The New City Catechism #29 is this: “How can we be saved? Answer: Only by faith in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross; so even though we are guilty of having disobeyed God and are still inclined to all evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of our own but only by pure grace, imputes to us the perfect righteousness of Christ when we repent and believe in him.”
Pastor Kevin
DeYoung explains the question and answer in this way:[1]
In Acts 16, Paul and Silas are in prison when a
violent earthquake occurs. Prisoners are escaping, and the jailer wakes up and
is absolutely dismayed that everyone is running off. The jailer is about to
kill himself, and Paul stops him. And the jailer asks this very famous
question: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (v. 30). Paul gives him the
short, biblical, absolutely beautiful answer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus and
you will be saved, you and your household” (v. 31).
“What must I do to be saved?” There’s no more
important question in this life or for the next life. The answer to our
catechism question provides a wonderful summary of what it means to have faith
in Christ—the sort of faith that saves—and how God saves through faith.This
summary contains two key words. First is the very first word: only. Only faith
in Jesus Christ. You see, it wouldn’t be terribly controversial to talk about
faith. People are into faith and believing something. But it’s only faith, not
faith plus something else. It’s not faith in addition to your background, faith
plus your family of origin, faith plus how many good things you can do for
social justice, or faith plus how often you pray. It’s only faith, and it’s
faith in Jesus Christ—there is an object to it.
Many people will wax on and on about faith and belief
and say, “I’m a person of faith” or “You’ve got to have faith.” But faith by
itself doesn’t mean anything. It is the object of faith that saves us. It’s not
being a person who has strong beliefs, who is sincere, or who has a mystical
belief in spiritual things that saves us. It’s faith in Jesus Christ. He’s the
object. It’s the object of our faith that saves us. Faith is only an
instrument. It’s not the one good deed that God sees and says, “Well, you don’t
have much going for you, but you have faith, and I really like that.” No. Faith
is what joins us to Christ, and then he saves us. It’s the object that matters.
Growing up in a cold part of the country, I often went
ice skating and played hockey. I might tiptoe out onto that first freeze of the
year, and sort of wonder, “Is this ice thick enough?” Someone else might be on
the ice zipping around skating with great freedom and having a lot of faith in
the ice, while I’m gingerly tiptoeing and have just enough faith to get out on
the ice. But what makes both of us secure? It’s not the level of faith, though
you’d like to have the strong faith that’s zipping around there, but it’s the
thickness of the ice.
It’s the object on which you’re standing that saves
you. And that’s Jesus Christ. So it’s only faith in him.
The other word that is so crucial here is imputes. It
is essential to the gospel and to the Christian faith that the righteous life
that Christ lived is imputed to us. That means it’s reckoned to us. It’s counted
to us. It’s sort of a wire transfer of funds. And there’s a difference between
a righteousness that is inherent in us, infused in us, a kind of righteousness
that says, “Well, look at me, I’m righteous. I do righteous things.” That’s not
what this is talking about. This is talking about the righteousness of Christ
that is outside of us, but because we’re joined to Jesus by faith, it gets
counted as our righteousness, so that God can be both the just and the
justifier of the wicked.
That’s the problem in Romans 3, and that’s the good news of the gospel—that though we are still sinners, God justifies us. And he is just to do so not because he waves a magic wand or says sin’s not a big deal (wink-wink); it’s because we belong to Christ and his righteousness is our righteousness that God can be just and we can be justified.
Delighting In Salvation With You,
Tom
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