We’ve come to the end of this series on the 5 Reformation Affirmations with this grand pronouncement of Solo Christo, ‘Christ Alone.’ Martin Luther declares just how central Christ must be to the Christian life:

And here Christ and my conscience must become one body, so that nothing remain in my sight but Christ crucified, and raised from the dead. But if I behold myself only, and set Christ aside, I am gone. For Christ being lost, there is no counsel nor succour, but certain desperation and destruction must follow.

It is quite strange when being a Christian these days excludes this connection between Christ and us. It should be impossible to think of the Christian life apart from Him. But just as today’s culture is trying to celebrate a Christmas without any mention or reflection on Christ, so too many Christians have lived the Christian life apart from Him and His work. There are books and ministries and churches that will speak about parenting, spiritual warfare, church governance, spiritual disciplines, the Bible, theology, missions, evangelism without even a mention of Christ. Or if Christ is mentioned, He is mentioned in passing or as a foregone conclusion. But a Solo Christo framework of the Christian life is as Luther described, “Christ and my conscience must become one body, so that nothing remain in my sight but Christ crucified, and raised from the dead.” Unless we have Christ in view, it is far too easy to live life apart from Him. And to live apart from Him is not only debilitating, but deadly for our souls.

Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 maintain this perspective. For Paul, keeping Christ’s work on the cross was a matter of spiritual life and death. That’s why Paul HAD to be RESOLVED to keep Christ at the center. Thus, Paul has these Christ alone resolutions…

Resolved to Know Nothing (v. 1-2)

First, he resolved to know nothing.

You can’t underestimate what it took for Paul to come to this conclusion. Look at what Paul writes in verses 1-2: “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Being trained under the teaching of Gamaliel as a Pharisee of Pharisees, he must have been surrounded by lofty speech and wisdom. But the problem with such talk was that despite would might have been noble ideals, in reality was nothing more than mere self-praise. We are all in danger of such self-centeredness. We might like to talk simply to hear ourselves and to pat ourselves on the back for being so bright, so learned, so witty, so funny. However, verse 1 makes the claim that in light of a crucified Christ, there can be no room for self-congratulation since Christ Himself was humbled as a crucified Savior.

Furthermore, Paul states that he has resolved to know nothing. Now Paul was obviously a very intelligent man who utilized his knowledge to provide forceful arguments in favor of the Gospel. He certainly does not fit the category of one who knows nothing. So what does he mean then? I believe Martin Luther’s view of Christ is what Paul had in mind in 1 Corinthians 2:2. It is not that Paul had resolved to know nothing at all; but rather, Paul had resolved to know nothing apart from the view of knowing Christ crucified. Everything in his life would be filtered by His Savior dying for his sins as a wretched underserved sinner. And therefore, what marked his life was a life of humility.

So what is humility? C. J. Mahaney gives this great definition: “Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.” (C. J. Mahaney, Humility: True Greatness, p. 22) The more Paul reflected on God’s great glory and holiness, the more he realized just how terrible of sinner he was. Listen to his testimony to Timothy: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.” (1 Timothy 1:15-17) For Paul, reflecting on His salvation despite His terrible sinfulness led to his praise of a holy and glorious God. A saved sinner can’t help but worship God and live humbly in light of so great a salvation. This is how we should view our lives as well, but perhaps we do not reflect both on God’s holiness and our sinfulness enough.

Thus, let me try this exercise with you. If you are a Christian, I want you to take a moment to think of the worst thing you have ever done in your life, a sin perhaps that you would not want anyone to know. Perhaps, you have stolen something at work. Maybe you have lusted after another woman or man. Perhaps in your life you have aborted a child. Oh, there are terrible sins that all of us are very ashamed of and would dread for anyone to know. Well, let me make a few observations. First, Rev. 12:10 tells us that Satan is the ‘Accuser of the brothers.’ If you think about that for a moment, you might be asking the question, “Who is Satan accusing us to?” We know that Satan accuses ‘brothers,’ meaning Christians. But when you make an accusation against someone, someone must be listening to that accusation. The answer of course is God. Satan accuses us to God that we are who we are, wretched sinners deserving of God’s full and just punishment. Satan knows that secret sin that no one else knows. And Satan also knows that God is absolutely and perfectly just and must punish sin. So Satan stands before God telling Him that we deserve punishment. We deserve judgment. And God must respond to His own sense of justice.

