How can we be saved?
Only by faith in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross; so even though we are guilty of having disobeyed God and are still inclined to all evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of our own but only by pure grace, imputes to us the perfect righteousness of Christ when we repent and believe in him.
(New City Catechism)
Without excuse, I
testify within me to
this daily sickness,
this ever-reaching backward
to the garden’s first death-fruits.
Without excuse, I
cannot grasp my way towards
what once should have been.
Too late, I have only death;
but rich mercy intercedes.
No excuse and no
justice: righteousness given
to the least righteous.
Perfect life lived in my stead,
lived on this beggar’s behalf.
How can we be saved?
No excuse, we cry, desperate.
The answer, senseless,
replies: only faith, only
grace which pays infinite price.
The Consolations of Writing 