“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost,” Luke 19:10

When we understand just what it means to be lost, then, we can clearly see why ONLY the LORD Jesus Christ alone must save. His person and work alone have answered every effect of the fall on the sinners He came to save. His very name, ‘Jesus,’ means, JEHOVAH saves, Matthew 1:21. There is no glory for man in that name. All the glory belongs to HIM, 1 Corinthians 1:30.

What then is it to be lost? The word describes the fearful condition of fallen man. It is one of absolute hopelessness, as of a person who has died of an incurable disease. ‘The wages of sin is death,’ Romans 6:23. When Adam fell, he did not merely become wounded. He died spiritually and eventually physically. Had it not been for the obedience unto death of the LORD Jesus Christ, he would most certainly have been subject to eternal death as well, Romans 5:21.

All of creation has been subjected to the consequences of Adam’s sin, and therefore to this lost estate. One author broke it down this way. Lost judicially, under the curse of God's broken Law, sentenced to death, "condemned already" (John 3:18), the wrath of God abiding on him! (John 3:36). Lost meritoriously, for his transgressions deserve eternal death, which is the wages of sin--and fully has he earned them. Lost experientially in point of ability or power to recover himself, he is "not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can he be" (Romans 8:7). Lost eternally, in every way, and in every sense, unless God has purposed grace and mercy, and sent the LORD Jesus to pay our sin debt,

Only the death of the LORD Jesus Christ, and righteousness imputed upon completion of His death, has saved those sinners for whom He died. Nothing more or less than the sinner’s curse being imputed to the LORD Jesus, and Him paying the entire debt could have saved the lost. ‘Could my tears forever flow, Could my zeal no languish know, These for sin could not redeem, THOU must save and THOU alone.’