You want to be saved? Buddha can’t help.

Steve Brown:
You want to be saved? Buddha can’t help. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life, here to communicate the freeing truth that God’s not mad at his children. Steve invited Pete Alwinson and Justin Holcomb to teach this week. Pete is a former pastor and the author of Like Father Like Son and Justin is a Bishop and the author of the devotional God With Us.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. If you’re just joining us, we’re having a great time here. Next Sunday is Reformation Sunday and Bishop Justin Holcomb and Dr. Pete Alwinson, both voices of Key Life, have joined me and we’re talking about reformation things. And we’ve been talking about the five solas of the Reformation.

Christians are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed in Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.

And we talked about grace alone, and we talked about faith alone. Now, let’s talk about Christ alone. Listen, it doesn’t, Pete, it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe something. And you’re sincere, but it’s kind of like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. They all get to God, even, no matter where they start, to that center. So, if you’re a Buddhist, that’ll save you. If you’re Islamic, that’ll save you. If you’re a Christian, that will too.

Pete Alwinson:
Justin, do we have a stake out back that we can tie him to and light the fire?

Justin Holcomb: I’ll get the rope.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay. All right. All right. All right.

Steve Brown:
No, talk to me about Jesus, the only one.

Pete Alwinson:
And you know, as he said it.

I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father, but by me.

And so, Christianity has been so powerful about the centrality of Jesus, we’re gospel centered, we’re Christ centered, we’re Solus Christus, is that, did I say that right?

Justin Holcomb: Mm hmm.

Pete Alwinson:
Alone, you know, Christ alone. And it can’t be any other way because there’s only one Savior in the world. Now there’s, now the whole New Testament builds on that, but there it is.

Steve Brown:
Listen to this, Philippians 2:5 through 11.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

And then I’m going to skip over it for time and at the end of that statement about servanthood, he says.

Jesus did that so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and under the earth and on earth and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.

Justin Holcomb: The whole point of Solus Christus is the mediated relationship. Jesus alone is our only mediator. And that, I mean, it’s about salvation, so going back to the Reformation conversation, there were some options that weren’t Christ alone. Of course, all the Roman Catholics at the time believed in Christ, but they would also say, okay well there’s a part of you as a human, your heart there’s a part of your nature your will that is mediating between you and God or this clergy person over here. You need to be mediated through them. And so, make sure you confess to them because if you don’t, then you’re not mediated. So, you need to go somewhere, and the whole point was to just go, No, no, no, no, let’s, let’s stop picking all these other mediators as one. Because, you know, I’m assuming Luther read I Timothy that said.

There’s one God, and there’s one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

That’s the point, is there’s no part of you, there’s no part of them, that’s a mediator, it’s only Christ, and he’s the God man. So, there is a human who’s mediating, but it’s the God man, it’s Jesus Christ, who had to be human because humans violated, had to be God because only God’s powerful enough to deal with the consequences of sin, and so we actually do have a human mediator, but it’s a God human mediator. But, and that’s the point, we have access, this is the Hebrew stuff. We now have access to the throne. Like we belong there because we’re in Christ. We have, so we have a mediator, it’s not my works, it’s not my heart, it’s not that celebrity pastor, it’s not that cleric, it’s not any other spiritual teaching. It’s the God man who is interceding, mediating, advocating for us. That’s the whole point. And the whole Bible is all about Jesus. The whole Christian religion is about Jesus. And that’s what you said, I think yesterday, Steve, is what we’re saying. I think it’s the first day what we’re saying is crazy. It was the first day, what we’re saying is crazy because if we’re going to talk about Christianity and we’re not talking about Jesus, we’re talking about how it makes me feel, it makes me nice. Well, now we’re turning it into Buddhism, and that’s not what we’re trying to do. It’s, he lived a perfect life, he died, and he rose again. If that’s the bullseye of what we’re saying, we’re going to sound nuts that we’re arranging our entire life around a man 2, 000 years ago who died, and someone told us he rose from the dead, and we believe it, and we think that makes everything okay in the world, and sin, and our relationship with God. That’s either the best news in the world or it’s cuckoo.

