1.
Faith,
Not Works
There
are two fundamental doctrines that separate the churches of Christ from the
false sects which the New Testament constantly warns us about.
There are several more fundamental doctrines, actually, but these two
are in fact the litmus tests which
detect the acid of Satan’s touch upon one of these false sects the adversary
created to lure well-meaning men and women from the Truth of the Word, in the
hope of preventing as many of God’s wanting-to-be-obedient children from being
saved by His Grace as possible. The success of the sects which fail to
adhere to one or both of these crystal-clear doctrines, explained multiple
times in the New Testament to the point where it should have been impossible to
question either point, goes to show the cleverness of the adversary’s tactics
and the persistence of his evil. In fact, with the exception of having
convinced Adam’s bride (and through her,
Adam, in Genesis 3) to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and
thereby start the sin train a-rolling in the first place, the false sects of ‘Christianity’ must be considered his greatest
success in his ever-present war against God.
But I digress. The
two fundamental doctrines of Christianity which betray the truth or lack
thereof with regard to a particular supposed denomination are these:
1)
The
fact that Jesus Christ was not only fully man during the entirety of His time
on earth, but that He was also the Son of God, just as fully God at the same
time. Along with this goes the implied
corollary that unlike every other being except God the Father and the
Holy Spirit, He was not a created being, nor does he have an equal among
angels, prophets, nor humans. We’ll touch
on this doctrine a couple of times in this book, including a “God the Father”
way of understanding the difficult concept of the Trinity itself, but for now
let’s just set it aside.
2)
The
fact that it is through our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ alone that we are saved by God, that purely by accepting the
sacrifice of the Son of God as payment for our sin debt are we purified in the
sight of God the Father, and that no amount of “good works” can ever make a
dent in the sin debt we owe the Holiest of Holies. If
your particular choice of church demands a confession to any human surrogate of God; if your church
claims you have any earthly penance
to pay which will somehow make you ‘holier’
or ‘more worthy of Heaven’; if
your church claims that anything can happen after death (purgatory, post-death baptisms, whatever)
which will affect your status with God; if your church claims that your
salvation is dependent on anything that specific denomination has to
offer you? Get up and leave now; your eternal well-being is at stake.
The second doctrine can be made
clear through our realization of God as Father, although there are SO many
other ways that the New Testament makes it clear. For example, here’s the
simplest line of reasoning, assuming your false sect hasn’t already dissuaded
you of doctrine number one (and how can
anyone call themselves a “Christian”
if they don’t believe in the divinity and resurrection of Christ? That’s
like saying, “I like watching track meets, except for all the running they do”.
Um…then you don’t actually like TRACK,
silly!)
If there was any way for YOU to earn
your way to heaven, to earn your OWN salvation…WHY would Jesus have needed to
come to earth, born a human, and go through that whole
sacrifice-on-the-cross-for-our-sins thing if we could already do it ourselves?
God’s never shown
an interest in giving us the easy way to achieve things worth achieving:
the difficulty of “self-salvation” wouldn’t have deterred Him from
leaving said salvation to our own devices. After all, Christ had
already told us that few were going to accomplish even the simple version of
salvation (“Enter
by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to
destruction, and those who enter by it are many.” Matthew
7:13); putting a few more hoops in the way for us to jump
through wouldn’t have been a deterrent to Him. But if He sent His Only Son to die for our sins, so that we
would have a way to achieve salvation? Then
there must NOT have been any possible way to have earned our salvation
without God’s grace, or else the entire Gospel was a waste of time.
†
Here’s the passage that makes the doctrine
crystal clear, more so (in my opinion)
than anything else in the New Testament: Read Ephesians 2:8-10. The
first two verses will tell us unequivocally the truth of our second doctrine;
the third tells us what the true PURPOSE of our doing “good works” is – and it’s NOT to earn our way to
grace:
8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — 9 not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of
time so that we should walk in them.
Could the apostle Paul have been ANY clearer? “You are saved by grace…NOT
from works, so that no one can boast.” So, why should a
Christian bother DOING good works? Well, Paul tells us why in verse 10 à “We are
His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works” – the reason we are reborn in Christ is so that we can
DO good works! – “which God prepared
ahead of time so that we should walk in them.” Not only are we supposed
to be doing good works as good Christians, but God specifically set good
works up for us to do! Doesn’t that just sound like something a
father would do for his kids? “OK, kids,
you want to go out for track in the spring? All right, let’s go running
together after we all get home in the evening!”… “Hey, you want to be a
scientist when you grow up? Great! Let’s go get you one of those student’s
chemistry labs from the science/toy store!”… “You say you need some extra money
to buy yourself that (fill-in-the-blank)? Well, let’s see: I’ll pay you ten
dollars if you’ll mow the lawn for me…and maybe we can talk to the neighbors
about mowing their lawns for a price as well!”
