The Historical Tracings of the Doctrines of Grace | Part 5

Key Scriptures

• Romans 1:16–17 – “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes… For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”
• Ephesians 2:8–9 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
• Romans 9:15–16 – “For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”
• John 10:27–29 – “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”

By the sixteenth century, the gospel that Paul preached and Augustine defended was buried beneath a mountain of tradition. For nearly a thousand years, Rome had taught that salvation was a lifelong process of human effort assisted by sacramental grace. Religion was external, ritualistic, and fear-driven. The average person could not read the Scriptures, did not understand the language of worship, and lived in terror of purgatory and priestly power.

But God, who had once said, “Let there be light,” again pierced the darkness. The Reformation was not the birth of a new church—it was the resurrection of the true church. It was the rediscovery of grace.

Martin Luther and the Bondage of the Will
The spark began in Germany with Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk who knew the despair of trying to earn righteousness before a holy God. He confessed for hours, fasted for days, and punished his body in an effort to find peace. But the more he tried, the more he felt condemned.

Then, while studying Paul’s letter to the Romans, Luther’s eyes were opened. He read Romans 1:17: “The righteous shall live by faith.” In that moment, he realized that righteousness is not something we achieve—it’s something we receive. Justification is a declaration, not a process. God imputes Christ’s righteousness to the believer by faith alone.

Luther later said, “When I discovered that, it was as though the gates of paradise had been opened.”

This truth shook the world. In 1517, Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg—not to start a movement, but to protest the corruption of Rome’s gospel. What followed was nothing less than a spiritual earthquake.

Luther’s defining theological contribution was his understanding of the will. In The Bondage of the Will (1525), he wrote that man’s will is in bondage to sin and incapable of choosing God apart from grace. He insisted that free will is “a lie and a delusion.” Grace is not God making salvation possible—it is God accomplishing salvation in the soul.

Luther’s rediscovery of justification by faith alone (sola fide) and salvation by grace alone (sola gratia) lit the flame that would burn across Europe.

John Calvin and the System of Grace
A generation later, God raised up John Calvin, a French theologian and pastor who would bring systematic clarity and biblical precision to the Reformation. If Luther was the hammer that shattered Rome’s system, Calvin was the architect who rebuilt the foundation upon Scripture.

In 1536, at just twenty-six years old, Calvin published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion. In it, he articulated what the church had forgotten and what the Reformers had recovered: the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation.

For Calvin, every doctrine flowed from the character of God. The Reformation was not merely about the corruption of indulgences—it was about the exaltation of divine glory. Salvation exists “to the praise of His glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:6).

Calvin taught what we now call the doctrines of grace, though he never used that phrase himself.  He emphasized:

• The total depravity of man (Romans 3)
• The unconditional election of God (Romans 9)
• The definite atonement of Christ (John 10)
• The irresistible grace of the Spirit (John 6)
• The perseverance of the saints (Philippians 1)

For Calvin, these were not abstract categories but living truths that humbled man and glorified God. He saw grace not as a doctrine to debate, but as a doxology to sing. “We shall never be clearly persuaded,” he wrote, “as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the wellspring of God’s free mercy, until we come to know His eternal election.”

Calvin’s theology was pastoral at its core. He wanted believers to rest in the assurance that salvation depends not on their performance but on God’s promise. He wrote, “If our faith were grounded on our own strength, it would be most miserable. But since God has taken us into His hand, we are secure.”

Zwingli, Beza, and the Continental Reformation
While Luther and Calvin labored in Germany and Geneva, the same flame spread through Switzerland and the Netherlands. Ulrich Zwingli, in Zurich, preached through the Gospel of Matthew verse by verse, rejecting the superstitions of Rome and calling the church back to Scripture alone (sola Scriptura).

After Calvin’s death, his student Theodore Beza defended and expanded his theology, especially on the doctrine of predestination. Beza helped shape the Reformed confessions and trained pastors who carried the gospel of grace throughout Europe.

Together, these men and their followers made the Reformation a movement of the Word. They replaced priestly ceremony with biblical preaching. They turned the pulpit into the centerpiece of worship. And they emphasized that salvation is entirely of God—planned by the Father, accomplished by the Son, and applied by the Spirit.

The English Reformation and the Puritan Inheritance
While the Continental Reformation was reshaping Europe, the same truths were crossing the English Channel. The English Reformation gave rise to a distinctively pastoral expression of Calvinism through the Puritans.

Men like William Perkins, John Owen, and Thomas Watson brought Reformed theology into the homes and hearts of ordinary believers. Perkins, often called the father of English Puritanism, wrote that election was “the fountain of all saving good.” He taught that the doctrines of grace are not walls to keep men out but doors through which sinners enter into assurance.

The Puritans were not cold academics—they were warm evangelists. They believed that preaching the sovereignty of God did not hinder missions but fueled it. Since God had chosen a people for Himself, evangelism was not an uncertain experiment but a guaranteed success. God’s Word would never return void.

Their influence would eventually extend to the Baptists of the seventeenth century, shaping what would become the 1689 London Baptist Confession—a clear and faithful expression of these same doctrines.

Scripture Alone and the Five Solas
The Reformers summarized their theology with five Latin slogans that captured the heart of biblical Christianity:

• Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone is our authority
• Sola Fide – Faith alone is the instrument of justification
• Sola Gratia – Grace alone is the cause of salvation
• Solus Christus – Christ alone is the mediator and redeemer
• Soli Deo Gloria – To God alone be the glory

Each of these solas guarded the purity of the gospel, and together they restored the doctrines of grace to their rightful place in the church’s confession.

The Reformation was not a new theology—it was the rebirth of the old gospel. It was Augustine’s doctrine of grace and Paul’s gospel of Christ, proclaimed again in the power of the Spirit.

The Pastoral Fruit of the Reformation
The recovery of these doctrines changed everything. Worship became reverent again, preaching became central again, and assurance became possible again. Instead of striving to earn salvation, believers rested in the finished work of Christ.

Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:8–9 became the anthem of a generation: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

The Reformers had rediscovered that grace is not a ladder for man to climb but a lifeline God throws down. They tore away the scaffolding of superstition and stood again upon the solid rock of Scripture.

The Reformation was, in essence, the rediscovery of the doctrines of grace. What Augustine had defended with his pen, Luther and Calvin proclaimed from the pulpit. The God who saves by grace alone once again received the glory due His name.

From this point forward, the battle for grace would no longer be against Rome alone—it would soon emerge within the very ranks of Protestantism itself.

The next great chapter in our story brings us to that internal struggle: the rise of Arminius and the Remonstrants, and the defining response of the Synod of Dort.