Mar 6, 2024
This sermon was originally presented on May 31, 2015
Scripture Reading: John 1:1-14
Solus Christus is Latin for 'Christ alone.' The single most important element of Christianity, and that which makes it unique, is that it centers completely on Jesus Christ. And the single most important element in a discussion of Jesus Christ is the fact that He was God in flesh. The nature of Jesus Christ, therefore, is a central and determinative issue.
More than in the other gospels, John presents Jesus as being divine, God in flesh. He signals this in the first sentence of the book. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1).
It is the divinity of Christ that people often stumble over, like the Jewish leaders did when they saw Jesus (cf. Jn 5:18). Many people today would say that Jesus was a great teacher, maybe even the greatest. But they would not agree with the idea of His being God.
C. S. Lewis wrote, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher" (Lewis, Mere Christianity, 52).
Solus Christus declares that the gospel of God's salvation rests on Christ alone. This truth is founded on the nature of the person of Christ. Only if Jesus is God in flesh do Christ's life and death mean eternal life for those who trust in Him. And faith is only as valid as the object of faith. Thus solus Christus excludes every belief system that denies the divinity of Jesus and proclaims Christianity, alone, to be true.