“Christ Alone”
[Colossians
1:13-20]
October 8, 2017, Second Reformed
Church
We continue our look at five main
themes of the Reformation as we remember the 500th anniversary of Martin
Luther nailing his 95 Theses on the door of the Church at Wittenberg. We are looking at the biblical teachings of
Scripture alone, Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone, and to the glory of
God alone.
This morning we turn to the theme of
Christ alone. That is, the work of Jesus’
perfect life under the Law of God credited to us, and Jesus’ taking on all of
our sins and the Wrath of God for them – His crediting us with His
righteousness and taking our sin upon Himself – that is all we need for
salvation. We do not have to do other
works to be saved. We do not need other
people or creatures to increase our merit before God that we would be received
into His Kingdom. No, what works do we
need to be saved? The works of Jesus
Christ, our God and Savior. Nothing more
and nothing less. Our salvation is
completely secure in and by Jesus’ work.
Period.
(And, yes, we are to do good
works. But they do not add to our
salvation. Our good works bear witness
to the fact that we have been saved by Jesus – they do not give us merit or
credit or position before God concerning our salvation.)
Martin Luther and others wanted to
discuss their concerns about the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church – they
did not want to divide the Church – which is what ended up happening. Luther looked at the Scriptures and discovered
that salvation in completely merited and secured by Jesus with no additions
from anyone. That is not what the Roman
Catholic Church taught and still teaches:
We read in the Council of Trent: “there is
a purgatory, and that the souls there detained are aided by the suffrages of
the faithful and chiefly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar,” (http://catholicsaints.info/council-of-trent-decree-concerning-purgatory/).
The Roman Catholic Church rightly
teaches that all humans are sinners and cannot merit salvation – and so, they invented
the doctrine of Purgatory – and imaginary place where one supposedly suffers
and receives merit until one is worthy to enter the Kingdom. Here we see the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching
that Christ’s work is not enough to save anyone. No, we also need to suffer in Purgatory,
receive the merit of living people who suffer, and the merit generated through
to so-call “re-sacrificing” of Jesus in the mass.
Again, we find this in the Council of Trent: “they above all instruct the faithful
diligently in matters relating to intercession and invocation of the saints,
the veneration of relics, and the legitimate use of images, teaching them that
the saints who reign together with Christ offer up their prayers to God for
men, that it is good and beneficial suppliantly to invoke them and to have
recourse to their prayers, assistance and support in order to obtain favors from
God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (http://catholicsaints.info/council-of-trent-on-the-invocation-veneration-and-relics-of-saints-and-on-sacred-images/).
The Roman Catholic Church is wrong
on this issue: Jesus Christ secures our
salvation for us through His work with no help from us or anyone or anything
else. So, let us turn to our text.
The first thing we see is that our salvation
is in Christ alone.
“He has delivered us from the domain of
darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have
redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Paul writes to the Christians – the Church
– located in Colossae to encourage them in their faith and to repeat what they
knew and believed to strengthen and equip them.
Paul makes it clear that salvation – our redemption – our being made
right with God – is in Christ alone through His works.
Paul tells the Colossians that God the
Father Sovereignly delivers all those who will believe out of the kingdom of
darkness – out of slavery to sin – and transfers us into the Kingdom of His Beloved
Son.
How does this transaction occur?
We have redemption – salvation – the forgiveness
of sins – in Christ alone. Since Christ
earned righteousness and credited us with it, and He took on all of our sin and
paid the debt due to God by enduring the fullness of His Wrath on the cross –
we are seen and received as righteous and sinless – in Christ alone through His
works.
What do we contribute to our
salvation? Surely God must require
something of us.
If Paul isn’t clear, hear what Paul writes:
“And you were dead in the trespasses and
sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons
of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children
of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of
the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us
up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so
that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:1-7, ESV).
We are born spiritually dead. How much can a dead person contribute to his
health?
Nothing, right?
What can we contribute to our salvation?
Nothing.
It is in and by and through Christ alone.
God the Father loved us when we were dead
and chose to save us through Jesus’ work despite our being children of wrath –
who hated God and wanted nothing to do with Him. This is God’s Amazing Grace – He chose to send
His Son to save us all by Himself and to His Glory.
“But, don’t I have to choose Jesus? Don’t I have to accept Jesus first, before
His salvation is given to me?”
“We love because he first loved us” (I
John 4:19, ESV).
Brothers and sisters, if you believe
savingly in Jesus Christ, it is because God the Father chose you and loved you
and ordained that you would be His before we had any desire to have anything to
do with Him or His salvation.
God acts and we react. God chooses us, and Christ merits our
salvation, and the Father and Son sends God the Holy Spirit to indwell us, and
then we respond in thanksgiving and faith and obedience.
If we say, with the Roman Catholic Church,
that the work Jesus did is not enough to save us, then Jesus is less than God,
He is less than our Savior, and we become saviors with Jesus – we become
co-saviors, co-redeemers with Jesus – if we add anything to our salvation.
No, the glory and the wonder is that God
chose us and saves us through Christ alone.
Our salvation is secure because it is the work of God and God indwells
us forever.
Next, Paul tells us, Christ in preeminent
in Creation.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on
earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or
authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before
all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Paul enlarges on Who Christ is by
explaining three things about Christ’s preeminence in Creation:
Frist, Jesus Christ is God.
Paul tells us that Christ is the Image of
God. We know that when God created
humans, He created us in His Image, but Christ is the Image Himself! Christ is the God in Whose Image we are
created. And in His Incarnation, Jesus
is both the Image of God and the bearer of the Image of God, so He is the
firstborn of Creation – that is, He is the preeminent Being – there is no one
greater than God our Savior.
