Solus Christus and Soli Deo Gloria

We’ve arrived, finally, I hope, at the last two of the Solas of the Reformation, Solus Christus and Soli Deo Gloria.

Indulge me in a little confession. I find it hard, in a reactionary way, to articulate the name ‘Jesus’ in the company of other people. Not that I’m embarrassed to say it, but I am always irritated by pastors who say it overlovingly, so that the ‘e’ and the ‘s’ are drawn way out. And then there are the people who only say Christ–Christ helped me do this or that–when it would be less jarring if they would say Jesus. It’s a little bit of the same problem I have of saying anyone’s name at all. Should I say her name when I see her? When I begin talking to her? Did I miss the moment? Will she think I am trying to have power over her? Do I sound neutral? Or condescending? Am I about to beclown myself in the wrong use of this name?

The appropriation and slinging around of the name of Jesus, by all and sundry, is a clever way for any single person, or group of people corporately, to avoid what is held in the substance of that name. Either in the form of a swear word, or as a power grab, something is known, understood, about that particular name. The power and meaning behind the name must be taken over, undermined, used for some purpose. The person behind it has to be grabbed and molded into something suitable to human striving.

Because, if you can get Jesus on your side, you can maybe get other people to do what you want them to. It may have been on this esteemed site, Patheos, that I saw flash by a headline, “Who Would Jesus Vote For?” I stopped short when I saw it, not reading the article because, well, can’t remember why, but wondering to myself who it would be? And then I thought, to quote myself, “!?!” Um, Jesus wouldn’t vote for anybody. He is not going to submit himself to our political system. He was here 2000 years ago and did pay his tax coin, but now he reigns over all things in heaven. You can’t pretend that if he were here now, wandering around in a pair of Toms shoes and looking soulful, that he would be just like you and vote for your preferred candidate. Although, just to digress, I don’t think he would vote for Trump…

Solus Christus, Christ Alone, to beat a one note drum, just like all the others, wrests out of the individual’s hands the power to do anything about God and the world and foists it back onto God himself. It’s not about us, it’s about him. We really want it to be about us. We want to co-opt creation itself and make it into something more like us. We exchange the creator for the created and then we want the creator to be happy about it. This isn’t new. It is the First, most primordial thing that any human ever did. Grabbing the fruit, desiring and elevating the material creation over a relationship with the one who made it, is our first choice every time. Jesus, the author of creation, on his way to his own death, had to stop and rebuke his own friends for arguing together about how to take some of his power and glory for themselves, how to get in on some of the stuff. We shouldn’t be surprised with ourselves for doing the same thing, for making Jesus about us.

If Scripture is the lynchpin of the Solas, Jesus is the crown, the glory. If you, in the regular business of tearing Jesus away from the bible, try to grab some of that glory, that crown, for yourself, you will tragically discover that it can’t be done. The whole thing–Jesus, the bible, and all the glory–will dissolve into pile of ash and blow away. All of the bible is about Jesus. All the words, together, form a picture of this one person, Jesus, who, though God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but took on the role of a slave, emptying himself, going to death, for the salvation of anyone who can be troubled to call on his name.

Yesterday I ended by asking why God would give the gift of faith, or any gift really, to someone who had rejected him, who had made it clear he wanted to be as far away as possible. Why rescue someone who hates you? Why bring back from the dead someone who was fine with dying? Why not just let that first sin be what it was and every sin after it, and wash your hands of the whole mess? Was it for our sakes? Was it because of us?

And the answer is no, it wasn’t because of us. It was because of him, because of Jesus. Jesus, the incarnated Son, the one in whom all creation is held together, is perfectly loved by the Father. The two pour themselves out in never ending love for each other. And when creation perished, the Father sent the Son to claim for himself a prize, a bride. To build up, through his own death and sacrifice, such a glorious and merciful work, to vanquish evil and death, to beat back the foe, rescue his bride, and cover himself with glory and honor and dominion and power and praise forever and ever and ever.

You see the problem. The foe (who is most of us) doesn’t want him to get any glory. We grab and snatch it. But he Alone gets the glory. Christ Alone accomplishes the salvation of the world. Jesus alone is righteous. His intercession alone brings his bride into a relationship with the Father. She can’t muscle her way in, demanding to be there, grabbing at anything she can find left and right. She has to be given salvation, and be covered and clothed by her savior, Christ.

Sometimes I think, in moments of pure humanity, “I wouldn’t have done it like that.” How can being sent by the Father to die for the sins of those who hate you produce glory? Reading through the book of Hosea, observing from afar off the pathetic picture of Hosea trying to keep ahold of his prostitute wife, a woman who is selling herself out just for the sex, just because she wants to be with anybody but him, seeing that he not only pays for her in cash but in humiliation also, buying her back against her will, I cannot understand the glory of God. We stand looking back at the naked, bleeding, humiliated Christ and think, what a waste. I can do it better.

But we are wrong. We have not enough read the bible. The humiliation of the cross for the salvation of the world, of the Father’s love for the Son, to rescue you, to snatch you out of the fire and with his own blood make you clean, and beautiful, to give you more than you could ever grab, he counts that as glory. Did I say it wasn’t about you? But you can be caught up into his arms, into his life, and his glory, his crown, his joy can envelope you. You can cry out his name, and he himself will grab you and hold on to you forever, for his own glory.