The Danger of Corrupt Forms of Christianity — B.B. Warfield

“…if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” — Galatians 1:8

“It is not a matter of small importance whether we preserve the purity of the gospel. The chief dangers to Christianity do not come from the anti-Christian systems. Mohammedanism has never made inroads upon Christendom save by the sword. Nobody fears that Christianity will be swallowed up by Buddhism. It is corrupt forms of Christianity itself which menace from time to time the life of Christianity. Why make much of minor points of difference among those who serve the one Christ? Because a pure gospel is worth preserving; and is not only worth preserving, but is logically (and logic will always work itself ultimately out into history) the only saving gospel. Those who overlay the gospel with man-made additions, no less than those who subtract from it God-given elements, are not preaching “the gospel” in another form, but are offering a different kind of gospel, which is essentially no gospel at all. They are troublers of Israel, who are perverting the gospel of Christ. . .
. . .It is of the very gravest importance to keep clearly before our and others’ minds and hearts the great fact that in Christ alone is there salvation. In Christ alone; and that in both senses of the word “alone.” Not only can there be no salvation except in him; but in him is all that can be needed for salvation. Jesus only! Paul determined to know nothing in Corinth but Jesus Christ and him as crucified. The only saving gospel is to find in him all. There needs no supplement to his work. His work admits of no supplement. To depend on anything at all-anything at all, however small it may seem-along with him is as truly to lose him as to depend on anything else instead of him. The solemn words of Paul, “Behold I, Paul, say unto you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing,” have their multiform application in these modern times. And it behooves us so to live and so to preach, today, that we can say now, as he said then, that our only trust and our only glory is in the cross of Jesus Christ; and that we find in him and his work alone the beginning and the middle and the end of salvation. He is not only the author but also the finisher of our faith.
A Christless cross no refuge is for me;
A Crossless Christ my Savior may not be;
But, O Christ crucified! I rest in thee.”
- B.B. Warfield
taken from: The Dogmatic Spirit