Barmen Declaration Thesis 2
“Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” (1 Cor. 1:30.)
As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, in the same way and with the same seriousness he is also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.
We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords–areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.
The free grateful service motivated by the Gospel is of course a marvelous image of what the child of God can be like. The areas of our life that we hold away from Christ as if He were not the Lord of our life and salvation are the places that we create out of our hearts other Gods. This is the heart that Luther called an idol factory.