And guess what? God does respond justly. God gave His Son according to John 3:16. Revelation 5:9 says this: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” God Himself through His Son paid the price that was due for our sins against Him. Satan accuses and God actually knew that Satan was right, the penalty that was required for perfect justice to be done against the sins that I asked you to imagine, and every other sin you have ever committed, had to be paid. But Christ paid that ransom price according to Revelation 5:9. The result was 2 Cor. 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And so the tremendous result of John 8:36: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” How does one respond to such a great salvation? You worship God and you are humbled by such grace. Listen to the saints in Revelation 19:1-2, 6-7: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, 2 for his judgments are true and just; For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready.” You can’t help but extol Him and be humbled by such grace. And how then do you live? You show grace to others. You resolve to know nothing save Christ crucified. You long to live for Him and His Kingdom. Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it best when he said:

There is only one thing that I know of that crushes me to the ground and humiliates me to the dust, and that is to look at the Son of God. And especially contemplate the cross.

When I survey the wondrous cross/On which the Prince of Glory died,/My richest gain I could but loss/And pour contempt on all my pride. (C. J. Mahaney, Humility: True Greatness, p. 66)

Resolved to Know Nothing Except Christ Crucified (v. 2)

Thus, Paul resolved to preach Christ crucified. I can’t tell you how important it is to remember that we worship a God who died on a cross. A couple of weeks ago I was at Borders looking at some photo magazines when a woman approached me to ask me some questions about cameras. After some discussion, I told her I was a pastor and she told me she went to church as well. After further discussion, she said this, “God wants us to be prosperous and successful in business and in wealth.” So much of Christian culture really believes that this is God’s desire for us, that we are healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. What many fail to remember is that we worship a crucified Christ.

The notion of a cross is so foolish and preposterous that it leaves no room for a middle ground. You must either accept and trust this mind-boggling work or you reject it as intellectual and philosophical hogwash. There is no such thing as a neutral Christian. It is every reason why nominal Christian is an oxymoron. It would be similar to saying a pretty cross. Jesus’ death simply won’t allow nominalism and neutrality.

No, the cross leaves us absolutely bereft of ALL of our efforts. A crucified Christ leaves not even a hint of our own merit to our salvation. You might have wondered, “Why does God choose a cross?” Why couldn’t Jesus have died peaceably? The cross was so ignominious and painful and shameful that to look upon it would leave one disgusted. You might say if there was one way for a person to ‘look like’ they were to bear the weight of sins, the cross was as good of a symbol as any to display such the wretched ugliness of sin. And so it leaves no room for us to think that we can contribute something to God at all. We can never lay claims on God for anything because of the crucified Christ. Thus, it is absurd to think that we can solve our own problems apart from Him. Again, if I may quote Dr. Lloyd-Jones:

It is a terrible thing to be told that all your effort comes to nothing. Let me put that in this form. The cross is an offense to the pride of the natural man, because it says that not only are we all sinners, not only are we all equally sinners, but it tells us that we are all equally helpless. We can do nothing at all…And it tells us, who believe in ourselves and in our capacity, that we can do nothing…And here it offends us and it hurts us, and it damns all our efforts, it is an offense to the mind and heart. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross, 52)

It is the crucified Christ that allows us to see that we truly do know nothing. Apart from the cross, we will always come with our own efforts and plans and solutions. Our love for God will always be conditional. We will worship Him only on the condition that our lives will be trouble free. We will treat Him as our divine Santa Claus, bringing him our lists because we have been good boys and girls. We make claims on Him, ordering God to heal who we want healed, save who we want saved, and punish who we want punished. In many ways, we are no different than James and John who arrogantly asked Jesus: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” (Mark 10:37) But when one has the cross in view, servanthood and humility marks one’s life. In fact, that was Jesus’ very answer to James and John in Mark 10:43-45: “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” When we understand that Jesus’ crucified body was our ransom, like our great Savior, we long to serve Him and others and it is our joy to do so.

