|
The Gospel of Christ Crucified:
the Heart of the Reformation
Introduction
I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight on what is for us, as heirs of the Reformation, always an important occasion and a matter that calls forth, and ought to call forth, some measure of solemn reflection.
On October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the door of Wittenberg church, God began the reformation of the Christian church. This was not Martin Luther’s intention, but God’s. That Reformation was not the work of Luther alone, but of many men, some of whom also died for the faith and the truth of the gospel. That Reformation of the church is our heritage and that of our children. It is important that we know that which we possess by it and what was delivered to us by God’s grace through it.
On the mission field, this is still the gospel which we preach. For the Reformation of the church involved a serious turning again, not only to the truth of the Word of God, but also to the mission work of the church. There were many then who walked, even as they do now, in the darkness of error, far from the light of the gospel, and yet have the name Christian. This was true in so-called Christian Europe where the church was found in every village and town at the time of the Reformation. It is no less true in North America in our day. Moreover, there are many to whom the gospel has never gone, for in North America are gathered peoples out of every nation, many of whom, in their generations, have never heard the gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ. It is the same gospel of the Reformation which they, as well as we, need to hear.
At the heart of the gospel, and at the heart of the Reformation, as I hope to show, stands Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The Reformation, in many ways, may be viewed as a serious battle to contend for the truth of Christ, of His cross, and of His atoning work. It was a battle for the gospel and the preaching of it. That contending for the cross underlay the struggle of Luther in Germany but also of Zwingli in Switzerland. While I intend to speak of Luther, I want to focus more tonight perhaps on Zwingli and the Swiss reformation. The battle for the cross which they fought is still our battle today.
Luther and Christ’s Atoning Death
When you look at the Ninety-Five Theses which Martin Luther nailed to the door of Wittenberg church, one thing is apparent. Luther himself was far from being fully reformed in his own doctrine at that point. He had not yet come to the doctrine of sola Scriptura or Scripture alone, as the sole authority of faith and practice. This would come later in a debate with the Roman Catholic theologian, John Eck, in the summer of 1519. Nor had he yet come fully to see the error of the mass or purgatory.
Luther came to the truth of the gospel through his own spiritual struggle with sin and his need to be righteous before God. That righteousness he found in Christ crucified alone. That righteousness of Christ he found to be imputed through faith, without works, as God’s free gift. This is the great truth of justification by faith. In speaking of this great truth of the Reformation, it is well to keep in mind what that great creed of the Reformation, first published in 1563, the Heidelberg Catechism, says in Question and Answer 61:
Q. Why sayest thou, that thou art righteous by faith only?
A. Not that I am acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only.
Thus, justification by faith involves two elements:
- The real meaning of the cross, that is, that Christ crucified alone is our righteousness before God. It involves a definite, finished work, an actual righteousness, and a finished and complete satisfaction for sin in every respect.
- Faith is the means by which God imparts or imputes this blessing to us. This justifying faith is not a new work but the free gift of God–a blessing of the cross itself.
In coming to the truth of justification, Luther returned to the real meaning of the cross. He did so out of his own spiritual burden to obtain peace with God. Luther’s approach, therefore, is first of all a somewhat subjective one, rooted in his own spiritual struggle and experience. To understand this struggle, it is important to have in mind what Rome taught. Rome taught that man’s faith, man’s use of grace, man’s sorrow for sin, and man’s acts of contrition were themselves satisfaction for sin. Penance and other good works merited pardon. In teaching this, Rome, by a sophistry, distinguished between the eternal payment for the guilt of sin, which Christ bore on the cross, and the temporal punishment due to the guilty for sin. Under the Romish system, the believer must bear at least this temporal aspect by making restitution and satisfaction in this life and also after death, in purgatory. Christ’s death for the eternal punishment of sin was viewed, moreover, as a treasury of merits to be drawn upon for righteousness. That is, it was a provision for righteousness, a possibility, not an actual righteousness.
