Johnny be good. This, unfortunately, is the central belief of not only non Christians, but of most mainline evangelicals statistics reveal. Sociologist Christian Smith recently conducted a survey in American and the results were, that of those who considered themselves to be mainline evangelical Christians, 76% adhered to what he called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. In summary he explains the central tenants of this belief system as:
1. "A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth."
2. "God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions."
3. "The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself."
4. "God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem."
5. "Good people go to heaven when they die."
We are at a crisis point in evangelical Christianity. What is needed is a return to the Word of God. And this is exactly where the reformers found themselves in the 16th century. One of the most significant points of contention was -what role does Jesus play in Salvation? On what basis do we have access to the father? This very issue was one heatedly contested in the reformation as the reformers rejected the many means the Roman Catholic Church had instituted as the grounds of our communion with God. So.... whose good works really save us?
Roman Catholic's believe that we are saved through the merit of Christ and the Saints, and through the merit of our own participation in the sacraments. For them those who have lived perfectly charitable lives achieve both for themselves and for others merit before God. This merit is placed in a common fund with Christ's merit called the treasury of merit- sort of piggy bank that we draw on through our participation with the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church
They explain that: “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins.. An indulgence is obtained through the Church, who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favour of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins”- The catechism of the Catholic Church (1993) 1471, 1478
"Since all the faithful form onebody, the good of each is communicated to the others.... We must therefore believe that there exists a communion of goods in the Church. But the most important member is Christ, since he is the head.... Therefore, the riches of Christ are communicated to all the members, through the sacraments."478 "As this Church is governed by one and the same Spirit, all the goods she has received necessarily become a common fund."479
Mary, the mother of Jesus, they teach plays the role of the Co-redemtrix. Who, through sharing in the sufferings of Christ, plays an equal role with Christ in our salvation. In article 9 of the Roman Catholic Catechism they write:
"Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother's heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: "Woman, behold your son."503
"In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death." The catechism of the Catholic Church 507
At the heart of the Roman Catholic Doctrine is the belief that Christ's Righteousness is not enough. What He has done is not sufficient to save. We must also rely on the merit of the saints, and ultimately on our own merit as we cooperate with the grace of God through the sacraments, hoping to achieve a "a state of grace".
The reformers, however, saw that scripture taught plainly that we are saved by Christ's righteousness. Because it is a righteousness that comes from outside of us the reformers called it an “alien righteousness” which means a foreign righteousness. And that this righteousness, and it alone, was sufficient to satisfy the demands of God's law, and the penalty for transgressing it. This is the central theme of the book of Romans which caused Luther to nail His 95 thesis on the Wittenberg Door, that in the gospel "the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith." (Romans 1:17). Paul continues in chapter 3 to exlain the soul grounds for our right standing before God, saying that "the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe" (Romans 3:21, 22). Jesus, who lived a perfect life in obedience to God's law, became for us our perfect sacrifice as John the baptist exclaims of Jesus in John 1:29:
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Jesus saw it as his mission to fulfill the law on our behalf saying to the pharisees in Matthew 5:17:
“Do not think that I have come to abolishthe Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
And again when asking to be baptised by John the baptist in Matthew 3:15:
"But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
Thomas brooks (1608- 1680) thus concludes of the righteousness we require to be saved that:
"the only matter of man’s righteousness since the fall of Adam, wherein he can appear with comfort before the justice of God, and consequently whereby alone he can be justified in His sight, is the obedience and suffering of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of the Mediator. There is not any other way imaginable, how the justice of God may be satisfied, and we may have our sins pardoned in a way of justice, but by the righteousness of the Son of God. Therefore, this is His name, “the Lord our Righteousness” (Jer 23:6). Christ’s righteousness is that garment of wrought gold that we all need to cover all our imperfections and to render us perfectly beautiful and glorious in the sight of God. In this robe of righteousness we are complete, we are without spot or wrinkle, we are without fault before the throne of God. Through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, we are made righteous in the sight of God. God looking upon us, as invested with the righteousness of His Son, accounts us righteous. All believers have a righteousness in Christ as full and complete as if they had fulfilled the Law. “Christ being the end of the law for righteousness to believers” (Rom 10:4). [Christ] invests believers with a righteousness every way as complete as the personal obedience of the Law would have invested them withal. When men had violated God’s holy Law, God in justice resolved that His Law should be satisfied before man should be saved. Now this was done by Christ, Who was the end of the Law. He fulfilled it actively and passively, and so the injury offered to the Law is recompensed. God had rather that all men should be destroyed, than that His Law should not be satisfied... by Christ’s passive righteousness is meant His sufferings upon the Cross by which He satisfied the claims of justice. By His active righteousness is meant His obedience to the Law as a rule of life and conduct...
Remember, once for all, that the actions and sufferings of Christ make up but one entire and perfect obedience to the whole Law; nor had Christ been a perfect and complete Savior, if He had not performed what the Law required, as well as suffered the penalty which the Law inflicted. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us is a gracious act of God the Father, according to His good will and pleasure, whereby as a judge He accounts believers’ sins unto the Surety, as if He had committed the same. And [He accounts] the righteousness of Christ unto the believer, as if he had performed the same, the same obedience that Christ did in His own person. Christ’s imputed righteousness is as effectual to the full, for the acceptance of the believing sinner, as if he had yielded such obedience to the Lord himself. Hence His righteousness is called “our righteousness” (Jer 23:6). Now without this righteousness there is no standing before the justice of God."
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