An independent Christian church minister in Missouri writes: “Jesus paid it all on Golgotha, plus or minus nothing. It is finished! The cross of Christ was and always will be enough.”
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Amen and hallelujah! As the apostle Paul put it in Romans 4:16, God’s promised salvation “is by FAITH [we can only trust God for it], that it might be in accordance with GRACE [for it is his undeserved gift], that the promise might be CERTAIN [since it depends only on God for its fulfillment] to all those who are of the faith of Abraham.”
The alternative to this is to say that salvation depends on us doing “our part” (rather than simply trusting God for it), and that it is God’s response to our correct activity (rather than being God’s undeserved gift), which means that we can never have any certainty about it (since it depends at least in part on us and we always come short of God’s glory and will).
Too much preaching today on salvation is nothing but warmed-over legalistic Judaism with a new set of issues and rules. Many churches SING the gospel, in hymns such as “Jesus Paid it All” and “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less than Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness,” even when the sermons say something quite different. (How wonderful that the people have their hymns!)
I thank God that he has spared me to see the same gospel message proclaimed boldly and without compromise from many pulpits across the land as well. And I praise him for every opportunity to be among those sounding out that proclamation of everlasting good news!