MCC Podcasts
Theology Matters - Solus Christus
has been current on the pastor of Children of Students and honored to get a B with you this morning and bring in the word. Hold on. I'm just finishing up my cold. I got a text from Art. He's like, "Man, are you still sick?" And I'm like, "No." I mean, it's been two weeks. He's like, "I still am." That poor guy. So, he's still sick, be praying for him. He's coming back, not rested, but he's doing some good work. And I'm like, "Oh, vacation is being sick. That's the worst. Whenever I'm sick, I want to come to work." You know? So, be praying for him. I don't know about you, but have you ever had weeks that you kind of expect a week to kind of go a certain way and then it kind of doesn't really match up that way? Well, last week, Church, Jeff mocked me. He busted up this picture of me when I was in high school and, like, okay, I get it. I was a late bloomer. I didn't get a lot of help from the parentals or my friends that go, "Hey, maybe you should match or take a shower or whatever." You know, like, I didn't have a lot of help. I mean, God used that to build a lot of character to me, but I'm like, "I know. I'm gonna find Jeff's picture and I'm going and it's gonna be payback." And, but here's the bad news. Look at Jeff. Look at this picture. I know. But, look at him. It's like 1978. How handsome is he? Look at that hair. He has a coral necklace. I would have hated him in middle school. I'm like, "Why are you so cool?" And so, here I was expecting, like, I'm gonna start the service. I'm gonna mock him. I'm gonna get back to him, of course. It's cool, Jeff. I'm like, "Dang it." So, somebody else find one of art, but art was probably cool, too, but that's okay. So, but that's Jeff. But I had this other thing happen to me this week that was super unexpected. Mackenzie, my youngest daughter, is going to kindergarten this year and they have, they have the kindergarten physical, you know, where you go and you get like a thousand shots and there's all this stuff. And we're all excited. We're like, "Mackenzie, are you ready for your appointment today?" She's like, "No, I hate shots." And, but, you know, whatever Katie did it, so I don't really care about that much. And she went to this appointment and you figure you go, you get your shots, you do your vision, you're hearing the whole thing. Well, it turns out about an hour and a half later I get this call from Katie and she's like, "I have some bad news." What? Our daughter is legally blind. I know, but she's not legally blind, but she's legally blind. She took the test and she was not having any of it. You know, they probably gave her her shots first. She was screaming like crazy. The doctor, she went to doctor to touch her to take off her clothes. Like, she was a wreck for an hour and a half in this doctor's appointment through a total fit and ends up failing the vision test. And so we have to go back in a week to redo this vision test. But at first I was like, "Well, that's okay." She probably just has her, you know, her eyes like her mom. Katie is blind as a bat. I don't know if you know that. And she has these super sick glasses when we were dating and, you know, before the technology changed and she was all cute with her googly eyes. And for the deals, like, she was super, to trust me, I'm going somewhere with this. This is all going to make sense in just a second. So she, but the deal is, she's almost legally blind. And I'm not, I have a slight stigmatism and so I don't like squinting looking at me, but my wife, she seriously cannot see. And what's wow, there's a few wear glasses and if you cannot see and you don't have your glasses, right? The world is this really weird fuzzy place. You can, like, it's, like, you can make out things, but it's hard. Like, you just don't experience life. But if you put on glasses or if you have great vision, if you look great vision, you take this for granted. But the world is this beautiful place. It is so beautiful. And can you imagine if everything was fuzzy and you couldn't see it? Well, the deal is, and because of technology, right, man, you can put on these glasses, you can put on these lenses and everything kind of becomes clear. And this morning we're going to take a look at this idea of, of soulless Christus. That's our big word. It's Latin. How cool is that? And, and then here's the basic gist. God is invisible, right? So therefore, God is difficult to understand, to get our mind around, to comprehend, is difficult to figure out what does it mean to know him and to love him and to follow him? Well, soulless Christus is the big word that just basically says that salvation, our understanding of God, happens through Christ alone. And that Christ is the ultimate pair of glasses that we put on to our eyes and the blurriness, right? Because we're made in the image of God, we have a sense of who God is. We have a sense of how we're made to be. But through the lens of Christ, we now have this picture of who God really is. And so this morning, we're going to unpack this really exciting Latin word soulless Christus. Sound fun? Yeah, Latin. All right. Well, let me pray for us. And then we'll hop into our time together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this morning and this opportunity to be together as a church. Thank you for your scriptures this morning. And as we unpack it, God, I pray that you