Christ’s Name And His Doctrine Are One

Revelation 2:13

Our Lord says to his faithful ones, “Thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith.” These two things are identical. They can never be separated. You cannot have Christ without his doctrine, his faith. And you cannot believe Christ without believing his doctrine. The faith of the gospel has Christ for its center, its circumference, and its substance. The name of Christ (that is his Person, his character, his work, and his teachings) is the faith of the gospel. We never hold the faith of Christ except as we hold him as the foundation, object, and center of that faith. In the faith of the gospel Jesus Christ is all in all. ELECTION is God’s choice of us in Christ before the world was made. REDEMPTION is God purchasing his elect out of the hands of his own law by the blood of Christ. REGENERATION is God the Holy Spirit giving dead sinners life in Christ. FORGIVENESS is God’s pardon of our sins through the blood of Christ. JUSTIFICATION is God clothing his elect with and imputing to them the righteousness of Christ. SANCTIFICATION is God forming Christ in us. RESURRECTION is God raising us up by the power of Christ. And GLORIFICATION is God conforming us to the image of Christ, to which end we were predestinated in the eternal purposes of God our Father.

Don Fortner