Justification itself, therefore, was on the basis of one’s own merits of faith, personal holiness, and use of grace drawn from this treasury through the mass offered by a priest. Sanctification and good works became the grounds for justification. Under this system justification is not a permanent state but only a temporary condition which can be lost by future sins. Rome’s doctrine could never bring one peace. A man must add his own temporal satisfaction for sin to Christ’s work, and Christ’s eternal satisfaction is never completely his. As Luther found, this could never bring peace with God. That man must in some measure make satisfaction for sin laid upon the believer a heavy burden of sin and guilt. It laid upon him not the cross of discipleship, but a cross of guilt which could not be borne.
This is the issue underlying Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. Their focus was on the nature of repentance, penance, and forgiveness. Rome had made remission and pardon a system of graft and greed, by the issuing of pardons or indulgences for the living and the dead. These pardons were alleged to remit, in whole or in part, the satisfaction that man must make. Satisfaction and pardon could be bought from the pope with money! It should be noted that Rome taught then, and basically still teaches to this day, this system of granting indulgences for prayers to Mary, praying the rosary, penance, pilgrimages, and other acts of devotion.
This is what made the Ninety-Five Theses the important document it was. In spite of Luther’s lack of clarity and lingering Romanism, the Theses set forth the nature of true repentance, forgiveness, and pardon as God’s work in Christ. God freely bestows pardon in the way of repentance, a pardon resting wholly upon Christ, without the merits or works of man. In the opening of the Ninety-Five Theses, Luther sets forth repentance as an inward, lifelong sorrow for sin and identifies pardon as the gift of God in Christ, whose satisfaction is the only basis for remission of sins. Without reading all of the Theses, we may grasp Luther’s insight by selecting but a few of them. He writes in Theses 36 and 37,
(36) Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon.
(37) Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has a share in all the benefits of Christ and of the church, given him by God, even without letters of pardon.
Luther had been led, by his own personal spiritual struggle for forgiveness and pardon for sin, to the cross. In the cross he found the truth of justification by, or through faith, on the grounds of Christ’s righteousness alone, freely given and imputed by God. This was the good news of the gospel. This is the true treasure of the church, which priestly declarations of pardon and indulgences could never be. In Thesis 62 he writes,“The true treasure of the Church is the holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.”
This was, though he did not fully see it himself yet, a denial of the whole system of the Romish religion of human merits, works, masses, penance, and indulgences. Luther’s attack on indulgences has latent within it, an attack upon the very root corruption of the Romish system–the denial of the cross.
Luther writes of indulgences, and implicitly of the whole Romish system therefore, when he says in Thesis 92,
(92) Away then with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, ‘Peace, peace,’ and there is no peace.
Over against that false peace, which gives no peace, he writes in the next thesis,
(93) Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, ‘Cross, cross,’ and there is no cross!
by which he evidently means (when he says that “there is no cross,”) that there is no cross of guilt, sin, and death which we must suffer or satisfaction which we must make. In the cross of Christ, the burden is lifted! It is rolled away! One can well understand that within two weeks, Luther’s Theses had been printed and spread over Germany, and within a month, throughout most of Europe.
There are many other things we could say about what the Reformation did, what it brought to light, and what it restored and renewed, from the truth of justification by faith alone to the authority of Scripture. We could look at how the Reformation led the church back to the truth already set forth by Augustine, of the total depravity of the human nature and of the sovereign predestination and election of God. But in many respects, in every aspect, the Reformation was a battle–a battle for the cross of Christ and for Christ’s atoning work as the complete satisfaction for all our sins. It was the cross, especially, which Romish traditions and human inventions had obscured, denied, and forsaken. Christ and him crucified had been almost lost.
The Swiss Reformation and Christ’s Atoning Death
If Luther came to the truths of the Reformation subjectively, through the doctrine of justification by faith, the early reformers in Switzerland, such as Ulrich Zwingli, came to the same truths in a slightly different manner and from a more objective point of view. They did so independently of Luther. The Scriptures compelled them to find in Christ, the head of the church, and in His cross, the only sacrifice for sin.
