Most Christians are clear on the truth that they are saved by grace.
They make no effort of their own to add to the perfect atonement that
Christ has made for their sins. But these same Christians when facing
the present tense of salvation, the second part of the threefold
Gospel, declare that here our own efforts are necessary. We must
co-operate with God in fighting sin. We are justified by faith, but we
are sanctified, gradually, by struggle. Their error is that they are
_mixing works and grace_. God’s plan for present salvation from the
power of sin is exactly the same as his plan for deliverance from the
penalty of sin. It is all of grace.
The test of the truth of our view as to Christ’s Second Coming and the
future tense of our salvation is as infallibly certain as the tests
of the other aspects of salvation. For salvation is all of grace, and
any view which makes salvation for the individual or for the universe
a mixture of God’s work and man’s work, a mixture of God’s grace and
man’s effort, is in error.