Steve Brown:
It’s also arrogant. It makes us sound arrogant. You know, the hardest thing about being a Christian is to keep from sounding arrogant because we’re right. What you said is just right. You know, people know they need a mediator. You have them come to you and want you to be their mediator. Would you pray for me Pete?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, I love it. Pray for me, pastor, because God hears you better, more than he hears me, you know? And I say, yes, of course he does. No, you know, God set this whole mediator thing up with Adam being the first one to mediate for us to act on our behalf. And so, Jesus is the second Adam, it just makes sense. But he fulfills that, he takes our curse, he fulfills the law, he does everything necessary for us. And really that means that we get a new identity in Christ, that we are sons and daughters, deeply beloved, redeemed sons and daughters of the most high God. And that changes everything. And that because most of our culture today is trying to find or create their own identity. Identity is performative and you can’t do it. You can’t do it. And so, the gospel is such great news because of how it gives us what we can’t possibly do for ourselves, this new status, this new status, standing, new worth. And it’s so wonderful because you cannot earn this new status. It has to be given through, by grace, through faith, in Christ alone.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. When we pray, I pray in Jesus’ name, a lot of people believe that’s a magic formula. But if you forget to do that, you ain’t going to get what you asked for. And that’s so spurious and skewed. When you pray in Jesus’ name, you’re doing exactly what these guys are talking about. He’s the mediator. He’s the one that stands between you and God and invites you and puts his arms around your shoulder and says to the Father, he’s mine, she’s mine, and I paid for him, and I paid for her.

Justin Holcomb: Yeah, at the time of the Reformation, applying this to right now, there was a belief that specific religious rituals were mediatorial, they mediated for good works. There’s always something. So, a lot of our listeners, probably aren’t thinking like that, about that, I need to go to that priest, but they’re doing it with their pastor. That’s what you just brought up, Pete. They’re like, Oh, if I go to that pastor is better. That pastor here’s more clearly. If I go to that church, then God will be more pleased. There’s ways that we actually do what Luther was dealing with back then, now. And so, to apply that however, you need to as listeners, but there’s no religious song, there’s no form of worship, we don’t believe in magic. And that’s what’s happening is, oh, that person’s magical, that person basically they were treating the clergy like shamans.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s true.

Justin Holcomb: And there’s no, the celebrity pastor thing’s not going to do it for you, the cool church isn’t going to do it for you, the liturgical church isn’t the magical way, there’s not some magical mediator. And you said it, Steve, the, I mean, think about this, we pray to the Father, in the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so, the point of Jesus is to get us to the Father. We want the Father’s forgiveness. We want the Father to declare us righteous. And we do that because of Jesus. And that’s, I mean reading through Hebrews, the whole language of Jesus is our great high priest. In the Old Testament, you had a high priest who was helping mediate between the people in God. And Hebrews is saying Jesus is the great high priest. He is the one who, and so because of that, the whole language of access, we have access to the throne of grace, like that’s the scandal. And I think Tim Keller is the one who said, hey, no one wakes up a king at two o’clock in the morning asking for water, unless you belong there as the king’s child. That’s the point, we have an access because of our mediator.

Steve Brown:
That is such good news.

Justin Holcomb: And we’re writing his coattails.

Steve Brown:
I know.

Justin Holcomb: That’s the thing.

Steve Brown:
And he’s glad. You know, that blows you away when you think about it. It’s hard, you know, when you live in the big house and you’re no longer a slave, when you’re a child of God, when you have all these benefits, the hard thing is to be humble about it.

Pete Alwinson:
True.

Steve Brown:
I mean, rich kids, whose parents are rich, drive me nuts sometimes. And then I think, that’s me. I’m rich.

Pete Alwinson:
The solas are also humbling, aren’t they?

Steve Brown:
They are.

Pete Alwinson:
Because it’s by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. We are really, we get to relax in him, but it is humbling. And that humbling needs to start at the beginning of our walk with Christ and then continue on. And that’s the best place to be where we are not demanding of God, we’re just so thankful that we belong to him.

Steve Brown:
That is so true. This has been fun. It’s not over yet, we’re going to do some more of it tomorrow. We’re going to talk about Scripture alone. The little devotional books are nice, but if you’re depending on those, don’t, and I will tell you why tomorrow. Today, it’s Jesus. Don’t forget that. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you guys. Again, that was Steve Brown, Pete Alwinson and Justin Holcomb, continuing their week long exploration of the five solas as we journey towards Reformation Day next week. Still, two days ahead of us. Hope you’ll join us again tomorrow. So, every now and then, I get to tell you something about the different features you can find at keylife.org. But I have never mentioned this one. On each page, where we share an article from Steve and our other Key Life Voices, you’ll see a play button, and if you click it, you’ll hear an automated voice reading that article. Now, it’s a robot, but it’s a pretty good robot. And if you’re busy, if you have trouble with your vision, or you just prefer listening, it’s a great resource. And we have the reverse of that as well, for each audio episode of Key Life, you’ll find a hand edited transcript. It’s great if you have trouble hearing, or if you just want to dig deeper. And of course, all of these features and all of our website content is still free, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you’d like to donate, just call 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. If you’d like, you can send your donation by mail, just go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Or e-mail [email protected]. You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. And of course, now you can give safely and securely just by texting Key Life to 28950 and then following the instructions. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And as always, we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.