The Romish church had not only taught pardon for sin through man’s works and penance, but had also taught, and still teaches, that in the ceremony of the mass, Christ is sacrificed anew. Rome understands this sacrifice to be, though in an unbloody manner, the crucifying of Christ afresh as a propitiatory sacrifice which makes satisfaction for sins. Rome sees it as an actual sacrifice, offered by the priest, by which God’s wrath is appeased, his justice satisfied, and pardon for sin obtained. Jesus’ death on the cross is not enough. It only constitutes the basis for deliverance from eternal punishment. It does not itself free us from the wrath of God, nor from temporal or eternal punishment. Because it is incomplete, those who are in Christ are not righteous before God. According to Rome, righteousness is not a state into which believers are brought by faith in Christ, but only a temporary condition. The blessings of pardon for sin and righteousness with God are only obtained through our own works of penance and by the continual crucifying of Christ in the mass as a propitiation for sins.
This is plain from the Council of Trent, Rome’s answer to the Reformation. In the 22nd session, held on September 17, 1562, which treated the subject of the mass, in Chapter 9, Canon 3, the Council states,
If anyone saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities: let him be anathema.
To accomplish this sacrifice, Rome also teaches that there must be a visible priesthood, like the Aaronic priesthood, and ordains men unto it. This ordination flows from the apostles, of which Peter was the head, and now reaches men through the hierarchy of the church, of which the pope is the head. Without the pope, as the head of the church on earth, there is no continuity of ordination, no priesthood and no possibility of performing this sacrifice. The ability to perform this sacrifice would be lost, just as if the family of Aaron had died out in the Old Testament. One could say, in fact, that salvation through the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, the benefits of which are dispensed through the sacrifice of the mass, would itself be lost, without the mass!
These are the issues which stirred the Reformation in Zurich. The German Swiss reformers came to the Reformation out of an intellectual humanist background which had seen the abuses of Rome. Especially in this sense, their backgrounds differed from Luther’s and from his personal spiritual struggle for assurance and communion with Christ. But the Reformation in Switzerland rapidly deepened into a heartfelt love of Christ, and particularly of Christ as the only head of the church and to his cross as the one, only, and unique sacrifice for sins.
We may illustrate this by the way in which the gospel spread in Switzerland from Zurich to the neighboring region of Bern, by the preaching of Bertold Haller and Sebastian Meyer. As the Reformed party increased in Bern, the city councilmen decided to hold a public disputation concerning the gospel. This disputation took place from January 15 through 26, 1528. Haller, with the help of Zwingli, drafted ten theses in German, which were to be defended. Zwingli translated them into Latin and William Farel, the French reformer-missionary, who was later instrumental in compelling Calvin to remain in Geneva, translated them into the French language. The debate was conducted first in German, by the German-speaking reformers, and then in Latin. When some present, who spoke the French language, attacked the theses, Farel also defended them in French.
Selecting just some of these theses, we may see the thrust of them:
(1) The Holy Catholic Church, of which Christ is the head, is born of the Word of God, abides therein, and does not hear the voice of a stranger.
(3) Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, redemption, and price for the sins of the whole world; and all who think they can win salvation in any other way, or have other satisfaction for sins, renounce Christ.
(5) The Mass, in which Christ is offered to God the Father for the sins of the living and the dead, is contrary to the Holy Scriptures, is a gross affront to the Passion and Death of Christ, and is therefore an abomination before God.
(6) Since Christ alone died for us, and since He is the only mediator and intercessor between God and believers, He only ought to be invoked; and all other mediators and advocates ought to be rejected, since they have no warrant in the Holy Scriptures of the Bible.
It is plain, from even a cursory examination, that this is the same language reflected in the Reformed creeds. To Jesus Christ and him crucified we must go. He is the Head, the Mediator, the High Priest, the Intercessor. His death is the only propitiatory sacrifice. He was once offered–on the cross.
