SCRIPTURE ALONE! While tradition, especially the comments of great Christian thinkers, was considered a great aid to understanding the Bible, the reformers were anxious to insist that Scripture interprets Scripture. The Bible is not an obscure book whose message can only be understood and explained by the experts. God speaks clearly and consistently in these pages. Therefore, we struggle, as did the reformers of the 16th century, against the authoritarianism of those who add their own beliefs, alleged revelations, speculations and codes of conduct to the sufficient revelation of Scripture.

CHRIST ALONE! As Scripture is our only final authority, so Christ is our only mediator. Jesus challenged the religious conservatives of his day for being obsessed with Scripture, while ignorant of its basic message. They were reading for moral instruction and enlightenment, wisdom for living, and they entirely missed the forest for the trees. We fear the same tendency today. Instead of pointing to Christ, much of contemporary preaching, even in evangelical churches, points to us and to moral guides and clever slogans that are calculated to help us live a successful, victorious Christian life. To affirm, Christ Alone!, is to insist that Christ is our only prophet (Heb.1:1). We need no other super-preacher to tell us what God wants us to know; all we need are shepherds who are thoroughly trained in showing us Christ from Genesis to Revelation.

GRACE ALONE! At a time when most people, indeed, most Christians, think that salvation is the product of human and divine cooperation, this core affirmation must be recovered. This sad fact is supported by the recent poll which demonstrated that most Christians thought "God helps those who help themselves" was either a biblical concept or, in fact, a biblical quotation! The fallenness and depravity of the human personality is not taken seriously enough and, consequently, neither is grace.

FAITH ALONE! This affirmation has never meant that saving faith could exist where there was no spiritual life and no fruit of that life in good works. What it did mean was this: Nothing can justify me before a perfectly righteous God except a perfectly righteous performance. I not only have to be forgiven of my debts; I must be regarded as having enough in my bank account to purchase eternal life. Only Christ possesses this righteousness, by his perfect obedience in the face of temptation, and his sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection. And there is nothing I can do to earn this righteousness myself. This is why we are justified through faith alone.

TO GOD ALONE BE GLORY! The Reformation message puts humans in their place, and God in his. Instead of preaching sermons which centered on men and women, the reformers proclaimed a God-centered theology and this produced an obsession with bringing glory to God at work, at home, or at play.