would help us to get our head around a really hard and difficult topic, I think. And I pray that we would have your lens, that we would approach life and the scripture in this sermon through your lens. I thank you for the clarity that your son brings. We love you, Jesus. And all of God's kids said, Amen. All right, so before we hop into this big word, the big word soulless Christus, it's a Latin word and it's one of the five solas. Back in the 1500s was the Reformation, right? The Catholic church was going, was at the height of its political and ecclesiastical power. You know, they were paying off kings and going to war and there's all sorts of corruption into all this mayhem that was going on. And Martin Luther in 1517 goes and nails the 95 thesis that church says, "Man, that is it." And the deal is, he didn't mean to like blow up the church. He wanted to reform the church. He loved the church. But he said, "Man, there's some things that need to change." And the reformers, they kind of came together and they came up with these five solas that basically is the foundation of Protestantism and actually the Catholic churches and reformed after this and moved this way too. But the five solas, the foundation of Protestantism, are these. They're sola scriptura, which means that is scripture alone that defines faith and practice, right? It's not the church. It's not tradition. The church and tradition inform, but at the end of the day it's scripture alone, right? And then it goes on to sola fide, which means that is justification through faith. It is faith that makes us right in the eyes of God. And it's sola gracia. I don't even know that's how you pronounce it, but it's by grace at which we are saved, right? It is not the good works. It's not the good things. It is not selling indulgences, right? It's not doing all the stuff that gets us, but it's by the simple grace of God, and then it's solus Christus, which is through Christ alone. It is through Christ is the only way to salvation. And then the last one is sola dio gloria. I don't even know. Handles my side be great, but it's playing. But that just simply means that it's for the glory of God alone. It was simply saying, right at the time of the 1500s, the Catholic church was this huge, bureaucratic, powerful monstrosity. And the reformers cut through this said, man, no, it is through Scripture alone. It is by faith alone. It is by grace alone. It is through Christ alone. And it is for the glory of God alone. And that is good news. But here's the deal. This term, solus Christus, through Christ alone, in our context, right? If you think, man, Jesus is the only way to salvation. Well, that's a good way to end the conversation and lose friends, right? But here's the deal. What we're going to take a look at my attempt for us to wrestle with this morning is this idea of solus Christus through Christ alone is actually freeing news. So the good news, I mean, so the big word solus Christus, that's basic, right? The churches believed it for all time. Scripture says, right, there's one mediator through God in humanity, and that's Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. And that Christ is the great high priest covering the sins of all the world, right? And so it's not a complicated concept. The big word is not complicated. It is through Jesus Christ alone. The challenge, though, then becomes what in the world do we do as sophisticated, Marin County Christians? How do we deal with this concept in this very complex, postmodern world that we live in? And I'm glad you asked. So we're actually going to spend the rest of our time together, not looking at the big word, because we know what it says. We know what it means. We just don't like what it means. And look at the big difference. And here's the big difference. It's very simple. The big difference of solus Christus is actually meant to be freeing news. It's not meant to be news that freaks us out, that makes us go inside of ourselves and goes, please don't talk to me on a plane. Please don't make me defend the crusades. Please don't make like, right, what am I gonna do with other religions? Like solus Christus is meant to be good news. Everywhere it's been preached from all time, salvation through Christ alone is actually good news, and it is freeing news. Excited to learn how? Yeah, I know. Okay, so if you have your Bible's turn to John chapter 14 verse 5, and this is one of the most famous passages, it gets us in a lot of trouble. It says this. Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" And Jesus answered, "I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me." That was in Greek, but if it's Latin, it gets to be in solus Christus, right? And if you really knew me, and you will know my Father as well, for now on, you do know Him, and you have seen Him. But Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." And Jesus answered, "Don't you know me? Philip, even after I've been among you for such a long time that anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, that Jesus is now the lens in which we view this invisible, mysterious God that feels kind of sometimes close and sometimes distant. Jesus is now the lens. