"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight." (Ephesians 1:3-8)
In response to the Mass of Romanism, the Reformers returned to the Biblical teaching of Salvation by Grace Alone. Grace, by it's mere definition, cannot be earned. It is an unmerited favor, a favor bestowed on us before we were even born, making it impossible for us to have worked to obtain it. While good fruit can be expected from a good tree (Matthew 7:15-20), the fruit itself cannot make the tree good. God must make the tree good by His Grace alone. I have met many Mormons, who are some of the nicest people that you would ever want to meet. They are also duped by Satan, promoting a false religion founded by a false prophet. They are full of good works, but in the end, those works are filthy rags. So is the case with the Mass, Penance, Relics, Indulgences, etc. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8)
The atonement of Christ, as we saw in an earlier blog, purchased all the benefits of adoption for the saints. As a result, God causes His people to walk in His statutes (Ezekiel 36:27), not by forces coercion, but by a sweet and irresistible guidance. How truly amazing is this grace, which saved a wretch like me.
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