FAITH IN JESUS ALONE
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As Christians, we have a lot of freedom. We can eat what we want, dress as we choose, go where we desire, and even worship as we please, but within certain bounds. Our worship has to be according to the truth of God. A Samaritan woman told Jesus that she thought that worship was just a matter of location. However, He retorted that location wasn’t important but rather truth:
∑ “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:23-24)
Truth was always a matter of obedience to God’s every Word (Matthew 4:4). This is the way it had been under the Mosaic Covenant. It required Israel to obey God’s Word alone (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32). Any borrowing from the Canaanite religions was strictly forbidden:
∑ “You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” (Deuteronomy 13:4-5)
Israel’s trust and obedience had to be exclusively in their Redeemer (Psalm 62; Proverbs 3:5-6). This same principle also pertains to the rest of the Bible. Preaching a different or modified Jesus or Gospel was also strictly forbidden:
∑ But even 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. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8-9)
As a new Christian, I had become quite confused by the teachings of the Bible. Some verses seem to teach that we are saved by faith apart from any obedience, while other verses seemed to teach that obedience was necessary for salvation.
I decided that I would play-it-safe. I would trust in the free gift of God but I would also trust in my “worthiness” before the Lord by doing good deeds. However, by placing trust in myself, I had become morbidly self-preoccupied. How? We are always going to be preoccupied with the source of our hope, and I was proving to be a very poor source of hope. God had been showing me that my righteous deeds were no more than filthy rags. Meanwhile, I struggled to suppress this growing awareness.
Even worse than this, I was betraying my faith and my Savior by committing the Galatian heresy:
∑ Foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? (Galatians 3:1-5)
The Galatian church had initially come to Jesus by trusting in Him. However, they foolishly began to invest their faith in good deeds, their “merit,” instead of in Christ’s free gift of forgiveness and salvation. However, they couldn’t have it both ways. They had to either trust in Christ or in themselves. The two couldn’t coexist. Likewise, the Canaanites beliefs could not be combined with God’s Word. It had to be one or the other. Nor could the Galatians be lukewarm – somewhere in the middle. God would not allow that; nor would He allow such a mixture in me.
Paul insisted that they could not even earn God’s miracles through their good deeds. Instead, the entire Christian life is animated by grace working through faith (Colossians 2:6), but by a faith that produces the fruit of obedience.
Therefore, He humbled me to show me the futility of any form of self-trust (2 Corinthians 1:8-9; 3:5; John 15:4-5). Even the most righteous man, Job, had to be humbled away from his self-righteousness, which his trials had brought to the surface. The prophetic Elihu therefore charged Job, “You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me’” (Job 33:9). Job’s good deeds had produced self-righteousness, a disease that had to be exposed:
∑ Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” (Job 40:6-8)
Self-righteousness is a deadly cancer. For those who are trusting in their works, radical surgery is necessary. Even Paul had to be further humbled by a thorn in his flesh lest he too become proud (2 Corinthians 12:7).
The blinding power and seductiveness of a works-righteousness is overwhelming. It convinces us of our own merit at the expense of trusting in God alone. Therefore, we need to be shown that we are all sinners in need of the Savior, as Jesus illustrated:
∑ “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:22-23)
Despite their “good deeds,” they were still “workers of lawlessness.” As with the rest of us, they too needed to humble themselves before the Savior and trust in His mercy alone. To not trust in His mercy alone is to continue in self-delusion regarding our “worthiness” and to become alienated from the Savior. To become circumcised in hope of earning righteousness through the Law was also a vain hope:
∑ Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. (Galatians 5:2-4)
I had thought that playing-it-safe by also trusting in my good deeds, along with the grace of God, was the way to go. However, such a faith would sever me from my Savior. I was falling from grace, but the Lord was painfully exposing my filthy rags.
To adulterate faith in Christ with any other faith is to reject Christ.
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