Why
do we trust in ourselves for anything, especially our salvation?
Some
give me strange looks when I say that salvation is through faith alone in
Christ. But God has set it up this way for a purpose.
Recall
the story of Gideon. He had called a few tribes (after removing the idols from
his house) and built an army of 32,000. But then God had something interesting
to say: “And the LORD said unto Gideon,
The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into
their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand
hath saved me.” (Judges 7:2).
The
Israelites were going up against an army of 135,000 Midianites and other
nations. Yet God said that an army of 32,000 was too many?! Yes. That’s because
if they even had that many, they might think, wrongly of course, that they had
saved themselves. God is jealous of His glory- and as He never changes, He is
jealous of it then as He is now. And we know that it is God who does everything
through us. Therefore, to make sure Israel understood it, God had to cut down
Gideon’s army.
First
Gideon sends away anyone who admits they are afraid. Only 10,000 are left. And
God STILL says it’s too many. So God tells Gideon to have his army drink water,
and those that lay on the ground and bring the water to their mouths with one
hand to keep. Now 300 are left. And that is satisfactory to God. “And the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three
hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine
hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place.” (Judges
7:7).
And
then a funny thing happens. God shows Gideon (even Gideon has some fear) that
the enemy is afraid of them because they have God on their side. And,
outnumbered 450 to 1, God brings a great victory through Gideon and his band of
men.
Why
does God choose to work in this way? The answer was already told to us at the
front end of the chapter. If Gideon’s army was larger, they might think they
saved themselves with their own hands, with their own might. But God knows full
well He was the only one Who could save them, just as they knew and we know.
Why did God choose to flatten the wall of Jericho by having Israel march around
it? Because He wanted it clear that He was giving the victory. Why have a
miraculous Red Sea crossing? Because later they could have looked back and said
that they escaped Egypt themselves. But God reminds them again and again that
He brought them out of Egypt.
That
same singular ability to deliver has not changed. As only God could save them
then, only He can save us now. And the reason is the same: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians
2:8-9). God is equally concerned about us robbing Him of glory today. So He
made salvation “by grace…through faith”. If it was by works, as He says, we
would have a reason to boast. “I saved myself. I was good enough, I followed
the Bible/the Ten Commandments/the sacraments/etc.” God says no, it is His gift
that we can’t deserve or earn.
And
we can only thank Him for that. If salvation were left up to ourselves we all
would fail. Grace literally means “unmerited favor”. We can’t merit it, we
don’t deserve it. It is freely given to anyone who will accept it. See what the
Bible says about our condition: “As it is
written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that
understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have
used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of
cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and
misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no
fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18).
That
is not talking about a certain group of people. That speaks of mankind as a
whole. We are reprehensible before God. We’re disgusting, undeserving of being
looked upon by Him except for judgment. “For
all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23). Every
one of us. There is more the Bible says about mankind: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind,
have taken us away. And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth
up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast
consumed us, because of our iniquities.” (Isaiah 64:6-7). Our
righteousnesses- the very BEST that we can put before God- are like filthy rags
to God. The Hebrew behind “filthy rags” carries with it the idea of menstrual
rags. THAT is how nasty we are before God- on a good day.
Still
think we can get to Heaven on our own?
The
menstrual cycle in Jewish culture made a woman ceremonially unclean. She had to
be cleansed by going before the high priest. How does that translate to today? “Seeing then that we have a great high
priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast
our profession.” (Hebrews 4:14). Jesus is our High Priest today. Do you
want to become clean before God? You have to go through Him. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the
truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John
14:6). There is only one Way to Heaven, and to have fellowship now and forever
with God. It is through Jesus.
Right
after Romans 3:23, that seems to paint a bleak picture, hope is seen: “Being justified freely by his grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the
remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I
say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By
what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” (Romans 3:24-28).
Our salvation is free; stated before, it is a gift from God. Our salvation is
through Jesus Christ. He is the propitiation for our sins (I John 2:1-2). A
“propitiation” is a stand-in sacrifice. Jesus was sacrificed so that we do not
have to pay for our own sins. We can pay for our own sins, but it involves
eternity in the Lake of Fire. Our salvation is without boasting. Just as
Ephesians 2 tells us, we can’t take any pride in ourselves for it. Because our
salvation is not by the law and not by works. Our salvation is by the law of
faith.
“The wages of sin is death…” Romans 6:23
tells us. That is the penalty for it. If you work a job, you receive wages. Our
wages for being sinful is death. Not just a physical death, but the second
death spoken of in Revelation 20:14. The casting into the Lake of Fire. But
there is a second part to Romans 6:23: “but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is only
this gift that leads to eternal life.
There
is a place for works, absolutely. But they come after we receive Christ as our
Savior. Apart from real salvation, they are useless. We can never be good
enough. But Jesus was good enough so we don’t have to be. He paid for our sin
and now is the “one mediator between God
and man…” (I Timothy 2:5). He is waiting to hear your prayer in faith,
confessing your sin and your inadequacy to save yourself, and the belief that
His death, burial and resurrection is enough to save you. Currently anyone who
has not done this is in a state of condemnation from God: “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not
is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18). But Jesus says He didn’t come to condemn
the world, but to save it (John 3:17). It is faith in Christ alone that saves.
Won’t you take that step?
“That if thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart
man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation…For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” –Romans 10:9-10, 13
“And brought
them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake
unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.” –Acts 16:30-32
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