"What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" (1Cor. 4:7).
All non-Christian religions advocate some form of salvation by works. They say, "Change your behavior, and then your deity will love you." And this isn't just professing non-Christian religions. Many pseudo-Christians say some variation of the same thing. For example, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, in
Canon XX (1547), said, " If any one shall say, that a man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if, forsooth, the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observation of the commandments; let him be anathema."
Yet, in the verse above, the Apostle Paul denies the very thing asserted by Trent. Justification is by grace alone through faith alone, apart from any works. That is one side of the double imputation that occurs at the moment of true belief: the judgment due to our sins is transferred to our Surety, who paid for them on the cross. The other side is the imputation of His perfect works to the believer: "O LORD, You will ordain peace for us, for You have indeed done for us all our works" (Isaiah 26:12; see also II Corinthians 5:21 and Hebrews 13:20-21).
Thus it is true that without holiness, no man shall see God (Hebrews 12:14). But, as Paul says, it is not a holiness produced by the man but which is imputed to him from Jesus by grace alone through faith alone. So, that same Paul is cursed according to Trent.
No comments:
Post a Comment