Why “Sola Fide” or By Faith Alone to Obtain Salvation Does Not Hold Water

Taken from Revelation 14:20 is a clear example Why “Sola Fide” or By Faith Alone to Obtain Salvation Does Not Hold Water

Verse 20: And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even to the bridles of the horses, for the space of a thousand, six hundred stadia (Rev 14:20)

“And the winepress was trodden”. In the previous verse, the clusters of grapes which signify LOVE and CHARITY were cast into the “winepress”. Or what is the same love to God and love to man. Or what is the same again how well did the Christian adhere to the 2 tablets of the Ten Commandments while in the world?. The pressure of the winepress applied (“trodden”) reveals what was the LOVE of their lives? Was their heart pointed to the love of God and His Kingdom or the love of themselves and the world? This applies to the church as a whole as well to the individual Christian. This is very much like the story told in the Book of Job in the Old Testament. Job was thrown into the “winepress” of pressure and pain. The purpose was to reveal what was in the deepest part of his heart?. It was revealed and then openly exposed. For through the pressure of the “winepress” the “fruit” is either LOVE of SELF or LOVE of GOD. In this verse, it will surface, be measured and judged by the Lord. And this can only be done by the Lord through his WORD (“who is worthy to open the seal?).

This is judgment. This is sorting and separation. This is why the Book of Revelation foretells the closing out of the old church dispensation and the beginning of a new church. “And I saw a new heaven (church in heaven) and a new earth (church on earth). For the first heaven (church in heaven) and the first earth (church on earth) had passed away. And the sea no longer is”. Rev 21:1. May I say that of all the church dispensations that have existed on earth, this new church is the crown glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was His passion of the cross. It is the reason He came. The potter forms and shapes the vessel to contain His glory forever. Amen.

For the Lord clearly said; “Go in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in through it” Matthew 7:13

This is why the doctrine of faith plus grace plus nothing to obtain salvation does not hold water. Or what is held in the reformed church today “Sola Fide” translated means “by faith alone”. The WORD clearly teaches it takes a constant act and effort on our parts to obtain salvation. Although on our own we can do nothing, it is through the “blood” (TRUTH of the WORD) and the “cross” (the LOVE of GOD) we find the power to truly obtain our salvation.

“Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ)” Philippians 2:12 AMP.

For as the Lord Jesus told each one of the seven churches;

“To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame and have sat down with My Father in His throne” Revelation 3:21