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Jesus says, "I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through me, solus Christus." And we go, "But the truth is, it is freeing news." And this is how. The first one, Jesus Christ says, "I am the way." And if Jesus says, "I am the way," then all of a sudden, solus Christus, if Jesus is the only way, it is actually freeing news because the big difference is now we have freedom from church hierarchy, church bureaucracy, church power, that being a Christian, being a fall of Christ is not about what the man says. You know, it's not about the church system. It is through Christ alone. And what I think is so amazing about the Reformation, the guts that these guys must have had. I mean, I cannot even get my mind around the dominant power that the Catholic church had that the Pope held in the 14th, 15th, and 16th century. I mean, it is unbelievable the amount of power. And for these guys to go, "Oh no, it is not through the church alone. It is not through the pope alone. It is not through this church bureaucracy and power alone. It is through Christ alone. That salvation is a simple and easy path through all of this man-made garbage, through Christ alone." And what's amazing is Martin Luther, he went out in these 95 Thesis, he protested. The church said, "Man, listen, he protested doctrine, he protested some wrist rules, and he protested some kind of, what's the last one, some ecclesiastical structure." So one, the biggest one the most famous was purgatory, right? And this was like, "Oh man, Lisa, if you're not sure about your grandparents and parents where they are, if you pay the church, if you're not sure they're in purgatory probably, but if you pay the church, you know, that's the way they can get out of purgatory faster." And boy, that's pretty slick if you want to make some money, right? Because we all, it's unsure, we're not so sure, but we pay up, you know, we'll do this thing. And it just became this huge abuse of practices. And Martin Luther's like, "You know what? I'm pretty sure when I read scripture through scripture alone, there is no purgatory. There's not like this in-between stage. And especially this in-between stage that you have to sell money, right, buy money to get out of. He protested, he said, "Man, salvation is for the glory of God alone." And that's this devotion to the pope and to marry into the saints was getting a bit out of control. And it wasn't about the lifting up of people, but it was about the lifting up of Christ. He kind of said, "Man, there's all these sacraments that was kind of muddling it up, and the reformers brought all those sacraments down to two sacraments." And then my favorite doctrine that he protested was this idea of clerical celibacy. He said, "Man, I don't think if you want to be a priest, you have to be celibate." And then all of a sudden, man, the flood dates open, and like guys like me were like, "I'll be a pastor then. This is awesome." So they protested these doctrines. They based on Scripture, they said, "Man, if salvation is to Christ alone, then this hierarchy of the church, right, purgatory, the pope, this weird thing about celibacy, like there's like, right, these waves living. No, no, it's through Christ alone, these rituals of selling indulgences and this ecclesiastical structure. Back then, they were selling, like if you, you know, selling church offices, the pope had the final say, the final word. And so Jesus solace Christus, the only way to salvation. Jesus is good news. It was no longer you had to go to this church and go through this system and go through the pope and do these things. And it was now all that was cleared away. And the good news is that we are free from church hierarchy. And none of us, except for maybe Peter, were around during the Reformation. But the truth is, all of us, I think, well, you know, you guys, but I think a lot of us have different baggage that we bring to the table. We've been a part of church structures and around Christians who have used their spiritual zest and fervor maybe, a little bit overboard. And they've used their authority in ways that have crushed us. And they've kind of tweaked our view of the church and our view of Christianity and our view of Christ. And this idea that is solace Christus, it is through Christ alone, it is not through that, you know, super zealous grandmother who just laid it down or that crazy pastor who, you know, just like put his thumb on us and then went wild with the secretary or whatever year only. Those are just mine, but you have your own stuff, you know. But the deal is that solace Christus is good news. It cuts through all of that thing and is through Christ alone and is good and freeing news. The second is that Jesus is the truth. If Jesus is the truth, then actually that's freeing that if solace Christus, if salvation is through Christ alone, we actually have freedom in our academic pursuits. That Jesus being the truth is freeing for us Christians that we do not need to check our brain at the door. For whatever reason, the church is this awful rap that we are anti-science. That faith and science cannot match up. That if we're going to be Christians, if we're going to believe this stuff about Jesus, we have to shut our brains off. And I mean, the church has made some dumb choices along the way starting, well, please, I'm sure we can go all the way back. But my favorite one is during the enlightenment, you know, everyone's starting to get rational thought and using logic and science was taken off. And up until the 1500s, everyone believed