Now, therefore, we declare, say, determine and pronounce that for every human creature it is necessary for salvation to be subject to the authority of the Roman pontiff.
~ Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctum, November 18, 1302
[Note: This remains the “official” teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and is the reason why Catholicism is not Christianity, but a counterfeit of Christianity.]
“Jesus did not come to tell us how to be saved. Jesus came to tell us that we are saved.” “Accepting Jesus is not the basis of salvation. Jesus came to say that we are saved.”
~ R. Kirby Godsey, in When We Talk About God… Let’s Be Honest
[Note: Baptists can be heretics, too.]
Our unity with Christ… is terribly important and perhaps the most critical doctrine of salvation in Paul’s writing.
~ James Montgomery Boice
As no man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open to all men; neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief.
~ John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. 36: Acts, Part I, tr. by John King
The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation.
~ Epicurus
People who are far from God think they are very near to him, when they begin to take a few steps to approach him. The most polite and most enlightened people have the same stupidity about this as a peasant who thinks he is really at court, because he has seen the king. We leave the horrible vices; we restrain ourselves in a weak, worldly and dissipated life. We judge it, not by the Gospel, which is the only rule, but by the comparison which we make between that life and the one which we led before, or which we see led by so many others. No more is needed to canonize ourselves, and to go sound asleep so far as everything goes which has to do with our salvation.”
~ Fenelon, in Christian Perfection
If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he’s traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, if I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, if I can spread the message as the master taught, then my living will not be in vain.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr., in a sermon preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church and replayed at his funeral.
There are many ways to Christ, but … only one way to God.
~ Paul Little, in Know Why You Believe
If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly.
~ Martin Luther
Mankind wants glory. We want health. We want wealth. We want happiness. We want all our felt needs met, all our little human itches scratched. We want a painless life. We want the crown without the cross. We want the gain without the pain. We want the words of Christ’s salvation to be easy.
~ John MacArthur
This is the love of God; not that He gives us something, but that He gives us some one — a living person — not one or another blessing, but Him in whom is all life and blessing — Jesus Himself. Not simply forgiveness, or revival, or sanctification, or glory does He give us; but Jesus, His own Son. The Lord Jesus is the beloved, the equal, the bosom-friend, the eternal blessedness of the Father. And it is the will of the Father that we should have Jesus as ours, even as He has Him. (Matt. 11:27; John 17:23,25; Rom. 8:38-39; Heb. 2:11) For this end He gave Him to us. The whole of salvation consists in this: to have, to possess, to enjoy Jesus. God has given His Son, given Him wholly to become ours. (Ps. 73:25; 142:6; John 20:28; Heb. 3:14)
~ Andrew Murray, in God’s Gift of His Son
Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ.
~ John Murray
In the second place man is ignorant of the way of salvation. Even when man has been brought to the place where he recognizes that he is not prepared to meet God, and that if he died in his present state he would be eternally lost; even then he has no right conception of the remedy. Being ignorant of God’s righteousness he goes about to establish his own righteousness. He supposes that he must make some personal reparation for his past wrong-doings, that he must work for his salvation, do something to merit the esteem of God, and thus win heaven as a reward. The highest concept of man’s mind is that of merit. To him salvation is a wage to be earned, a crown to be coveted, a prize to be won. The proof of this is to be seen in the fact that even when pardon and life are presented as a free gift, the universal tendency, at first, is to regard it as being “too good to be true.” Yet, such is the plain teaching of God’s Word – “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works; lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). And again – “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:5).
~ A.W. Pink, in The Character of its Teachings Evidences The Divine Authorship of the Bible
“God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now what did Paul mean by saying this? He meant to declare strongly, that he trusted in nothing but Jesus Christ crucified for the pardon of his sins and the salvation of his soul. Let others, if they would, look elsewhere for salvation. Let others, if they were so disposed, trust in other things for pardon and peace. For his part, the apostle was determined to rest on nothing, lean on nothing, build his hope on nothing, place confidence in nothing, glory in nothing, except “the cross of Jesus Christ.
~ J.C. Ryle, in The Cross of Christ
In light of mankind’s universal rebellion against God, the issue is not why is there only one way, but why is there any way at all?
~ R.C. Sproul, in Reason To Believe
Jesus Christ did not come into this world to make bad people good; he came into this world to make dead people live.
~ Lee Strobel
Essentially salvation is the restoration of a right relation between man and his Creator, a bringing back to normal of the Creator-creature relation.
~ A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God, chapter 8
