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The Message

1 Corinthians 2:2

If we have not yet learned that Jesus Christ and him crucified is the foundation, essence, and fulness of all divine truth, if we have not yet learned that the message of the Bible and the hope of the Gospel is Christ and him crucified, then we have read the Word of God with no profit to our souls, our religion is a vain show, and we are yet without hope before God. What knowledge we have of this Sacred Book will only add to our condemnation in the Day of Judgment!

Useless Religion

Without Christ and him crucified our religion is as useless as a bucket without a bottom. Without Christ and him crucified we have no forgiveness of sin, no comfort in trouble, no strength in trial, no atonement, peace, or reconciliation with God, no hope in death, no access to God, and no door of entrance into heaven.

Do you understand this? — “Christ is all.” — Without Christ we are nothing, we have nothing, we can do nothing (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).

In Christ

All that God has for guilty sinners is in Christ, only in Christ (Colossians 2:9-10; John 3:35-36). The love of God is in Christ. The mercy of God is in Christ. The grace of God is in Christ. Without Christ there is no mercy, love, and grace, but only wrath, judgment, and condemnation.

When the flood came, there was no mercy and deliverance anywhere, but in the ark. That ark was Christ. When the man-slayer fled from the avenger of blood, he found no safety until he entered the City of Refuge. That City of Refuge was Christ. God said to Israel, “I will meet with thee (upon) the mercy-seat, between the two cherubim” (Exodus 25:22). Christ is our Mercy-Seat. God meets sinners nowhere else but in Christ.

Christ Praised

Among the untold millions of the redeemed in heaven, there shall not be found a single voice that shall not sing the praises of Christ, the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah. Yonder in Glory Land Christ alone is praised. There ransomed sinners sing, “Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Revelation 5:9). To him alone every knee shall bow. To him every tongue shall confess. There they only sing of grace. There are no off key, sour notes of freewill/works religion.

I sincerely hope you understand what I am saying. The message of this Book is Jesus Christ and him crucified. All things are “in Christ!”

In this first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he uses the words “in Christ,” or their equivalent, fourteen times. He means for us to understand that all grace, all salvation, all blessedness is “in Christ.” All that the triune God has done for us, all that he gives to sinners, and all that he requires of sinners is in Christ. The Triune Jehovah has made us “accepted in the Beloved!” How I love those words. — “In the Beloved” I am accepted! Rejoice, O my soul!

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s