Who Must We Know?

John 17:3

In recent weeks and months I have read numerous articles and heard several sermons on the general subject, "How Much Must You Know Before You Can Be Saved?" In essence the men were attempting to prove that Arminians, free-willers and legalists are saved people and are to be embraced as brethren. Upon the surface that seems to be a charitable thing. And I am sure it is the intention of those men to be charitable. But I fear their charity is a delusion. I know it is contrary to both the spirit and letter of Holy Scripture (Rom. 11:6; Gal. 1:6-9; Phil. 3:18; Col. 2:23; Gal. 5:1-4). Anyone who believes that salvation is determined by his free will rather than God's sovereign will is lost. Anyone who believes that salvation is dependent upon his works to any degree rather than upon Christ's finished work alone is lost. To tell them that they are saved is not charity, but cruelty! Would you think a doctor charitable who saw a man dying with cancer, if he told the man he was in good health, because he did not want to hurt his feelings? Of course not! Only in the name of religion can a man be applauded for such senseless cruelty.

The issue of a man's salvation has nothing to do with how much he must know. The issue is who we must know! No man can be saved who does not know the one true and living God as he is revealed in Christ by the gospel. And the Arminian, free-will, works religionist does not know the living God, his Christ, or his gospel. GOD IS SOVEREIGN. If the god you worship can be resisted, defeated, or controlled, you worship a false god, an idolatrous figment of your own imagination. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IS GOD ALMIGHTY. If the Christ you trust is a failure, he is not God, he is a false Christ. If he lived and died to redeem and save a multitude of sinners whom he fails to save, he is a failure. And a failure cannot be God!

The gospel of the grace of God is the revelation of God in Christ. It is a declaration of Christ's finished work of redemption for sinners. The gospel does not present the possibility of salvation upon some condition to be met by the sinner. It declares the accomplishment of salvation by Christ for every sinner who trusts him. Salvation is not in how much you know, but in who you know. Do you know the Christ of God?

Don Fortner