February 12 – LD 7, Day 1: Who Then is Saved By the Mediator, Jesus Christ?

Matthew 1:21, “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS, for he shall save his people from their sins.”

Having set forth the credentials necessary for Jesus to be the Mediator, and having set forth the glorious fact that He is not hidden but set forth boldly in the gospel through all ages, the catechism now addresses the important question, whom does this Mediator, Jesus, really save?

Many different answers are given to this question. They usually fall into two groups

First, those who emphasize that man determines for himself whether he will be saved. You are familiar with them because they are the most vocal and probably the most prolific. They suggest that God has done everything He could to save, He gave His Son, He wrote out a check to atone for every human being to make their salvation possible, now man has to endorse the check, he has to accept Jesus as His Savior in order to make it effective. The catechism asks, “Are all men then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ?” These people answer; all men COULD be saved IF they desired it. The will of man makes the determination.

Second, there are those who follow the catechism here and are known as Reformed believers, they are called this because they hold to the truths set forth in the sixteenth century Reformation. Men like Martin Luther and John Calvin were leaders in this work. They believe that the Bible teaches that God wills to save a certain people whom He chose in eternity and gave Jesus to die for them and sends the gospel to them so that they might believe. An example of such a Bible text is quoted above, Jesus is called Jesus “for He shall save HIS PEOPLE from their sins.” Jesus was aware of the fact that God, His Father, willed to save only some of the human race when he said in John 17:9, “I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.”

These passages guide the authors of the catechism to answer the question “who is “ by stating, “ONLY those who are ingrafted into Christ and receive all His benefits, by a true faith.”

Not man but God determines who is saved.