Resolved Not to Fear Fear and Weakness (v. 3)

Third, he resolved not to fear fear and weakness. Verse 3 says: “3And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling…” How much more counter-culture can you get than this? We are always told that fear is weak and of course weakness is weak. And thus, we work hard to hide all of our weaknesses and failures. One of the things that homeschooling our children has really brought out in a me is fear, the fear of having ‘strange children.’ I must confess that in my flesh, I not only want my kids to do well spiritually, academically, and athletically, I want them to do well socially, something I struggled with immensely as a kid (but good thing I didn’t struggle athletically though). And so homeschooling brings out some real fears of our kids being ‘weird,’ or ‘off-kilter.’ Admittedly, I want them to be just like everyone else. And isn’t that what the fear of weakness really is, the fear of man and his opinions? It is tragically far too easy to be controlled by what people think of us, or even what we assume they are thinking of us. Ed Welch gives the illustration of teenagers and their thought processes:

The girl who cried because she thought her haircut was ugly.
The boy who cried because he thought his haircut was ugly.
The girl who wouldn’t go shopping with friends because she didn’t own the right boots.
The crisis over a pimple.
The teen who couldn’t stand being ordinary.
The teen who couldn’t stand being different.
The need for designer label clothes, which look like everything else apart from the actual label.(Ed Welch, Running Scared, 179)

Looking at this list, you might have thought you would have grown out of this mentality by now. But so many of us still struggle with the same feelings of fear and belonging. Having a fear of man is ultimately self-worship. It’s the desire for people to think you are special because you are most concerned about yourself. Fear of man is essentially a debilitating self-love with false perceptions and powerful deceptions of your view of yourself, others, and God. And look at how Paul responds to this fear in verse 3, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.” Why? What made him feel this way? Well, maybe there was a bit of insecurity as he ministered. What if they didn’t like him? Even a powerful personality like Paul had fear and you know what? That was a good thing. Weakness and fear means dependence. And so Paul realized that when we are weak, AND when we look to Him for our source of strength, God receives glory. Psalm 18:6 says: “In my distress I called to the LORD ; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.” God certainly wants to help us when we are weak.

And if we want to remain strong apart from Christ? Then we certainly wouldn’t need Him and we certainly wouldn’t want a Christ crucified. As long as we are strong in ourselves, we will always live with the fear of others, whether we like it or not. Even the non-conformist, individualist lives in such a way because he is reacting against how people view him. Such a person is controlled by others as much as the paralyzed, phobic person afraid to go outside. The answer to fear, as Paul shows us, is not to buck up and raise our fist at fear, nor is it to cower in fear, nor is it to try to please people to feed our fear of others. Instead, it is to have a greater fear of One who is absolutely good and who knows not only what is best for us, but also what will bring us the most freedom and joy to be who we were created to be. Remember in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, when Susan is talking to Mr. & Mrs. Beaver about the great Lion King Aslan:

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he isn’t safe?” asked Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

But He is good. He’s the King. To fight fear, you must fear someone greater and if that someone is perfectly good, then suddenly that fear is a wondrous thing. In 2 Kings 6, the King of Syria was warring with Israel. Hearing about the prophet Elisha’s aid to Israel, the Syrian king sent horses and chariots and a great army to surround the city Elisha was in. Elisha’s servant was trembling with fear. But Elisha says that oft used word throughout the Bible, “Do not be afraid.” And 2 Kings 6:17 recounts: “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” Suddenly, the servant’s fear of what seemed like insurmountable odds was gone in a flash. The fear of another fear far greater wiped out the fear of the lesser. And when you know that the greater fear is actually on your side and cares for you and has even died for you, then fearing Him is never anything bad at all. In fact, that fear is a cherished fear, a fear of one you love and admire and obey.

So Paul you can see was even willing to come vulnerably, even able to admit his own fear and weaknesses, because he knew that he had resolved to live in light of Christ alone. This was his power, his delight, and his joy.

Conclusion

Solo Christo, you could say is essentially the first sola, Soli Deo Gloria. To have Christ alone in your life is to live for God’s glory. And to live for God’s glory is to have Christ alone. These are merely two different ways of saying essentially the same thing, that to honor God through His Son by His Spirit will be the greatest joy you could know and your deepest satisfaction. Stuart Townshend and Keith Getty wrote the words to this song that sums up this message and this series well. I’d like to read them to you and then we can sing them together:

Verse 1:
In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My comforter, my all in all
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

Verse 2:
In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless Babe
This gift if love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
‘Til on the cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ in I live

Verse 3:
There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then, bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost it’s grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

Verse 4:
No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
‘Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand