All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass – “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”
[In reading the Old Testament] you have learned that there is balm in Gilead, that there is a great Physician there; He has checked your fearful, mortal malady, and you shall live. You have looked to the brazen serpent, you are healed. You have sprinkled your door post with the blood of God’s atoning Lamb, and the angel of destruction will pass you by. You have fled to the city of refuge, and the destroyer cannot come near you. You have laid your sins by faith on your substitute and He has borne them away into the wilderness. You have bathed in the fountain that was opened in the house of King David for sin and for uncleanness, and the defilement of guilt has been washed away. You have brought to Jesus the writing that bound you as a servant of sin, and He has annulled it by nailing it to His cross.
Christian Joy.
To deny that Jesus Christ is the only Savior is to deny the utter seriousness of the human condition and the gravity of the offense against God. To deny that faith is the only way by which we may apprehend Christ’s riches is to deny the uniqueness of the person and work of the Savior and to deny the clarity of His Word. At stake when we consider Jesus’ claims to exclusivity is the gospel itself. The stakes could not possibly be any higher.
Jesus Christ – The Only Way and Our Only Hope by Tim Challies taken from Don’t Call it a Comeback, edited by Kevin DeYoung, copyright 2011, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. Page 139.
The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy. The New Testament view is that He bore our sin not by sympathy, but by identification. He was made to be sin. Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the explanation of His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy with us. We are acceptable with God not because we have obeyed, or because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and in no other way. We say that Jesus Christ came to reveal the Fatherhood of God, the lovingkindness of God; the New Testament says He came to bear away the sin of the world.
My Utmost for His Highest.
The agonies of Christ were more than the sufferings of all the martyrs, and all men in the world, since God laid upon him the sins of the whole world.
Christ Crucified.
This Sweet Savior exhaled from His voluntariness; He was not dragged to His sufferings, but suffered more willingly than we had greedily sinned against God. We had conscience checking us in sinning, but Christ had no conscience checking Him in suffering; it was his meat and drink to do His Father’s will. As God’s order makes His sacrifice capable of being satisfactory, so the free willingness of Christ makes it capable of being accepted for us, and applied to us.
Christ Crucified.
When a person is sick, the doctor may prescribe medicine. What heals the man? Is it the medicine, or his reaching out for the medicine? Christ is the only solution for your problem of sin and judgment. He is the medicine. Who else but Christ can rescue you and bring you into the forgiven family of God? He is the exclusive way to God. He is a narrow way, but a sufficient one. But how do you reach out to Christ? By repentance and faith.
Pursuing God – A Seeker’s Guide, Christian Communicators Worldwide, 2003, p. 44, www.CCWonline.org.
Your Redeemer is bigger than your past.
Bad Memories: Getting Past Your Past, P&R Publishing, 2004. Used by Permission.
When I was young, I was sure of many things; now there are only two things of which I am sure: one is, that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Christ is an all-sufficient Saviour. He is well-taught who learns these two lessons.
The Bible clearly reminds us that left to ourselves, we would be lost forever. The only reason we can seek Christ in our sinfulness is because Christ has sought us as our Savior. The glory of the gospel is that the God of the universe reaches beyond the hardness of our hearts, overcoming our selfish resistance and sinful rebellion, and He saves us from ourselves. Such mercy magnifies God’s pursuit of us and crucifies our pride before Him.
Taken from Follow Me by David Platt. Copyright © 2013 by David Platt. Used by permission. Website: Radical.net. Page 47.
[Jesus] saves His people from their sins. This is His special office. He saves them from the guilt of sin, by washing them in His own atoning blood. He saves them from the dominion of sin, by putting in their hearts the sanctifying Spirit. He saves them from the presence of sin, when He takes them out of this world to rest with Him. He will save them from all the consequences of sin, when He shall give them a glorious body at the last day. Blessed and holy are Christ’s people! From sorrow, cross, and conflict they are not saved. But they are saved from sin for evermore.
Commentary: Matthew 1.
