What must you do to be saved? Historically, Protestants and Roman Catholics have answered this question differently. Today, R.C. Sproul looks at the one word that makes all the difference in this dispute. Get the book The Legacy of Luther, plus lifetime digital access to R.C. Sproul’s teaching series Justified by Faith Alone and the accompanying digital style guide, for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3657/donate Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
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You've heard it said, doesn't matter what you believe just as long as you're sincere. Well, Christianity says eternal life matters concerning what you believe. There is a content to the Christian faith.
Eternal life does hang in the balance, which is why we must be so clear in our proclamation of the gospel and vigilant in our defense of it. Welcome to the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind, as we conclude a week of R.C. Sproul unpacking for us the theology of the Protestant Reformation and presenting a clear explanation of the biblical gospel.
This week's series is called Justified by Faith Alone. And today is the final day that you can request lifetime digital access to this series and study guide, along with a hardcover edition of The Legacy of Luther, edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols, when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. So request these resources today before this offer ends at midnight.
We are justified by faith alone, but what is true saving faith? Here's Dr. Sproul.
We've been looking at the Reformation formula justification by faith alone. And I'm going to look briefly now at the question of faith. What is meant in the formula justification by faith alone by the word faith? In the initial stages of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Communion
heard Luther teaching a kind of licentious libertinism or antinomianism, the idea that you can just believe in Christ and then live however you want because works were not considered necessary for justification. And so Luther had the task of defining what saving faith really means.
And historically, there's a difference among scholars as to how the Reformers expanded their understanding of the elements of saving faith. Teryton, for example, in the 17th century, included six or seven or eight subtle, nuanced elements of saving faith.
Gordon Clark in the 20th century reduced those elements to two, but the usual customary understanding of the elements of saving faith in historic Reformed thought is that saving faith consists of three distinct elements, and those three distinct elements are called notitia, ascensus, and fiducia. Now, the first element, notitia, or sometimes called noti,
refers simply to the information or the data. You've heard it said, doesn't matter what you believe just as long as you're sincere. Well, Christianity says eternal life matters concerning what you believe. There is a content to the Christian faith, and we don't have the authority to fill it up with whatever we want to fill it up with.
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