Read: Romans 3:21-31
“It is important that we see that this is a legal declaration. We have not become righteous in ourselves. We are still sinful. We have not lived a perfect life. We have lived a sinful life. But we are declared righteous. As far as our standing before God the judge is concerned we are righteous. We are counted as righteous.”
“Jesus is uniquely qualified to be our Saviour. The Bible makes it clear that he had to be holy, that he had to be a perfect human being and that he had to be God. The Bible goes to great lengths to show how Jesus was unique and that that uniqueness was necessary for Jesus to do the saving work that his Father had sent him to do. No one else comes close to that. No mere human being is able to even come close to adding to what Jesus has done.”
Read: Ephesians 2:1-10
“On the one hand we confess that salvation is by
grace alone. It must be by grace alone because before we are saved, we
are dead in sin and trespasses. When God saves someone, he brings a
spiritual dead person to spiritual life. We are completely passive at that
point. And yet in our experience we are active. We become aware of
our need of the forgiveness and renewal and what Jesus has earned for
us. We hear the gospel and we respond to it in faith and repentance.”
Read: Psalm 96
“Our greatest good and joy and satisfaction is experienced in glorifying God while the greatest harm for us is not to glorify God. We were made to find our greatest good in seeing and appreciating and worshipping and adoring God. The greatest blessing that we can know is to be filled with love and adoration for God. And the greatest curse that we can know is to be without love and adoration for God.”
“The Reformers taught that Scripture was the highest authority on whatever it addressed. That meant that everything that the church taught must be shown to be taught in the Scriptures. It meant that church teaching always had to pass the test of faithfulness to the Word of God. It meant that if anyone could show where church teaching was not in harmony with the Bible that teaching must be rejected. And it meant that church leaders could not bind the consciences of church members in areas where the Bible was silent.”
