Many of us are familiar with John Newton's hymn, Amazing Grace and the line, Amazing Grace

How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

So we know that the grace of God is amazing, but is it essential?

Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham and thanks for joining us today on Renewing Your Mind.

This week, Erseys Brawl has been taking us through a series looking at five essential

gospel truths that were rediscovered and reaffirmed in the Protestant Reformation.

Truses that we as Christians must never compromise.

Today he's going to remind us that our salvation is by grace alone.

We're going to continue with our series of study on the five solas of the Protestant

Reformation.

We've already had two messages on the question of solar feeday or justification by faith

alone, which was the material or the substantial issue over which the Reformation was fought.

And closely related to the doctrine of solar feeday is the doctrine of solar gradia,

however you want to pronounce it, which means literally by grace alone.

Now in the Middle Ages, in the Roman Catholic Church, of course the leading theologian

was St. Thomas Aquinas and the church since that time has referred to Thomas as the angelic

doctor of the doctor angelicus, the doctor of the angels.

They have another nickname for the great St. Augustine who ministered at the end of the

fourth century and into the beginning of the fifth century.

And Augustine's nickname is Dr. Grazia, that is he's known as the doctor of grace in

church history because he is the one who first formulated this idea of solar gradia.

And that notion that Augustine articulated was recovered and recaptured in the Reformation

...