Second, Jesus Christ is the Governor of
Creation.
Paul tells us that Christ – God, created
everything that exists, in Heaven and on earth, the visible and invisible –
everything that is exists because Christ created them when nothing but the
Triune God existed. And now, He governs
everything that is, because they were created through Him and for Him. Everything that exists is for the glory of
God, and God superintends over everything so everything is under His Sovereign
control.
Third, Jesus Christ is the Sustainer of
Creator.
Again, Christ, our God, Who is pre-existent
to everything that is sustains everything.
If it were not for the dominion of Christ over the Creation, it would
fly into chaos. God created everything
and governs it and sustains it. Nothing
goes one way or another or comes into existence or goes out of existence except
by the Will of God.
Remember what Jesus says, “Are not two
sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart
from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not,
therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29-31, ESV).
The God Who is the Sovereign Lord over all
of Creation loves you and values you and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to
accomplish salvation for all of His people – alone – all by Himself. What love is this that this God would love us
and save us, knowing that we can give nothing, and still accomplishes salvation
in Christ alone?
Finally, Christ is preeminent in
redemption.
“And he is the head of the body, the
church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he
might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in
heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
Here Paul explains three things about
Christ’s preeminence in redemption:
First, Jesus Christ is the Foundation of
the Church.
Jesus is the Head of the body – the
Church. The Church exists by and for Jesus. We are His people that He has saved for
Himself. The Church only functions as
Jesus leads and directs – just as the head of the human body leads and directs
the rest of the human body and its functions.
Jesus is the ruling authority and is not dependent on anything or
anyone.
Jesus is the beginning. The Church begins with Jesus. He is the One Who calls us out of our
deadness in sin and brings us together as His Church. Our purpose and life is by Jesus and in
Jesus.
Jesus is the first-born from the
dead. Not that He is the first person
resurrected from the dead, but He is the first one to be physically resurrected
and glorified in His human body.
And just as He is first and most glorious
in these things, so we will be kept in Him and physically raised and glorified
on the last day by and in Christ alone.
Second, in Jesus Christ dwells the
fullness of God. Jesus Christ is both at
the same time in the same person, a real, complete human being, and the One
Almighty God. That is how He lives a
perfect life under the Law of God, and He receives the fullness of God’s Wrath
for our sin.
We who believe are gifted the indwelling
of God the Holy Spirit, but Jesus received the indwelling of God. We cannot be called God, even thought He
lives in us, but Jesus Christ is God and at the same time in the same person a
real, complete, full human being. This
had to be for Him to save us, and it could only be Him that can save us,
because no one else is wholly God and wholly human.
Third, through the blood of the cross,
Jesus Christ is reconciling all of Creation to Himself.
Through the salvation that Jesus Christ
alone accomplishes, all we who believe are eternally saved – reconciled with
God – confirmed to be received into the fullness of the Kingdom of God.
Thought we are the special object of God’s
love and redemption through Christ alone, we will remember that the whole Creation
was cursed due to our first parent’s sin, and all of the Creation will be
reconciled to God – it will be restored and uncorrupted on the last day.
As Paul explains:
“For the creation waits with eager longing
for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to
futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the
creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the
freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole
creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And
not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the
Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption
of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not
hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we
wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:19-25, ESV).
We wait in hope for the return of Christ
and the indwelling of the fullness of the Kingdom when He alone physically raises
our bodies and glorifies us, and we will be made eternally like Him. Likewise, the Creation waits in hope for the
resurrection of our bodies, because it will then be freed from its bondage to
corruption and will be set free in the very glory that we will receive.
Jesus Christ is preeminent in redemption. Christ alone is the Head of the Church. Christ alone is God Himself, our Savior, in a
real human person. Christ alone will
reconcile all things to Himself – casting away sin and death and evil and all
its effects.
Our Heidelberg
Catechism says:
Q & A 29
Q. Why is the Son of God called “Jesus,”
meaning “savior”?
A. Because he saves us from our sins,1
and because salvation should not be sought
and cannot be found in anyone else.2
1 Matt. 1:21; Heb. 7:25
2 Isa. 43:11; John 15:5; Acts 4:11-12; 1
Tim. 2:5
Q & A 30
Q. Do those who look for
their salvation in saints,
in themselves, or elsewhere
really believe in the only savior Jesus?
A. No.
Although they boast of being his,
by their actions they deny
the only savior, Jesus.1
Either Jesus is not a perfect savior,
or those who in true faith accept this
savior
have in him all they need for their
salvation.2
1 1 Cor. 1:12-13; Gal. 5:4
2 Col. 1:19-20; 2:10; 1 John 1:7
“Either Jesus is not a perfect savior, or
those who in true faith accept this savior have in him all they need for their
salvation.”
Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ Alone
is our Savior. He Alone is the Creator
and the One Who redeems of all Creation when He comes in glory. If you have believed the Gospel, you are
saved, He has done the work, there is nothing for you to do and you cannot add
anything to your salvation.
Rest in Him. Hope in the promises of what will come. And now, to those Whom Christ alone has saved
– in thanks and in joy – let us obey our God and Savior.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for sending
Your Son to save us. We thank You that
He did all the work to save us and that He reigns Sovereign and preeminent over
all things including the Creation and our redemption. Send the Holy Spirit to give us Your peace
that we would trust in the work Jesus did and rest in Him, as the Holy Spirit
leads us and gives us the power to do all that You have commanded. And may Glory be to the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit, for it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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