Church Reformers, such as Martin Luther, restored gospel preaching to the church in the sixteenth century. A motto for their cause is:

God declares sinners to be righteous because of Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

At the end of the twentieth century, members of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, composed “The Cambridge Declaration” to reaffirm Reformation truths and refute contemporary errors that have infiltrated the church. The following condensation is adapted from: “The Cambridge Declaration”:

Thesis One: Sola Scriptura [Scripture Alone]

• We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.
• We deny that any creed, council, or individual may bind a Christian’s conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.

Thesis Two: Solus Christus [Christ Alone]

• We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.
• We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.

Thesis Three: Sola Gratia [Grace Alone]

• We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.
• We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

Thesis Four: Sola Fide [Faith Alone]

• We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.
• We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.

Thesis Five: Soli Deo Gloria [Glory to God Alone]

• We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God’s glory and that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone.
• We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem, or self-fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.

The website, Reformation Theology, posted a summary explanation of the five solas from: Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? by James Montgomery Boice, (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2001), We excerpt their summary here:

Scripture alone. When the Reformers used the words sola Scriptura they were expressing their concern for the Bible’s authority, and what they meant is that the Bible alone is our ultimate authority, not the pope, not the church, not the traditions of the church or church councils, still less personal intimations or subjective feelings, but Scripture only…If any…authorities depart from Bible teaching, they are to be judged by the Bible and rejected.

Christ alone. …The medieval church…added many human achievements to Christ’s work, so that it was no longer possible to say that salvation was entirely by Christ and his atonement…The Reformation motto solus Christus was formed to repudiate this error. It affirmed that salvation has been accomplished once for all by the mediatorial work of the historical Jesus Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification [i.e., being declared righteous]…

Grace alone. …God owes us nothing except just punishment for our many and very willful sins. Therefore, if he does save sinners, which he does in the case of some but not all, it is only because it pleases him to do it…By insisting on grace [i.e., unmerited favor] alone, the Reformers were denying that human methods, techniques, or strategies in themselves could ever bring anyone to faith. It is grace alone expressed through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ, releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from death to spiritual life.

Faith alone. …Justification by faith alone [is] the article by which the church stands or falls, according to Martin Luther. The Reformers called justification by faith Christianity’s material principle, because it involves the very matter or substance of what a person must understand and believe to be saved…We may state the full doctrine as: Justification is the act of God by which he declares sinners to be righteous because of Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

Glory to God alone. Each of the great solas is summed up in the fifth Reformation motto: soli Deo gloria, meaning to God alone be the glory. It is what the apostle Paul expressed in Romans 11:36…It is because all things [truly] are from God, and to God, that we say, to God alone be the glory.

As Martin Luther yearned to understand the concept of the Righteousness of God, which is woven throughout the Book of Romans, God declared Luther, a sinner, to be righteous because of Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

Please consider Luther’s example and follow Christ.

The Five Solas of Reformation (Steven Lawson), YouTube, Feb 28, 2014, GoodTreeMinistries