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“Christ is All”

In the Salvation of His People

Colossians 3:11

“Christ is all” in the salvation of our souls. Let no one misunderstand me. I hold to and rejoice in the works of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, as well as the works of God the Son in this matter of salvation. We are Trinitarians. We boldly declare eternal election and predestination as sovereign works of God the Father. He chose us. He predestinated all things needful for our everlasting salvation. We insist upon the necessity of regeneration and sanctification by God the Holy Spirit. No one will ever enter into heaven without the Father’s election and the Spirit’s sanctification. There is perfect harmony in the blessed Trinity. Read the first chapter of Ephesians one more time. In the first fourteen verses of that chapter Paul tells us that our everlasting salvation was planned and purposed by God the Father (vv. 1-6), purchased by God the Son (vv. 7-12), and performed in us by God the Holy Ghost (vv. 13-14). Salvation is the work of the triune Godhead “to the praise of the glory of his grace!”

Christ Preeminent

Yet, it is the purpose of the triune God to glorify the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Mediator and Substitute, the Second Person of the blessed Trinity, in the redemption and salvation of his people. It is the purpose of God that Christ be preeminent and glorious in the redemption and salvation of his people (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).

In the matter of salvation, “Christ is all!” That is a blessed fact of divine revelation. It cannot be insisted upon too emphatically or too often. It is a fact that must be known. It is essential to the gospel, essential to the souls of men, essential to salvation, and essential to the revelation of the glory of God.

Wisdom

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalms 111:10); and Christ is all as our Wisdom. If you would be wise unto salvation, you must know Christ. He was our wise Counselor and Advocate in the covenant of grace before the world was made (Proverbs 8:12-31). He is our wise Prophet who alone reveals God to us and in us (John 1:18). He is our wise Intercessor at the right hand of the Father (1 John 2:1-2). And he makes his people as wise as serpents and harmless as doves, directing us in the paths of faith and righteousness according to the will of God.

Righteousness

Christ is all as our Righteousness. In the matter of righteousness, we are totally bankrupt. We have no righteousness of our own, and no ability to produce any. We are sinners. We cannot do anything good in the sight of God. Even our righteousnesses are filthy rags in his eyes (Isaiah 64:6). Yet, in order for us to be saved, we must be made perfectly righteous (Matthew 5:20; Psalms 24:3-4). By his life of obedience to God as a man, the Lord Jesus Christ established and brought in everlasting righteousness.

By his death at Calvary, he satisfied the justice of God for the sins of his people which were made his and imputed to him. Just as our sins were made his and imputed to him, just as he was made sin for us, every believing sinner is “made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Sanctification

Christ is all as our Sanctification, too. All who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ were set apart in him from eternity by God’s electing love (Jude 1), set apart unto God by legal purchase through the redemptive work of Christ (Hebrews 10:10, 14), and shall be set apart and distinguished from the rest of the human race by God the Holy Spirit in regeneration and conversion. In the new birth the Holy Spirit puts within us the very nature of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:9). He imparts to every chosen, redeemed sinner the very righteousness of Christ, making us “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”

Redemption

Christ is all as our Redemption. He redeemed his people from the penalty of sin by blood atonement when he died as our Substitute, paying our debt to the infinite justice of God for us (Galatians 3:13). He redeems his elect from the dominion of sin by the almighty, irresistible power of his grace in the new birth, sending his Spirit to regenerate his ransomed ones (Romans 6:22). And he shall redeem all who trust him from the very being and all the evil consequences of sin in the resurrection at the last day (Hebrews 9:28).

All that our souls need the Lord Jesus Christ is. All that God requires from us is in Christ. The Lord God accepts sinners as his sons by the merit of Christ his Son. Believe on Christ alone as your only, all-sufficient Savior; and all that he is and has you are and have in him. God help you now to trust his dear Son.

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s