Just as Luther came to the truth of the Reformation through the doctrine taught in the Epistle to the Romans, the Swiss Reformers came through the Epistle to the Hebrews where we read, “For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” Hebrews 10:14, or again,
“Nor yet that He should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Hebrews 9:25-28
Although Luther and the Swiss reformers came to the truth from different points of view, they taught essentially the same doctrine. The Heidelberg Catechism reflects this in Lord’s Day 30, Question and Answer 80, in its comments on the mass:
“but the mass teaches, that the living and the dead have not the pardon of sins through the sufferings of Christ, unless Christ is also daily offered for them by the priests; . . .”
While Luther would have emphasized the element of pardon for sins, Zwingli and his co-laborers would have emphasized the daily offering of Christ by the priests. This difference in emphasis underlay, in part, the disagreement in their understanding of the Lord’s Supper, a disagreement which Luther and Zwingli could not resolve. Yet the basic principle they both held is essentially one: Jesus Christ and him crucified; Jesus Christ, who by one offering, has obtained before God everlasting righteousness; Jesus Christ, whose righteousness is freely given and imputed to believers through faith, a faith which is God’s free gift.
What made the Reformation the powerful work of God that it was? It was a return to the preaching of Jesus Christ and him crucified. What was at issue–whether the reformers were contending for the truth of the scriptures as the sole authority for faith and life, or for the truth of sin and grace, or for the truths of election or justification–was always the cross of Christ. The reformers contended for Christ, for his cross, for his atoning work. Christ had been lost in the church. A false Christ, a false cross, and a false sacrifice had supplanted the hope of the gospel. False priests had substituted a false way of salvation, a false repentance and a false satisfaction for sin by man’s works.
A Definite, and therefore Particular, Atonement
Having said this, however, we must see that the reformers had a very clear conception of what constituted the true and faithful gospel of Christ crucified. Whether it was Luther or Zwingli, or those who later followed, including Calvin, the reformers taught a definite work of the cross by which Christ accomplished the real and actual salvation of, made complete satisfaction for the sins of, and obtained the righteousness of those for whom he died, in both time and eternity. He is the propitiation for our sins. His work and benefits are complete, perfectly accomplished, and fully satisfy the justice of God, so that nothing need or can be added unto it. By nothing, we mean that Jesus’ death is not a mere provision, a mere possibility of salvation, or a treasury of merits, ready to be dispensed. Jesus’ death, through his vicarious suffering, is the actual salvation for his own. It purchased our salvation fully and completely.
Zwingli illustrates this in his exposition of the faith, written to the French king in 1531. He writes of the forgiveness of sins,
Before God restitution, satisfaction and atonement for sin have been obtained once and for all by Christ who suffered for us.
That is, Christ obtained something definite, finished, and permanent in his death. It has been obtained, not merely provided. Moreover, he has done so “once and for all,” that is, nothing need be added to it. Zwingli continues,
He himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world, as his relative, the evangelist and apostle tells us. Therefore if He has made satisfaction for sin, I ask who are partakers of that satisfaction and reconciliation. Let us hear what He Himself says, “He that believeth on me, that is, trusteth in me or relieth on me, hath everlasting life.”
Zwingli’s point is this: believers are saved. It is in that light also that we must understand the reformer’s references to the whole world, taken from I John 2. He does not mean, nor did the theses of Bern mean, every man, head for head, but the world of believers, the world of God’s elect, gathered out of all nations, kindreds, and tongues. Zwingli says, in this connection, in the immediately preceding paragraph,
For as it is only the Holy Ghost that can give faith, so it is only the Holy Ghost that can give forgiveness of sins
That is, faith is not a new work that believers must do, but God’s work of grace and free gift. Later, in a following section, Zwingli declares,
For the apostles preach everywhere the forgiveness of sins, but it is obtained only by the believing elect.
Salvation is by grace alone, ordained from eternity in God’s eternal election, obtained and accomplished by Christ on the cross, by which he hath reconciled us to God, and imparted to believers by his Holy Spirit. The reformers taught particular redemption. Although this truth had not yet been sharpened by the controversy with the Arminians in the next century, the reformers already held the truth and substance of it.
