Can I be saved apart from trusting Christ?
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| oil on wood panel (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
If an angel comes in here and says, "Wait a minute. You can't get to heaven by trusting Christ and Christ alone, and having the imputation of His merit." And the angel came here and said, "For you to really be justified you have to have inherent righteousness. You have to add works to faith, merit to grace, you to Christ." If an angel from heaven came in here and said that this afternoon, I would take him by the seat of his celestial pants and kick him out of here!
Paul said that if anybody teaches you any other gospel, even if it's an angel from heaven, let him be anathema. Let him be anathema; let him be damned.
If the pope, the bishop, the priest, your preacher, teaches any other gospel than that which you have received, let him be anathema; because there is no other gospel.
Here's where, when the gospel is at stake, as Luther said in His great hymn, "A Mighty Fortress," in the last verse, "Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also." If we have to let go of our family, let go of our friends, let go of our church, let go of our lives, so be it. Otherwise, we seek to please men rather than to please God. And God has saved us with a gospel that is really a magnificent gospel, a marvelous gospel. And if I trade that in, or negotiate it, and say to people who affirm the council of Trent—this other gospel—that I have a unity of faith in the gospel with them, what have I done!
I'll give up my relationship to any leader in Christendom over this doctrine; I'll split my family over this doctrine; I'll split the church over this doctrine. This is the gospel! If the Lord marks iniquity, who shall stand? Well, guess what? He does mark iniquity. And blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin.
From the Garden of Eden, the first way justification entered the world was how God saved Adam and Eve by covering their nakedness; by hiding their sin. The whole system of atonement in the Old Testament when the blood came into the holy of holies and was sprinkled on the mercy seat, it was to cover the sin of the people. That's what the cloak of the righteousness of Christ does for all who put their trust in Him. His righteousness is my covering. And that's how I can stand before a holy God.
Again, if I have to wait until, through the machinations of the church, and the sacraments, and all the rest, and purgatory, to make me pure before I can be justified, I'm going to sleep intomorrow morning. Because without sola Fide, you're without the gospel. And without the gospel, you're without hope. But thanks be to God who gives us the glorious gospel of justification through trusting in the work of Jesus and the work of Jesus alone, who alone is not only able, but willing to save all who put their faith in Him.
