Is Salvation by Faith or by Works?

Recently on the White Horse Inn, Mike Horton told the story of a priest who was asked this question.  His answer, “Neither. Salvation is by the Grace of God.”

This gives us the correct perspective upon the Christian message.  We are born in Sin under the condemnation of God.  There is no hope, no purpose, no meaning, until we center upon the message that Christ died for our Sin.  Francis Schaeffer said about the Christian message, “Its center is not Christ’s life, nor His miracles, but His death.”

We live in “a world,” as Schaeffer says, “that does not want to say ‘no’ to self—not just for a minor reason, but out of principle, because people are determined to be the enter of the universe.”

“When we step out of the very black perspective,” says Schaeffer, “and into the perspective of the kingdom of God, then these negatives [of sin, a fallen world, and our own fallen nature] which are laid upon us take on an entirely different aspect.”

“This is the subject of thousands of years of prophecy. The center of the Christian message is the redemptive death of Jesus Christ.”