Christ’s death is not then, an indefinite work, neither as far as those for whom he dies, nor as far as its essential character. Christ himself is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. His death is not a mere provision, but the actual reconciliation of those for whom he died. He has fully satisfied for all our sins, by a definite act of propitiation, that is, appeasing and bearing God’s wrath on the cross, by which he has “. . . perfected for ever them that are sanctified . . .” (Hebrews 10:14) That work was once offered, uniquely accomplished, and fully finished, achieving its end: righteousness before God for those for whom it was offered. In fact, the idea of an indefinite sacrifice or propitiation is contrary to the very nature of sacrifice–satisfaction and propitiation.
Rome denied then, and denies now, that Christ’s death actually took away the punishment for sin for those for whom he died. It denied then, and denies now, that Christ’s death obtained a real and actual righteousness for those in whose stead he offered himself to God. Rome denied this then, and denies this now, in part, because it sought and seeks to teach a Christ for all, dependent upon man’s use of grace. It finds in Christ’s death only a possibility, a treasury to be drawn upon. There is no actual pardon for anyone’s sins unless the priest offer Christ’s death anew in the sacrifice of the mass, and the repentant make their own satisfaction through penance. Salvation, therefore, is actually given, received, and applied only by repeated sacrifice through the merits of a man’s own faith and good works. Man can, in himself, in part, make this satisfaction or he can obtain this merit by his own sufferings. Rome teaches this (and this is the point) because they regard Christ’s death as unfinished, indefinite, securing no one’s actual righteousness and securing no actual reconciliation for anyone personally. Thus the mass is, in a sense, the epitome of a well-meant offer of salvation, since grace is available for all, and because of the false doctrine of transubstantiation, can even be eaten with the teeth.
The reformers saw Christ’s death as a work which was personal, a work which personally secured the salvation of each of his sheep. Christ himself is the righteousness of his sheep, every benefit of salvation for his sheep is truly in him, and is ours, as his sheep, by him. Because of the Arminian controversy of the seventeenth century, Reformed churches usually speak of this truth under the principle that Christ’s death was offered for certain, definite persons. Thus we speak of limited atonement, or better, particular redemption. Principally, however, atonement and redemption are, by their inherent nature as a payment for sin, as a blotting out of guilt, as a restoring of righteousness, and as a deliverance from sin and death, a particular and definite concept. Limited atonement and particular redemption are really redundancies.
Briefly stated, to atone means to pay a debt by bearing the penalty. Either the debt is paid, or it is not. If it is, then those for whom atonement is offered are free from debt, their sin covered in the sight of God, and their guilt remitted, because the punishment and curse due to them has been borne.
To redeem means to buy back or ransom, and so deliver from sin and death. That which is bought back is bought. He that is ransomed is delivered. He has eternal life. There is no middle ground. If Christ is the propitiation for our sins, then God’s wrath is appeased, for that is what propitiation means. Then there is no wrath of God for those for whom Christ is the propitiation, for he has drunk the cup of that wrath, and it is empty. Moreover, that atoning work embraces both time and eternity. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, . . .” Romans 8:1. This means too that the cross itself is fundamentally unconditional in its purchase, effects, and benefits.
For the same reason, a justifying faith is and must be a gift of God purchased in Christ and bestowed sovereignly and efficaciously by His Spirit. If it is a work of man, even if assisted by grace, then it is not purchased in Christ. It becomes a work by which man saves himself, and then we must say that Christ’s atonement is incomplete. There is really no difference between the idea that a priest sacrifices Christ afresh for the remission of sins, and the idea that I sacrifice myself through my own dying to my sins, believing or accepting the gospel, and making a decision for Christ. In either case, Christ’s death is not enough. His death is not complete. His purchase does not actually buy. His atonement does not actually pay the debt. His blood does not actually blot out sin. Jesus, in fact, does not really save, because his saving death must, in some form or sense, be supplemented or augmented. There is no real difference between saying that I, by my works of penance, sorrow for sin, and acts of contrition, obtain pardon and that I, by my act of believing, deciding, and choosing, obtain pardon.
