I feel driven made sometimes by Scripture. That in most parts it claims we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Alone (John 3:16, John 6:40, Romans 10:9-10, Philippians 3:9, Acts 15:5-11, Ephesians 2:8-9) and that Jesus' Sacrifice was for all time (Hebrews Chapter Nine) and that we have His righteousness now (2 Corinthians 5:21). And yet there are passages that claim that practicing sin as a Christian is grounds for being lost (1 John 3:4-18, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Revelation 21:8). This is why the Church is divided by the Gracers (those who trust in Grace of God) and Penitentialists (who believe they have to do holy living to stay saved). It is a major road of demarcation in soteriology and theology. You either believe Jesus did it all or you gotta stay holy too. I cling to these Scriptures, "I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing," (Galatians 2:21), "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one," (John 10:26-30), and so forth. I feel that the plethora of the Canon of Scripture leans Grace is enough, that Jesus Christ has accomplished it. There are more verses in favor of "It's Finished," then if you practice sin you will be chopped into pieces and thrown into the Second Death.
What tips the scales for me aside from that plethora of Scripture being in favor of Grace over penance and holy living is The Doctrine of Total Depravity. Martin Luther and John Calvin both taught that we have so fallen in our sins that our concept of how to even be holy or do good is so warped, that we are incapable of doing good save through Christ, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5). What supports this doctrine is not only the Scriptures, and the fact Jesus had to die for our sins, it is experience. In this life despite the Holy Spirit sealing me, and Jesus' Blood washing me, and The Father watching over me, I sin, I fall short. I am acutely aware daily that Total Depravity and Futility is at work in the world, and that without Jesus' Sacrifice on the Cross, without Jesus pardoning all my sins by his mercy and grace through His act on the cross, I am doomed.. there is no hope if we believe we have to be holy to be saved. It basically means we are little better off than the Old Testament, having to keep laws as if wardens of ourselves spiritually. The only answer is that Christ did enough, or we are for lack of more eloquent words, utterly screwed!
I am raising this at the time when we are about to celebrate Jesus' Death and Resurrection at Easter in April. Now that celebration either is that we believe Jesus did all that was necessary to cleanse us, forgive us, restore us to righteousness, reconcile us to God, and etc; or there is nothing to celebrate, its merely a parlor trick, where "Oh he died for your sins, but uh it wasn't enough, you better be holy and good or you will burn anyway." Seriously, that is what the Apostle Paul gets to, "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose," (Galatians 2:21), and "And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace." (Romans 11:16). Paul understood the implication, if Jesus' sacrifice was not enough, we are little better off than the first state of Judaism in the Old Testament, we would be like the Catholics navigating a labyrinth of canon law and rules, with a shadow of the Crucifixion over the altar that stings because its not enough.
I want to affirm that what Christ did was enough. That all your sins are forgiven, "Jesus, the Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins with his own blood" (Revelation 1:5). That you shall inherit eternal life and heaven not by pious works and deeds, but simply by the Blood of the Lamb and being in His Book of Life which just takes this, "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved," (Romans 10:9-10). I remember a Pastor I met in the Holy Land that wrote a excellent pamphlet, he said in it, "The greatest lie the Church can believe is you can lose your salvation in Jesus, that your sins somehow will disinherit you. With this lie Satan can have you spend the rest of your life in little better than the state before you were saved, because you will spend it in worry about your soul, and worse you will not trust and believe that Jesus paid it all for your sins and has reconciled you, and that you can enter the holiest places in heaven by His Blood, "And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus." (Hebrews 10:10). Indeed, if we stray from that trust that Jesus did enough, and we are saved and sealed, we become slaves once more, this time in fear of sin, that we will be caste off and burned even though we love Jesus and trust in his Gospel! You see, the serpent is tricky, he infects minds and hearts with these kinds of lies because he wants you to doubt, to not trust that Jesus did enough. I a Seminary Teacher taught in my Spiritual Warfare class, "If Satan cannot stop you from becoming saved, he will then go to Plan B and have you worry about losing your salvation the rest of the time you are a Christian, this way you have are little good to Body of Christ, because you are focused on yourself."
The enemy would like to take away our security and leave us in a state of terror, that God is poised to caste us into the burning sulfur if we do not shape up. The reality is humans are incapable of being good, even when people think they are doing well in their piety, and bearing fruit, they can then become conceited or neglect the more weighter matters (Matthew 23:23). Indeed, religious spirits make people think they are superior by their religious works, and yet they often are most cruel and callous people, like the Pharisees who plotted to kill our Lord and Savior Jesus, and succeeded.
Jesus did enough. Scripture affirms this by the majority of passages and The Apostles decided The Grace of God is enough at First Church Council recorded in Scripture, "But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers.When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,“‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen;
I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,
says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’Therefore my judgment [note the addition of the following things to abstain from is The Apostle James alone, and Paul even contends elsewhere about food sacrificed to idols being an issue for immature Christians, see 1 Corinthians 8:7] is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues." (Acts 15:1-19). There were those who wanted to add having to do the law and be holy (Acts 15:1) but the apostles said no, its Grace, the unmerited of favor of God through Jesus Christ the God Man's sacrifice. Fruit bearing is not unimportant, it just is not salvic. We do want to grow and change, to break strongholds, but we must be careful not to become as The Catholics, or the Jews who went before our Church, and start trusting in our own fruit over the Blood of Jesus. For so easily do people abandon the simple gospel to follow another (2 Corinthians), and become slaves once more, ".This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks
to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves." (Galatians 2:4). We must guard jealousy the truth that we are desperate beings, we need Jesus to be our Savior, because we are incapable of saving ourselves by being good enough, our goodness is filthy wrags. Amen.
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