‘Jesus
Christ is the only
sure hope for this world’
Volume
34, Number 1
Posted January 24, 2001
Excerpts
from Reformed Church in America’s statement, titled “The
Crucified One is Lord:”
- “… God’s unique, unrepeatable, and
decisive activity in Jesus Christ is the only sure hope
for this world.”
- “ … to say that Jesus is Lord is to
attribute to Jesus the same sovereign power and authority
that we attribute to God.”
- “ … there is an increasing tendency to view
religious issues merely as matters of personal preference.
Such an attitude renders the church’s confession more
difficult for many to understand and to embrace.”
- “… to say that Jesus is Lord is not merely
to affirm his deity; it is also to make the claim that
every human authority is finally subject to Jesus. Even
though the world may not acknowledge it yet, every
governing official, every religious leader, indeed every
human claim to authority must finally acknowledge the
authority of Christ.”
- “ … the churches of the Reformation have
consistently emphasized that Christ is both necessary and
entirely sufficient for salvation. The Reformed emphasis
on solus Christus (‘Christ alone’) reminds us
that there is no other mediator between God and humankind.”
- “To confess that Jesus is Lord is not to give
sanction to human authority, but to subject it to a
penetrating critique that challenges any claim to
authority apart from or different from the authority of
the Christ who gave himself for the life of the world.”
- “Throughout human history, authority and power
have usually been won by shedding the blood of others. But
Jesus is acclaimed as Lord precisely because he has shed
his own blood on behalf of the world. To say that Jesus is
Lord without recognizing this distinctive understanding of
gracious divine lordship is gravely to misunderstand the
Christian confession.”
- “In one sense, the resistance of the dominant
culture to the confession ‘Jesus is Lord’ is as
old as Christian faith itself. The early Christian martyrs
were not put to death simply for believing in Jesus; they
were put to death because they would not take part in the
imperial cult of Rome. That is, they were not willing to
regard their own religious beliefs and practices as part
of an eclectic smorgasbord in the way most religions did.”
- “We may be in a situation today that is closer to
that of the New Testament church than ever before. As we
are freed from the false security of being an established
religion and forced to compete in a wide-open marketplace
of ideas and perspectives, the Holy Spirit may be opening
an opportunity for renewal and transformation in the
church, leading us into a fresh and deeper witness to the
world …”
- “In our time it is becoming increasingly popular
to adopt a general approval of all religions, a view that
assumes that all religions are expressions of the same
basic human quest for God. Yet such a perspective, as
gracious and magnanimous as it may appear, is both highly
questionable on its own grounds and incompatible with the
central affirmations of Christian faith.”
- “When Jesus declared that the Reign of God was at
hand, he was not claiming to open a new path to God; he
was claiming that God was blazing a new path to us in
Jesus. Christian faith is, in the final analysis, not
about our going to God, but about God’s coming to us
in Christ. Christian faith is not about discovering God;
it is the experience of having been found, despite our
resistance and rebellion, by a God in search of us …”
- “Sometimes other religions challenge us to embrace
more deeply the implications of our own faith. The
regularity of the prayer life of our Muslim neighbors may
confront us with the infrequency of prayer in our own
lives. The interest in the spiritual world among Native
Americans may confront us with our own materialism and
indifference to the Spirit of God. The celebrative
affirmation of the law in Judaism may challenge our own
cheap grace that fails to see God’s law as a gracious
gift.”
- “The Bible does not say that God comes to us in
many ways to save; it affirms that God’s salvation
has come to us ‘in the fullness of time’ in
Christ … Christian faith is absolutely clear: Jesus
is God’s definitive word – the only savior.”
Theological paper
affirms Lordship of Christ |