Arminianism, when it teaches that we must “each personally accept Jesus as our personal Savior,” teaches something about the cross. It teaches that Jesus is actually the personal Savior of no one, it teaches that his death is indefinite, and it teaches that it actually reconciles no one to God. His death only has value when man accepts it.
Arminianism, while it would deny it, fundamentally teaches it is by his act of believing, by his responding to the altar call, or by praying the “sinner’s prayer,” that man makes satisfaction for his sins to God. There is no difference between Romish acts of penance before an altar and the Arminian act of coming to the altar. Salvation by works is salvation by works. Both deny the power, completeness, definite character, and saving efficacy of the cross. They differ only in the manner in which the heresy is constructed. Both depend on the free will of fallen man and on his acts and spiritual works. Both find in man the ultimate cause and ground of obtaining pardon for sin in the blood of Christ.
In that vein, just as you could buy pardon by buying an indulgence, a piece of paper from the pope absolving you of sin, so also you can “buy” (so to speak) salvation, by uttering the so-called sinner’s prayer, which is often found at the end of Arminian tracts and books, for it is your act of prayer that essentially earns your pardon for sin in the blood of Christ. I suspect most of you have seen those prayers. They usually involve asking Jesus into your heart, accepting him as your Savior, etc. The idea behind these prayers, is that by uttering this prayer formula, you “get saved.” What is such a notion? It is the reduction of the gospel to a mechanical act or formula, to a form of superstition. Is it really any different than the idea that buying a piece of paper from the pope remits sin?
The mass reduces the cross of Jesus Christ, represented in the Lord’s Supper, to a superstition, especially when combined with the doctrine of transubstantiation, the idea that the bread and wine are magically transformed into the literal body and blood of Christ. But Arminianism is no different, in the form in which it is frequently practiced in the evangelical community. Come to the front in an altar call, make your decision, and recite the “sinner’s prayer,” as some form of magical incantation–for that is what it is often reduced to–and you are saved. Both reduce salvation and pardon to a form of ritual superstition dependent on man’s incantation. To put it even more bluntly, these rituals are pagan in character. For the heathen also have their incantations, ritual prayers, formulas, and ceremonies by which the deity is entreated, salvation obtained, and favor received.
A Continual Battle for the Truth of the Cross
Over against this, the Reformers contended for the cross of Christ, for a real cross, and a real atonement, accomplishing a real reconciliation, with a real satisfaction for sin for those for whom it was offered. The reformed fathers at Dordt fought the same battle again with the Arminians. It is still the battle we fight. The heart of the issue is set before us in every one of the Reformed creeds. It is found in the first Lord’s Day of the Heidelberg Catechism: that our comfort consists of this: that “. . . I am not my own but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ,” That is the confession that he bought me! Moreover, we confess with the Catechism, “. . . who with his precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, . . .” He did it all! Again, he “...delivered me from all the power of the devil,” that is, the terrible tyranny of sin and unbelief. And, “He makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto him.” Christ is the author of faith, repentance, conversion, and godliness. Christ crucified and the power of his cross did it all. This is still the battle we fight with any well-meant “offer of salvation,” with any form of conditional covenant theology. It is the same battle for a cross which unconditionally saves those for whom it was offered, intended and designed. Definite, full, and complete, it fully satisfies the justice of God. When Christ purchased righteousness and eternal life by his death, the purchase included our repentance toward God and the gift of a justifying faith in Jesus Christ.
This gospel of Christ and him crucified transformed the face of Europe in the sixteenth century. This is the gospel which gave rise to the fervent work of the church in missions. For if Christ is the propitiation, for our sins not only, but also for the sins of the whole world, then the world, the elect organism out of all nations, kindreds, and tongues, saved from every people under heaven, must be gathered. The sheep purchased in the blood of Christ must be called, for they are his. To that end, the gospel must be preached to every creature and disciples made of all nations. It is Christ himself who works that gathering by the power of his cross and the Spirit through the gospel. Jesus himself says of the Gentiles, “Other sheep I have (not hope to have, but have, possess). . . them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” John 10:16.
|
|
