Pillars of the Reformation - 3. Sola Christo

This third pillar of the Protestant Reformation emphasies the meritorious basis upon which God’s grace flows toward an undeserving sinner. The favour of God has to be purchased. The Reformers in holding this position sought to remove the claim of anything and anyone other than Christ as being the meritorious cause of salvation.

I. It is through Christ alone that salvation is purchased for the sinner. 

There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2:5. As John Calvin said in the Institutes of the Christian Religion said: Christ stepped in, took the punishment upon himself and bore the judgment due to sinners. With his own blood he expiated the sins which made them enemies of God and thereby satisfied him...we look to Christ alone for divine favour and fatherly love!

Romanism presents Mary as a co-redeemer or co-mediator with Jesus Christ. One of the ways they get round the teaching of 1 Timothy 2:5 is by saying that Christ is the way to God but Mary is the way to Christ and cooperates with Christ in His work. She is called in Answer 969 of the Roman Catholic Catechism a ‘Mediatrix’. 

In the glossary of the Catechism under Mediator/Mediatrix it states: Mary too is sometimes called Mediatrix in virtue of her co-operation in the saving mission of Christ, who alone is the unique mediator between God and humanity. Remember 1 Timothy 2:5 teaches that Christ is the unique mediator, He is the only mediator.

Christ alone is the basis for obtaining the merit and favour of God. The 'intercessions of the faithful' nor a person’s own efforts are never meritorious. The Reformers taught that salvation is by Christ's work alone. That work purchased all that we need: Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue, 2 Peter 1:1-3.

II. It is through Christ alone that God’s grace is brought to the sinner. 

This principle taught by the Reformers rejected two long cherished dogmas of Rome:
[1] Sacramentalism - This is the view that ascribes such importance to the sacraments as to make them absolutely necessary to salvation and the conveyors of divine grace. Saving grace is not conveyed through the sacraments. An unsaved, unconverted individual should never be allowed to partake of the sacraments. The sacraments are designed to strengthen believers, never to save unbelievers.

[2] Sacerdotalism - This is the belief that there can be no proper administration of the sacraments in the church without the services of priests, ordained by apostolic succession under the authority of the Pope. An earthly priest is not the conduit for the grace of God to flow to a sinner. Jesus Christ alone is the priest that sinners need.

The Reformers taught that 'saving grace' flows to a sinner 'Solo Christo' - 'through Christ alone'. A sinner doesn’t need the Church, nor a priest to dispense grace or the merits of the saints long dead. They do not need to come to Christ by the Church or by a priest nor by any sacrament. They don’t need any other intercessor. They can go directly to God through His Son alone. That is the only one a sinner needs. This is what the Reformers meant by Solo Christo.