“Since Jesus saved us from our sins, we must now work hard to keep our salvation.” – Satan.

I thought of the above quote to summarize what I read in Galatians this morning. I can’t tell you how prevalent this thought is among “Christians” in many churches. No one denies that it is Christ that saves us (At least no one who would call himself a Christian). However, from that point on, they believe they must, through their good works and religious activities, keep their own salvation.

Paul called Peter “condemned” for this kind of thinking and practice. In Galatians 2:11-14, Peter goes back to keeping the law by eating only with the Jews and not with the Gentiles (According to the Jewish law, the Jews were only allowed to eat with other Jews). Paul rebukes Peter harshly in front of everyone on this and says he “stood condemned.”

And then he goes on to a discourse about how we cannot ADD any good works to our salvation for good measure. In other words, after receiving Jesus as our salvation by faith, we cannot now try to be good and godly in order to make doubly sure of our salvation. (The mentality, “If we don’t get in by faith, at least God will let us in because of our good works.”) No!

This is troubling for someone like me who likes having backup plans. Especially for something as important as eternal life, I want to make sure that if plan A fails, then there is plan B. But in God’s term, having a plan B causes the very demise of plan A! God wants and offers no other plan. There is one and only one plan to salvation and to keeping it. That is the finished work of Jesus!

We must utterly and singularly depend on the finished work of Christ for salvation (both justification and sanctification).

This means that the way we become transformed is through our faith in the finished work of Christ. It’s not that we get saved and then we make ourselves better through our own will power and good works. But it’s through daily, hourly, minutely dependence on Christ, reminding ourselves continually of our helplessness and the sufficiency of Christ. Good works will flow naturally…

Added benefit? Peace and joy. And freedom!

PH