true church. So therefore it's no longer the truth that they are fighting for but the survival of their own church which they alone founded. In a sense their own survival and their own immortality to be counted among the greats. To put it bluntly, they have fallen victims of their own pride, ambition, and vanities of which there is no escape. They have become captives of the devil, Satan the Evil One who believes in his own lies being the Father of All Lies even had the contempt as to test the Son of God using the words of God. Yes, the Devil according to the scripture even used the same scripture of the Word of God to tempt and mislead many souls. He tried to do it with our Lord and God Jesus Christ when he tempted him in the desert saying:
Satan said, "If you are the Son of God, 'throw yourself down for it is written: He will command his angels concerning You, and they will lift You up in their hands so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone".
How can this be? The Devil is trying to tempt/test Jesus and even used the scripture in the verse of Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus rebuked him and replied using a verse in the scripture in Deuteronomy 6:16 saying "On the other hand, it is also written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test". Here early in the New Testament, Jesus already affirmed his being Lord and God that should not be put to a the test.
This demonstrates that using the Scripture Alone or Bible alone is dangerous and one needs the authority of Jesus to fully understand their meaning because Satan can also use the same scriptures to give one a wrong interpretation and thereby mislead. Jesus clearly made the clarification refuting what Satan claims using the words of God in the scripture in its real meaning. Because Jesus and the Church he founded and built through the Apostles are one, then the true church becomes the Pillar and Foundation of Truth as taught by St. Paul. In the same manner that Jesus in the story of temptation shows to the devil, he is the authority on matters of the scripture likewise the church has become the teaching authority of the scripture once Jesus ascended to heaven. The evidence of this is that the Holy Spirit is sent to the true church on Pentecost Day, not to any church founded by men so that it can continue to teach and lead the true church to the Truth. On matters of Faith therefore the true Church has the final say.
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE OPPOSES THE TEACHING OF THE TRUE CHURCH
Justification by Faith Alone doctrine is an official teaching of Luther popularized by his Reformation movement and other leaders like Calvin and Zwingli and their followers who joined them and came after them. It is not only completely flawed, false, and deceiving, it has spawned doctrines from which many souls have been prevented from entering the Kingdom of God through the church that Jesus founded, the Catholic Church. Protestant reformation formulated doctrines that will serve as the PILLARS AND FOUNDATION OF FALSE DOCTRINES of the non-Catholic Religions which members now call themselves Christians but they are not. They are in fact and in truth pseudo-Christians. These NON-Catholic religions or Protestant churches are now composed of an estimated 40,000 denominations with their own man-made doctrines rooted in the Sola Scriptura (Bible Alone) and Sola Fide (Faith Alone) invented dogma by the Reformation Protestant Movement. Their leaders together with the founders of Reformation can be said to have led and continue to lead the "Genocide of Souls of Deceived Christians to Hell". These leaders are not true shepherds of the Lord but wolves in sheep clothing, the agents of the devil that opened the gates of hell for their followers. They will suffer the most severe punishments for leading many to sin.
Bible Only believing Christians thought and continue to think that they are marching behind Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior but instead, they are marching behind one of the many faces of the Anti-Christs leading to their eternal damnation.
This article provides an introduction to a full PDF book that is available to you through our Facebook Page of the same title One True Faith Society which will be our Online Religious Bookstore of original E-books published and authored by us. It will give you a fresh perspective as to how a wrong interpretation of a single verse in Romans taken out of context by disregarding all other verses in scriptures lead others to sin and the destruction of their souls to hell. We will focus on one Sola in this article which is the SOLA FIDE or is shortly described today as Forensic Justification by Faith Alone.
In the Letter of St. Paul to Romans 3:28, he said "We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law." This one verse has become THE FOCAL POINT OF SOLA FIDE of the Reform Movement when Luther translated the verse with "JUSTIFIED BY FAITH ALONE" inserting the word ALONE which he admitted he had done in his "Open Letter in Translating (1530)", a letter justifying his action of tinkering with the scripture by adding words to the verses.
To understand the original verse therefore without the inserted word alone, we will have to go on understanding the important words that composed the verse. These words are - man; justified; faith; apart; works; and finally the law. What is surprising is that all the works of great theologians focused on the words JUSTIFIED BY FAITH and left out all the other words that connect the sentence of the verse. Now the second point is the context of which Romans 3:28 was said by St. Paul. Who was his audience for his message? What was his purpose of saying it? What was the main issue in the church when St. Paul sent the Letter? and many questions we will try to answer in this short article.
