Chris' Christian Blog

Law VS Faith

"Law VS Faith" 

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Over the past few days we have examined faith extensively. Now we are going to examine how faith does and does not tie in with works. There is the school of thought in the Christian world that God requires absolutely nothing from us but faith. On the other extreme there is the school of thought that man has to act in certain ways to please God and that man has to continue to act in certain ways to keep God pleased. Both of these extremes is of course completely wrong. The truth lies someplace along the continuum. Today we're going to see where.

The idea of carrying out works to earn one's salvation isn't new with 21st Century Christianity. It dates back to the beginning of the church. The Apostle Paul used the majority of his writing to preach against works based salvation. He says ""You foolish Galatians! Who put a spell on you? Before your very eyes you had a very clear description of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross! Tell me this one thing: did you receive God's Spirit by doing what the law requires or by hearing the gospel and believing it," Galatians 3: 1-2. GNt.

We see then that one is not saved by the law. What is the law? The law is the Ten Commandments or the tablets given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. However it never was the purpose of the Ten Commandments to save anybody. In fact the intent of God in giving Moses the ten Commandments was to introduce sin into the world. Now this may sound a bit confusing. After all wasn't the world already condemned due to sin? Yes it was. However God had not made it clear to the world exactly what He considered to be sin. God's sense of justice, or if you will, His sense of fair play, required that he allow the world to know what he considered to be sin. Prior to doing so men were judged on how well they adhered to their own sense of right and wrong. Even after the introduction of the Ten Commandments, most of the world continued to be judged by how well they adhered to their own sense of right and wrong because the Ten Commandments applied only to the Jews. The purpose of the Ten Commandments though was to give the world a measuring stick for sin. The Ten Commandments therefore were never intended as a means of salvation. Paul says "Shall we say, then, that the law itself is sinful? Of course not! But it was the Law that made me to know what sin is," Romans 7: 7b.

Paul makes it clear that no one will be declared righteous by keeping the Ten Commandments when he says "For no one is put right in God's sight by doing what the Law requires; what the law does is make us know we have sinned," Romans 3: 20.

It's clear therefore that nothing we do, no amount of holiness or anything else on our part, is going to please God enough to secure our salvation. So how is our salvation secured? It is secured by faith. "For it is by our faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved," Romans 10: 10.

Faith however requires more than merely believing as we have discovered over the past few days. It requires that we act on that faith by trusting in Jesus Christ and giving ourselves totally to Him. It's easy to hear the gospel and believe it's true. One may even be like the demons and hear the gospel and have 100% faith in its accuracy. However one can do all that and still be lost if one does not take the action of applying it to one's life. Does that mean any of us instantly become immune to sin and never commit another sin as long as we live? Of course not. It does mean however that we make Jesus Christ the Ruler of our lives.