What was the heart of the Reformation?

Don Hart explains that the heart of the Reformation encompassed all of the Solas. But faith in Christ and salvation by the grace of God alone was perhaps the “hinge” of the Reformation as Martin Luther once noted.

The Gospel explains how a sovereign, loving God redeemed a lost, rebelling people  by no merit of our own. Yet, God did that which is utter foolishness to a fallen world: the Creator died for the creature. Christ humbled Himself, He lived a perfect, sinless life. He obediently went to the cross. He took the full judgment that we deserved – the wrath of God. And it is only by faith in Christ, by the grace of God, that the Reformation even took place.  

John 11:25 (NKJV) - "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.'" 

I believe the heart of the Reformation really encompassed all the solas that we would be familiar with as a part of the Reformation. If I had to choose among those, I would agree, I think, with Martin Luther that faith in Christ alone and salvation by the grace of God alone was, I believe, what Martin Luther called the hinge of the Reformation. I feel the same way. The Gospel. A proper understanding of how a sovereign, loving God would redeem a lost, rebellious people through faith in Christ alone, purely by the grace of God, through no merit of our own.

Not only did we not deserve the grace of God, we ill deserve the grace of God. And yet a sovereign God did that which is utter foolishness to a lost world. The Creator died for the creature. He came and gave himself. He not only humbled himself to walk as a man, he lived a perfect, sinless life.

He obediently went to the cross, and most staggering of all, He took the full judgment that we deserve, the wrath of God that we deserve to have poured out on us for all of eternity because of our sin, our rebellion, our lost condition. He took all the wrath of God on himself. Somehow God himself took the wrath of God. And it's only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, given as a free gift by a sovereign God, that we have any Reformation to talk about. And so I, if you made me pick, those would be what I would describe as the heart of the Reformation.