If salvation depends upon our being or doing anything, we shall inevitably be lost. Thank God, it does not; for the great fundamental principle of the Gospel is that Christ is all; man is nothing. It is not a mixture of Christ and man – it is all of Christ.
The peace of the Gospel does not rest in part on Christ’s work and in part on man’s work; it rests wholly on Christ’s work, because that work is perfect – perfect forever, and it renders all who put their trust in Him as perfect as Himself! Christ must either be a whole Saviour or no saviour at all. The moment a man says, “Except you be this or that, you cannot be saved,” he totally subverts the Gospel; for in the Gospel I find Christ coming down to me just as I am – a lost, guilty, self-destroyed sinner; and coming, moreover, with a full remission of all my sins, and a full salvation from my lost estate, all perfectly wrought by Himself on the cross.