Does salvation come by man's decision for Christ or by Christ's decision for man: "Not my will, but thine be done"?
Is a person saved by his experience or is a person saved by Christ's experience?
At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the medieval church taught that a sinner is saved by God's work of grace in the sinner's heart. God gives him a new nature which makes him more kind, more loving and, on this basis, God can accept him.
No, said the Reformers. A man is saved by God's work of grace in Jesus Christ. In the doing and dying of Jesus, the penalty of man's sins has been paid. Man is made acceptable to God by the atonement, which has taken place in Jesus.
When man accepts His acceptance, man is given a new nature, which is only the result of the Father's work of grace in His Son, and never the basis of man's acceptance before the throne.
While there is a time and place for the believer to testify how God has changed his life, man is not saved by a changed life but rather by that perfect life and death of God's Son.
The religion of today, which focuses on man's experience rather than Christ's experience, is in the best tradition of the Roman Church.
Jack D. Walker, 5353
Cane Ridge #115, Antioch, TN, 37013, 615.731.8795