The Person of Jesus Christ
Acts 16:31
31 They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’
Book of Confessions, 5.077
5.077
JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, AND THE TRUE AWAITED MESSIAH. For we teach and believe that this Jesus Christ our Lord is the unique and eternal Savior of the human race, and thus of the whole world, in whom by faith are saved all who before the law, under the law, and under the Gospel were saved, and however many will be saved at the end of the world. For the Lord himself says in the Gospel: “He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber . . . I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:1 and 7). And also in another place in the same Gospel he says: “Abraham saw my day and was glad” (ch. 8:56). The apostle Peter also says: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” We therefore believe that we will be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, as our fathers were (Acts 4:12, 10:43; 15:11). For Paul also says: “All our fathers ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (I Cor. 10:3 f.). And thus we read that John says: “Christ was the Lamb which was slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), and John the Baptist testified that Christ is that “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Wherefore, we quite openly profess and preach that Jesus Christ is the sole Redeemer and Savior of the world, the King and High Priest, the true and awaited Messiah, that holy and blessed one whom all the types of the law and predictions of the prophets prefigured and promised; and that God appointed him beforehand and sent him to us, so that we are not now to look for any other. Now there only remains for all of us to give all glory to Christ, believe in him, rest in him alone, despising and rejecting all other aids in life. For however many seek salvation in any other than in Christ alone, have fallen from the grace of God and have rendered Christ null and void for themselves (Gal. 5:4).
