They Hardly Believe It
Frank
Although it is almost unbelievable
what has happened to the Gospel,
it has been proven on my website.
When people hear that the Gospel
that Christ showed to Luther to
enable the Protestant Reformation
is hardly cherished or heard anymore,
they can hardly believe it, and yet
it has been clearly shown.
It does seem almost impossible
that the denominations could lose
the real Gospel, but that is so except
for a few of the original denominations,
notably some Lutheran and Presbyterian,
and yet even there, the Gospel has been
so clouded up that people just end up
trusting in their own "righteousness" anyway.
But though it is so hard to believe what has happened,
so also it is hard to convince people that already profess
to believe that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone,
that the faith they profess, they must actually have
in order to have eternal life.
Christ must give the faith for them to believe in him alone,
and he gives that faith thru the real Gospel.
But the core of the real Gospel,
the imputation of the righteousness of Christ for salvation,
is hardly heard today, being generally considered
by most theologians as "older Protestant theology",
and so likewise by those they influence: seminaries,
Bible schools, ministers, denominations, churches.
It is that unheard core of the Gospel,
namely, that Christ must regard his own righteousness
to be ours in order for anyone to have eternal life,
that is the light of the Gospel, the light from Christ,
that enables people to see why they must trust
Christ alone for salvation, and so no trust at all
in their own "righteousness", even in things
that should definitely nevertheless be done,
such as repentance, surrender, commitment,
baptism, church, sacrament, giving, service,
good deeds, endurance.
Until a person knows that the righteousness
required for salvation is totally that of Christ
as our Righteous Substitute, and not at all
any of our own "righteousness", they will just
continue to trust in their own "righteousness"
no matter what, and that misplaced trust
will keep them from trusting Christ alone,
and so keep them from having eternal life.
The real Gospel is based on Christ alone,
that he regards his righteousness ours
so that we have salvation:
The moment Christ gives us faith to stop trusting our
"righteousness" and start trusting him to be our Righteous
Substitute so he regards his righteousness and victory ours,
we have eternal life.
(John 3,6,10, Romans 3-5,9-11, 1 Corinthians 1-3,
2 Corinthians 4-5, Galatians 1-3, Ephesians 2,
Philippians 3, Colossians 1-3, 1 Peter 1,
Preface to Luther's Latin Works)
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http://roines.home.mindspring.com
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