that the earth was the center of the solar system and that earth was the center of the universe. And when you read scripture right, Psalm 19 talks about how the sun, you know, charts its course across the sky. And for the most people, for most calm people, the earth was the center of the universe. Well, then along comes Copernicus in the 1500s, right? And it says, no, it's actually the sun is the center and the earth revolves around the sun. And people flipped out. I mean, people flipped out because if the sun is the center and not the earth, then what does that do to our theology? And and somehow people kind of slipped in this idea that the only way to truly understand the theology was that earth was the center. But science has always been messing with us that way, right? And the cool thing about solace Christus is it's not nowhere in scripture does it draw the line in the sand and say, you know what, the earth is the center of the universe. How rad is that? All scripture does is point to Jesus and says that Jesus is the lens that we view God and Jesus is the one that gives us access to the Father. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. And all throughout history, science has progressed and it has done stuff and it has tweaked the church. Excuse me. The other thing that happened back in the 1800s that blew up Christians and were still reeling from this was Darwin, right? He came in and said, hey, here's the deal. When you look at animals, it looks like there's all these adaptations and things that are happening and maybe God, maybe the earth is older than 10,000 years and maybe seven-day creationism didn't happen and maybe there was all of these plants that mutated and changed and through, I forgot all the terms, you know, but you know, yeah evolution and natural selection and all that, you know, maybe this is the case and fossil records were starting to show up and all of a sudden people are like, oh my goodness, the earth is really old. And Christians were like, whoa, the Bible says seven days they mapped it all out. Adam was born at like 10,012 BC. They know the map in March, you know, they figured it out. And all of a sudden Christians, we got a hose because we're like, what do we do? We were told that the Christian creation happened seven days and now we have someone going, oh, the fossil record and evolution and we freaked out. And some Christians drew the line and said, man, that I'm not going there. I'm not even going to engage science and biology and then we're done. And as a scientist that evolved and as genetics has evolved and astro physics has evolved, all of a sudden, I mean Darwinian evolution has taken a beating. But the bummer is the earth and the universe is being affirmed that it is really, really old. There's like red light and blue light shifts. I don't even know all that stuff. I wasn't paying attention in college for that class. But if you are into science, it is unbelievable and you realize the earth is in the universe is so complex. And what's wild is it is so complex that the most amazing, smartest PhD scientist from Yale and Oxford and Harvard are like, it's way too complex. In fact, it's so complex that maybe there's a designer who put this whole thing together. And they're not saying, oh, therefore Christianity is true, but they're going DNA, astrophysics, the laws of Newtonian physics, all those things are so complex that obviously a designer must have done something. And this deal is the Bible never defends and says, this is how old the earth is. Seven-day creationism, that's a whole different debate not for this, but it's poetry. And what scripture is pointing toward is that God is the creator of all things. God is the one who is sovereign over all things. Our God is stronger than the sun God, then the moon God, then the ocean God, then the cow God, then all their gods, our God is stronger than all those gods. And in the creation debate, that's a whole different thing not for this service, but the deal is all of scripture doesn't point to defending the age of the earth, all of scripture points to defending that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the weight of salvation. And what's wild is back in the 1800s, they started, they're like, well, okay, let's get after Christ too and after scripture. And some of us grew up in tradition where the Bible was this special and sacred and magical book. God like spoke it into existence and it's special. And also an academia went after it with textual criticism, biblical criticism, and they're like, did you know that actually 30,000 people wrote these books and who knows what it means? And it's all complicated and it doesn't even matter because you don't happen after a hundred years of going after it. They realized there was, it raised so many questions that there were no answers. It became all subjective. And all the questions that it raised, at the end of the day, they never disproved that Jesus was a real human being that lived on earth, that died on the cross, and they never disproved his resurrection, right? And so when we bank our academic pursuits on Jesus Christ, then all the stuff that science is going to throw at us, we can engage that. We can get after that. We don't need to freak out about that. We can be in dialogue and wrestle with that because Christ is all truth and God wants us to engage academia. He wants us to use our