He bears the keys – to Him we must go for admission into heaven. He is the door – through Him we must enter. He is the Shepherd – we must hear His voice, and follow Him, if we would not perish in the wilderness. He is the Physician – we must apply to Him, if we would be healed of the plague of sin. He is the bread of life – we must feed on Him, if we would have our souls satisfied. He is the light – we must walk after Him, if we would not wander in darkness. He is the fountain – we must wash in His blood, if we would be cleansed, and made ready for the great day of account.
Matthew Commentary, Chapter 11.
There is a remedy revealed for man’s need, as wide and broad and deep as man’s disease. We need not be afraid to look at sin, and study its nature, origin, power, extent, and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. Though sin has abounded, grace has much more abounded.
Taken from Holiness by J.C. Ryle, Moody Publishers, copyright 2010, p. 33.
Jesus Christ did not bring us the Gospel to enhance our self-esteem, clear our sinus infections or make us prosperous. Jesus Christ brought us the Gospel to save us. To save us from hell which is the consequence of our sin. Matthew 1:21, “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” The moment you get rid of hell is the moment you no longer have any need for the Gospel.
Sermon, Hell is for Real – Part 1, Luke 12:4-5, March 15, 2015.
Few things should be more encouraging for the believer than the teaching on hell. We know and have embraced a Savior who has rescued us from that terrifying destination. We know this was the primary purpose for Jesus’ coming. We know God in His love and mercy provided a way for forgiveness through the work of His Son. We know Jesus, being God Himself, lived a perfect life and thus qualified to stand in our place as a sinless human. He took our sins upon Himself and faced the wrath of God on the cross that we deserved. He took our hell so we would not have to and gave us His life. Justice for sin was accomplished on Christ. Through His incredible love offering, those who receive Jesus Christ can be forgiven and thus saved, saved from hell and enjoy the promise of everlasting life with Him in heaven.
Sermon, Hell is for Real – Part 2, Luke 16:19-31, March 29, 2015.
Hell is real, but God has provided salvation from Hell through Christ. God in His love warned us about hell and did so in the most serious of words. God is not cruel, He is love. If anything we are cruel when we believe this and fail to tell others about the hope they can have in Jesus. Therefore the Christian gospel maintains that today “the day of salvation” is now (2 Cor. 6:2), during this lifetime. Embrace Jesus as your Lord and Savior from hell, because once you die, the grace of God is no longer extended, only God’s justice against your unforgiven sin. And God’s justice will come with holy and righteous severity.
Sermon, Hell is for Real – Part 2, Luke 16:19-31, March 29, 2015
Narrow-minded Christians or is Jesus Christ the ONLY way to heaven? 1. Our fundamental problem with God is our sin. It separates us from His love. In His holiness He is obligated to judge it – now and eternally. ONLY Christ died for the removal of our sin and subsequent forgiveness. 2. Jesus taught it – “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; NO ONE comes to the Father, but through ME'” (Jn. 14:6). 3. Of every religious figure, ONLY Christ rose from the dead in the Resurrection and proved His victory over death, the devil and sin. 4. If there were any other way to heaven, why would God send His only Son to die an excruciating death on a cross? “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law [doing good works], then Christ died needlessly” (Gal. 2:21). 5. The Bible teaches it – “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved” (Ac. 4:12). Is The ONLY Savior YOUR Savior – evidenced by your confession and lifestyle (Lk. 8:21)?
Jesus had to be our Immanuel to be our Savior and once He becomes our Savior He becomes our Immanuel.
Sermon, The Presence and Purpose Of God In Jesus, Matthew 1:21-23, December 23, 2019.
It is not thy hold on Christ that saves thee; it is Christ. It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee; it is Christ. It is not even thy faith in Christ, though that be the instrument; it is Christ’s blood and merit.
Our faith itself, though it be the bond of our union with Christ through which we receive all His blessings, is not our saviour. We have but one Saviour; and that one Saviour is Jesus Christ our Lord. Nothing that we are and nothing that we can do enters in the slightest measure into the ground of our acceptance with God. Jesus did it all.
The summary of the gospel is that our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has revealed the will of His heavenly Father to us, and with His innocence has redeemed us from death, and has reconciled us with God. Therefore, Christ is the only way to salvation for all those who have been, are, and will be.
Quoted in: Is Jesus the Only Way? Crossway, 1999, p. 45.