The Letter to the Romans by St. Paul was intended for the Church in Rome as it was known in those days. It is not to preach as to convert the readers but to elucidate doctrines learned by Christians in Rome, citizens of the Roman Empire who are known and called, the Romans. Incidentally, St. Paul was a Roman Citizen and was educated under the Roman system and society so he knew very well how they think, how they live, their customs and traditions. In short, the Letter was for the members of the church in Rome who are Romans who converted to Christianity although the Christians in Rome were not just Roman citizens composed of Jews and Gentiles but all other citizens staying in Rome. In the early years of Christianity, the Jews continue to follow Judaism laws, customs, and practices while the Gentiles were not. So Christian Jews were "Judaizing" Christians who were not Jews. They want Gentile converts to Christianity to be Jews also following their religious customs and traditions. It is in this context that the Letter to the Romans was sent by St. Paul.
The word Justified is used here in a theological sense which is a verb in the past tense that means "declared as righteous in the eyes of God." What is righteous? It means morally right and justifiable. For a man to be morally right he is said to be doing what is the accepted right and good which is inherent to man's nature of knowing what is good or right and what is bad or wrong. Hence putting it together we can say more plainly that a justified man in religious terms is one that does what is good and right in the eyes of God. A man that is justified is a man declared as righteous in the eyes of God. We can say therefore that before Christ came it is the belief of the Jews that a man is justified by the works of the Law. Not works in terms of what is generally accepted as morally right and not just any Law, but works of the Law of Moses. Please remember this as you go through this article.
On the other hand faith in religious terms is a "strong belief in God." That is why we often hear, you must believe in Jesus Christ which literally means you must have faith in Jesus Christ. One will notice that faith as a "strong belief" is a degree of the firmness of belief which is a level of trust that it is the truth. Belief, therefore, has varying degrees and for it to be faith it has to be firm and strong. Mere believing does not make "faith" as there must be dependency or submission to it. It is on this that James 2:19 states "You believe that there is one God, you do well. Even the demons believe and tremble" In fact as we have shown earlier, they even use the scripture to tempt others and deceive them. Thus Demons believe but they don't have faith in God they are believers but they are faithless.
Faith itself is measurable depending on how strong is the belief this is why Jesus said "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed..." Now how does believing becomes strong? Is it by just keeping it to yourself or by "acting" on your belief? The answer is obvious by acting, doing, and following what one believes. Now acting, doing, and following means there is an exertion, and effort to do something which can either be by mental or physical activity to achieve a purpose or a result. This is precisely the meaning of work. In short, the degree of belief can be measured by work which raises the degree of belief to firm and strong fully trusting, depending and submitting oneself to it. This is Faith. As James states in 2:18 'But someone will say you have faith and I have work. Show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by my works." What Apostle James is saying by his works one can see his faith. James 2:22 "...by works faith was made perfect"
So what does this tell us? It tells us that Faith which is a strong belief is moved and measured by works. But it's a different work because the works mentioned in the verse are of the law. St. Paul is talking about the laws of Moses that count to more than 600 because many of them were no longer laws of God but were the results of the customs and traditions of the Jews. Their Scribes have included laws and practices that were based on their interpretations and understanding of the scripture similar to what the Protestants are doing today. Therefore the works under the laws do not necessarily work of righteousness in the eyes of God because there are laws that have prevented the people from experiencing the love of God. Instead, they were laws that added to the burden of the Jews impractical and impossible to follow yet their religious leaders forced the people to follow. They are the laws that Jesus fought against with the Scribes and Pharisees and so was St. Paul who fought against the same set of laws to be continued with the Gentile converts in Christianity. It is in that context that St. Paul wrote the Letter to Romans that "a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law".
Now we will go to the main thing that will pull the rug from which Justification by Faith alone stands. Not only that alone is inserted in the verse by Martin Luther that changed the meaning of the verse but he and many others failed to recognize the use of the word "APART" in the sentence of the verse. Let us go back to how the word apart is used "a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law". Notice that going back to the original verse and taking away the alone inserted by Luther the meaning of the verse now changes.
Remember this therefore that when St. Paul wrote his Letters to the Romans and Galatians he was defending the new doctrine of the church which was also approved in the Council of Jerusalem that the Gentile converts to Christianity are not bound by the laws of their Jewish Christian brothers who in the first years of the founding of the church continued to be observed some of the laws of the Old Testament circumcision for one as well as prohibition in eating some food. To St. Paul such works of the law don't justify a man but by faith. Paul is magnifying the rebuke of Jesus against the scribes and Pharisees.
Now St. Paul did not teach the Faith Alone doctrine of the Reform Movement of the Protestants. In fact, he said that we must WORK out our salvation in Philippians 2:12-13 "Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good pleasure. On the other hand, Apostle James also clarified what St. Paul must have meant in Romans. He said it very clear in James 2:24 "You see then that a man is justified by works and not faith alone." James completely destroys in no uncertain terms the theory of Luther by making it very clear that justification of man is both by faith and works that is the clear meaning of FAITH APART FROM THE WORKS OF THE LAW.