brains. He wants us to wrestle with all of the stuff. I'm not a big science guy so I go where? But some of you really are and you need to get after it, and some of the smartest people are getting after it. And we bank on Jesus Christ. Think of all the science that academia has thrown at Jesus for the last two thousand years, and Jesus has withstood. You cannot prove beyond a reasonable, I mean, like a reasonable doubt that Jesus is exactly who he said he was, but you for sure cannot disprove it. And any theological endeavor, any faith system involves some faith, but it is sure and intelligent faith, and one that we need to be after. And here's the deal. In the next 50 years, our world is going to get even more complex. Facebook and Twitter and social networking is changing how we view the church and how we view community. So what are we going to do with that? What are we going to do when all of a sudden there's clones, when cloning happens, when I can have an own, my own bed next to me, and that'll be rad. Then I'll take pictures of him in junior high and make fun of him. And you know what? I have no idea what in the world that's going to mean. But that is where we are going, and we as Christians cannot put our head in the sand and freak out about the academic pursuit. But we do know that if there's clones, if aliens show up here someday, if we never gather in the church again and we only gather on Facebook chat rooms or whatever, we need to know that Jesus Christ is the truth, and there's freedom in our academic pursuits, and we need to be after it. So this idea that Jesus is the only way to salvation is actually freeing when we deal with academia. We do not need to defend seven-day creationism. We don't need to defend the crusades. We don't need to defend the big bank theory. We don't need to defend those things. We point to Christ and who Christ is and what he has done in history that has been never been disproven. Does that make sense? Okay, one more. Sorry, my mouth has died. So Jesus is the way, and that I think hopefully gives us some freedom from the church hierarchy. Jesus is the truth, and that should give us freedom in our academic pursuits, and lastly that Jesus is the life. And I hope that when we get in our more postmodern context to realize that this idea of soulless Christmas, if Jesus is the only way, it's actually freeing in a postmodern context, and this is why it is freedom from our cultural uniformity. Yeah, is that even a word? I didn't check. It doesn't sound right. It doesn't matter. Here's the deal. We as Christians have this awful weight that we carry. We have this like this guilt about the crusades and the church and the Western church, but here's the truth of the matter. The Western church has been out of power for hundreds of years, 50 years in his death throes and completely dead for 20 years. The Western church is not this uniformed political monstrosity, right? We now know that the world is incredibly small, and we have access to the entire planet, and the Western world, the Western church is not the hub of Christendom anymore. The hub of Christendom is in Africa, it's in Southeast Asia, that this idea of Jesus is not the suburban white manifestation of the world, and we want the whole world to become white suburban Christians who sing holy, holy, holy, right? There was a time when that's the thought, and people would go and do missions across the overseas, and they would go and they would translate their hymns into these different languages, and they would try to like make aboriginal people wear suits and ties in the whole deal, but we've figured it out. We understand that every culture has a different context, and the deal is that every cultural context is expressed as their worship and their love and their affirmation of Christ differently, and we don't need to freak out that, oh, Jesus is the only way is this weird Western white suburban version of Christianity. We are free from this cultural uniformity that we feel. If I share the gospel, if I'm sharing what Christ is doing in me, there's this angst that we feel like, and if you really get it, you are going to have to be like me, right? And there's this angst, and you go, I don't really want to be like you. I don't want to share your politics, or your worldview, or your recycling habits, or whatever your deal is, right? That we, and there's this angst, but freedom and Christ is the soulless Christ. If Jesus is the only way, then we're free that we don't need to help people become more like me, or more like us. We want to help people become more like Christ, and as we get a picture of the whole world, we realize that Christians and Christian discipleship looks totally different. But what is so, such good news is that the gospel of Jesus Christ has proven to be good news in every culture, in every context, in every time period. It's not just a western thing, it's not just an American thing, it's not just a Marin County thing, it is an African thing, a Southeast Asian thing, an urban thing, a poor thing, a rich thing. It is the thing, and there is freedom in that. I think what is wild is Jesus even does this. Jesus interacted with people based on their individual issues, their own background, their own stuff, right? The rich, young ruler comes, "Jesus, what must I do to be saved?" All right, smart alec, sell everything. Whoops, okay. Jesus, the woman