Read Ephesians 2:8, 9; Romans 3:23, 24; Romans 6:23; and Romans 5:8-10. What do these verses teach about the plan of salvation?

 God has provided salvation as a gift. His Holy Spirit leads us to accept by faith what Christ has so freely provided through His death on Calvary’s cross. Jesus, the divine Son of God, offered His perfect life to atone for our sins.

 Divine justice demands perfect obedience. Christ’s perfect life stands in place of our imperfect lives. The divine law we have broken condemns us to eternal death. The Bible is clear. Through our sinful choices, we have “fallen short” of God’s ideal for our lives. We have sinned. Left to ourselves, we cannot meet the just, righteous demands of a holy God. As a result, we deserve eternal death. But there is good news. The apostle Paul assures us, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23, NKJV). It is a gift, undeserved; if it were by works, we would earn it, and if there is any one truth that shines out of the gospel, it is that we cannot earn salvation.

 Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformers discovered Christ and Christ alone as their source of salvation. It was then that Luther began to preach the message of Christ’s saving grace. Crowds flocked to hear his heartfelt, life-changing messages. His words were like a drink of cold water in the barren desert of their lives. The people were shackled by the traditions of the medieval church and kept in bondage with centuries-old rituals that provided no spiritual life. Luther’s biblical messages touched hearts, and lives were changed.

 As Luther read the New Testament, he was overwhelmed with the goodness of God. He was amazed at God’s desire to save all humanity. The popular view taught by church leaders at the time was salvation as partly a human work and partly God’s work. Luther discovered that Christ’s death on the cross was all-sufficient for all humanity.

 “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages,p. 25.

 What a powerful and wonderfully written summary of the gospel, that we could be justified by a righteousness “in which we had no share.” What a promise!