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Why Did Jesus Christ Come to Earth?
Reformed Bibliophile ^ | August 31, 2012 | B.B. Warfield

Posted on 02/23/2015 5:41:49 PM PST by RnMomof7

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” – 1 Timothy 1:15

Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield (1851-1921)

“Christ Jesus came to save sinners.

Not, then, merely to prepare salvation for them; to open to them a pathway to salvation; to remove the obstacles in the way of their salvation; to proclaim as a teacher a way of salvation; to introduce as a ruler conditions of life in which clean living becomes for the first time possible; to bring motives to holy action to bear upon us; to break down our enmity to God by an exhibition of His seeking love; to manifest to us what sin is in the sight of God, and how He will visit it with His displeasure. All these things He undoubtedly does. But all these things together touch but the circumference of His work for man. Under no interpretation of the nature or reach of His work can it be truly said that Christ Jesus came to do these things. For that we must penetrate deeper, and say with the primitive Church, in this faithful saying commended to us by the apostle, that Christ Jesus came to save sinners.

We must take the great declaration in the height and depth of its tremendous meaning. Jesus did all that is included in the great word ‘save.’ He did not come to induce us to save ourselves, or to help us to save ourselves, or to enable us to save ourselves. He came to save us. And it is therefore that His name was called Jesus—because He should save His people from their sins. The glory of our Lord, surpassing all His other glories to usward, is just that He is our actual and complete Saviour; our Saviour to the uttermost. Our knowledge, even though it be His gift to us as our Prophet, is not our saviour, be it as wide and as deep and as high as it is possible to conceive. The Church, though it be His gift to us as our King, is not our saviour, be it as holy and true as it becomes the Church, the bride of the Lamb, to be. The reorganized society in which He has placed us, though it be the product of His holy rule over the redeemed earth, is not our saviour, be it the new Jerusalem itself, clothed in its beauty and descended from heaven.

Nay, let us cut more deeply still. Our faith itself, though it be the bond of our union with Christ through which we receive all His blessings, is not our saviour. We have but one Saviour; and that one Saviour is Jesus Christ our Lord. Nothing that we are and nothing that we can do enters in the slightest measure into the ground of our acceptance with God. Jesus did it all. And by doing it all He has become in the fullest and widest and deepest sense the word can bear—our Saviour. For this end did He come into the world—to save sinners; and nothing short of the actual and complete saving of sinners will satisfy the account of His work given by His own lips and repeated from them by all His apostles.

It is in this great fact, indeed, that there lies the whole essence of the gospel. For let us never forget that the gospel is not good advice, but good news. It does not come to us to make known to us what we must do to earn salvation for ourselves, but proclaiming to us what Jesus has done to save us. It is salvation, a completed salvation, that it announces to us; and the burden of its message is just the words of our text—that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”


TOPICS: Apologetics; Evangelical Christian; Mainline Protestant; Theology
KEYWORDS: attonement; christ; purpose; sacrifice; salvation
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To: Arthur McGowan
The problem, from your point of view, is that a fish does not know what water is.

But mackerel snappers DO?

101 posted on 02/24/2015 12:34:24 PM PST by Elsie
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To: Elsie

Oxford Dictionary of Archeology: Solstice: “Literally, the sun’s standstill ( on a sundial ) . The extreme positions of the sun at midwinter when its eastern risings and western settings appear to take place in the same position on the horizon for ——THREE DAYS—— in succession.” Those 3 days are currently Dec 22, 23rd, and 24th.

Depending on calendarial shifts, December 25th was when the sun would make it’s way into Capricorn by 1 degree along the ecliptic. Since this coincided with the sun’s first ascent Northward, it marked the occasion.


102 posted on 02/24/2015 10:50:22 PM PST by sushiman
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To: metmom
Chapter and verse on all that and those titles?

The last desperate plea of someone that has lost the debate.

103 posted on 02/25/2015 2:08:50 AM PST by verga (I might as well be playing Chess with a pigeon.)
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To: verga

Yup, yours is.

I knew that there are none and that Catholics could not produce because they’re not in there.


104 posted on 02/25/2015 3:26:37 AM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: sushiman
Oxford Dictionary of Archeology: Solstice: “Literally, the sun’s standstill ( on a sundial ) . The extreme positions of the sun at midwinter when its eastern risings and western settings appear to take place in the same position on the horizon for ——THREE DAYS—— in succession.” Those 3 days are currently Dec 22, 23rd, and 24th.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.php

105 posted on 02/25/2015 4:20:06 AM PST by Elsie
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To: metmom

Prots are so gosh darn silly when they prove they can’t read for comprehension. Still praying for you.


106 posted on 02/25/2015 5:16:23 AM PST by verga (I might as well be playing Chess with a pigeon.)
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To: verga; metmom
Chapter and verse on all that and those titles?

The last desperate plea of someone that has lost the debate.

Actually, no. I'm afraid you have it just a little backwards. The fact you cannot produce the requested information shows who lost the debate.

Chapter and verse?

Hoss

107 posted on 02/26/2015 12:18:57 PM PST by HossB86 (Christ, and Him alone.)
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To: HossB86

Is that the sound of crickets I hear?


108 posted on 02/26/2015 3:34:01 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: metmom
Is that the sound of crickets I hear?

Yup.

And that's all either of us will hear.

Hoss

109 posted on 02/26/2015 3:58:28 PM PST by HossB86 (Christ, and Him alone.)
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