Sure sounds like a
father, doesn’t He?
Let’s walk down that path a bit
farther, if you don’t mind. Imagine a conversation with a young lad,
early double-digits in age…
Why do you do chores
around the house, child? “Well, strange voice in my head, because Dad
told me to.”
Hmm. OK. So,
if I were to tell you to do
something, you’d do it too, right?
“Um, not likely. I mean, if it was my
job, and you was paying me for cleaning the litter box, or scrubbing toilets, yeah;
but otherwise, no, I wouldn’t.”
Why not? “Well, ‘cause you’re
not my Dad. (OR my Mom.)”
So why do you do it when
your Dad tells you to? “I dunno. I guess because I’m part of the family, and we all
gotta help out around the house. My sister and brother do their share, too, so
it’s not a big deal, y’know?”
I do. You do your chores
‘cause you’re scared your Dad’s going to whup
ya if you don’t, right? “No!
Dad’s never even spanked me my entire
life! Well…there was that one time
when I was eight…but other than that, never.
No, that’s not why I do my chores.”
Ah, then it’s so he’ll love you, then. “Well, no, not
‘xzactly. I mean, he would be mad
at me if I didn’t do my chores, and ‘specially
if I gave him lip about it. But I’m pretty sure he would love me no matter what. I mean, he’s told us all so, y’know?
And, I mean, some of the rotten things my baby brother’s done? I mean,
if he ain’t stopped lov’n him for
that stuff, he ain’t gonna stop lov’n any
of us, ever, right?”
Right. So…why DO you do those chores then? You
don’t get paid, you’re not going to get whupped,
you’re not going to lose his love…why do
them? “Because I’m part of the
family, strange voice! That’s
what you do when you’re part of a
family, don’t you know that? Ain’t you never been part of a family? That’s how it works! We all pitch in, because we all
love each other. Since Dad’s the dad, he’ll tell us things that need to be done
and we’ll do them. But he also gets
us things we like, too, y’know? And, I mean, he’s the one paying the mortgage and buying the food I eat, too,
right? And if there’s something I need,
well, I can ask him, and if it’s in the budget he’s usually going to get it for
me – and sometimes there are things he gets me that I didn’t even know I needed, but that turned out to be
so cool, you know? Doing a few chores
seems a pretty fair price to pay for all that, mister. Y’know?”
Yeah.
I know. That’s also exactly why we do good works for Our Father in
Heaven, Hallowed be His Name. We’re family. And He’s our Daddy.
God won’t throw us out of
Heaven if we don’t do them. Our salvation is safe as long as we keep our faith,
although He does lay out a couple of requirements in the New Testament if we
are to maintain our love for Him
(baptism, occasional communion, regular congregation with other believers for
their spiritual health as well as our own, and most especially prayer). But
we choose to do good works for Him if we are truly saved, because
we understand we’re part of God’s family, and as Eph 2:10 says, God has
laid good works in our paths to do for His people. We’d be remiss not to do
them, even though our salvation isn’t at stake, strictly speaking. And it seems
like a good way to thank God for all the “cool things” He gives us, too!
But part of having a saving faith is accepting Christ as Lord of our lives, not just as
our savior. And He says very clearly, “If you love Me, you will keep My
commandments.” (John 14:15) We
don’t get to pick and choose, guys – just like we don’t get to pick and choose
which things Daddy tells us to do that we do, right?
That’s even more
important when it’s God the Daddy we’re talking about. The moment you start picking and choosing which parts of God’s Word you’re going to obey, you’re no longer
obeying God – YOU become the god you’re obeying.
And that’s commandment
number one, the BIG one, in Old and
New Testament:
Exodus 20:3)
Commandment number 1 at Mount Sinai: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Matthew 22:37, Mark
12:30, and Luke 10:27) What is the most
important commandment, Lord Jesus? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.”
Most twenty-first century
people think the first commandment no longer applies to a society without
little stone idols in every corner. But idols numbers one and two aren’t stone
statues anymore: they’re yourself and money. Do you worship those more than
you worship God? To check, ask yourself this: which one do you spend more
time thinking about: yourself, money, or God? If your answer isn’t Your
Father in Heaven, you have a problem.
We are saved
Christians through faith.
Because of our faith, God grants us grace
because of His love for us and
because of Christ’s work of propitiation
on the cross. And because we are saved through grace, we want to do good Christian works while
we’re still on this earth, not because we’re getting “paid” from heaven
for doing so, but because we’re family
and we therefore want to do what our Father wants us to do – help our fellow man, abstain from premarital
sex, control the sins of the flesh, all those things that non-Christians look at
us and say, “WHY?”
Because Daddy said so, that’s why.
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