caught adultery, what does he say? "Hey, I don't judge you, go and sin no more." Every interaction Jesus had in John chapter 4, he goes into Samaria, this total, like, messed-up version of Judaism land that there's like the, you know, the, the, the drugs, the Jewish people hated them. And that Jesus goes to this woman who has all this weird, funky theological background based on, because Jesus is a Samaritan, their view of God and worship was all messed up, and Jesus goes and engages her. And he doesn't say, "Listen, you need to become, you need to forget all this weird Samaritan stuff, you need to become more Jewish, and then you put your faith in me, and this is what it's going to look like." No, he has this encounter with her and says, "Man, I have living water for you to drink. You come get connected to me, and God does that." And every single one of us, Jesus is the life. And what's so cool is what we share with Jesus is not, "Jesus is the only way to heaven, so if you believe in him or you're screwed." We don't say that, right? It's good news because Jesus is the way he offers life, and we need to figure out what has Jesus done in our life. And we realize that Jesus has transformed us, like what Jeff said last week, he has sanctified us, and he is in this process of molding me like Christ. And because of me and my history and my cultural context and my baggage, it's going to look different and be slower for whether that's what you're probably observing anyway, then it's probably acceptable for our church, but it is this thing that God is doing in me. And no matter who you are, no matter what your background is, you wonder what your church background is, your theological background is, your sexual background is, your historical, all that stuff, it doesn't matter because you are not trying to become more like me, or whatever we perceive, we're not coming to be. Solus Christus is good news because Jesus is the life. He is the full life, and when we pick up our cross and we follow Christ, he molds us and shapes us into his image. And what's wild is because of our context and especially in a post-modern context, post-Christian concepts like Marin is, there's no Christian culture here. It's actually kind of a cool thing that's not like, hey, you become a Christian, go to the Family Christian bookstore, get your bible, and get a precious moment, and make sure you listen to Caleb, or like, what's Caleb? I don't even know what a precious moment is, I've never even been to a Christian bookstore. Oh, sweet, right, we have this whole, we get a start from scratch, and we get to say, man, no matter sweet, you were a wicked last week, that's so weird, okay, great though. But if you come and figure out who Christ is, Christ alone will gradually and graciously take you from wherever you are and mold you and shape you into his image. And for those of us who have been around the church a long time, yeah, we cannot settle and be acceptable suburban white Christians. What an anathema that is. We need to continue to pursue Christ, to see him as the life, that we continue to pick up our cross and we follow him daily. Now, I know this idea of soulless Christmas, if Christ is the only way to salvation, boy, that is brutal, and it is challenging, and it is intellectually challenging, and we need to wrestle with that. But you need to know that in every context, all throughout history, this idea of soulless Christus was actually freeing news. It frees us from the human bureaucracy of the church. Now, please, I love the church with all of my heart. We need the church. But the church in all of, we're just human beings trying to be Christ's body. And no matter what your church background is or church garbage that you bring the table, man, the freedom is that it is through Christ alone. And if you are an incredibly smart person and you want to wrestle with the weird and scientific and deep philosophical things that we are going to have to wrestle with as a church, we do not need to be scared about what are we going to, if we find aliens on another planet, what's that going to do to our faith? We don't need to be scared about that because our salvation is through Christ alone. And maybe Jesus died for aliens. I don't know. We'll have to figure that out someday if they ever showed up. I don't think they will. That's just my own thing. But they might. But for the academic in minding us, we have to go and be free in our intellectual pursuits. We need to change the perception that the church is scared of science. Man, Jesus has withstood the harshest scientific critics. And there's freedom in that. And lastly, Jesus is the life. It is in him that life and salvation is found, not just for us, nice, white, Marin County people. And if you're not white, I'm sorry. I just mean in general, demographically. You know what I'm saying? Well, we're still good. Okay. But the deal is in every culture, in every context, in all of history, Jesus has been good news. And we share that with our friend. We don't need to make them become like us. We simply want to point them to Jesus where we together pick up our cross daily and follow Christ as he gradually and graciously sanctifies us. And it is through Christ alone, soulless Christus, that salvation is found. And for that, we're going to be eternally, eternally grateful. I'm going to invite the band up. We're going to sing one more song.