Solus Christus

Christ alone is God’s answer to the sin problem. Yet I have heard other solutions to the sin problem. One is to try a little harder. Another is to avoid temptation like the plague and thus overcome. Still others involve more of what the person can do than what God has promised to do. Worse yet there are some who deny that there is a problem. Only Christ can heal the sin sick soul, nothing else will do.

In the book of Romans Paul shares his experience with overcoming covetousness or rather his failure to do so. Most if not all Christians can relate in some way to the words he penned in Romans 7. He tried his best to overcome it, but found he could not. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” Romans 7:18. Paul went through the myriad forms of the works and willpower formulas to find that ultimately nothing good came from him. Through that discovery he was able to make another. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 7:24,25.

Paul struggled with covetousness; a sin that is esteemed as small. Logically we know it is not, but if it was esteemed as greater than it has been we would hear more sermons about it. I can count on one hand the number of times I have heard about it from the pulpit. Yet these small sins, these heart sins seem to be the most difficult to lay aside. We have formulas for reforming a smoker or a drug addict, but to reform the heart we have not. A good portion have been able to lay aside supposedly great sins, but these small ones are something else. Yet Paul found the solution for his heart sin, it is Christ. The heart sins seem to be truly the greatest, and if Christ can take care of those surely he can take care of the others because “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts 4:12.

Christ alone saves from sin. The only way that He will save from sin is if we receive Him. This means giving up on the other solutions. Some of these solutions have a right place in receiving Him, but “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” 2 Corinthians 4:4. Until we place our trust in Jesus, we are of them who believe not and will continue to be blind to the solution for our sin. Trust that Christ can take away your sin and live out His life in you. Now may our study be as to how He is received.