Jesus Freely Gifted

What Did Jesus Do?

For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6.23

I was troubled when, at a worship service for the Lord's Day, I heard someone proclaim that on the Day of Judgment, when we all shall have to give an account, God is going to judge us on 1) whether or not we chose to receive Christ as our Savior and Lord, and 2) whether or not our lives produced fruit for the Kingdom of God. It troubled me enough that I had to ask the speaker if this account was going to be the basis of our salvation, and, if so, if we could lose our salvation. His answer was “Yes.” I was so grateful to God that, at the end of the service, I had the opportunity to pray aloud and thank the Father for the eternal security of our salvation in the Son, established before even the foundations of the earth were set down. I hated to think that someone might have gone home unsure about their salvation. It is Election Day today in the United States, but the issue of our salvation, our election in Jesus Christ the Son, was settled in the Father's heart a long time ago. The salvation equation, if you will, is not Jesus + anything, but Christ alone.

We need to have this matter settled in our heart as well, or we will subject ourselves to all manner of anxious worry, and subject others to no little judgment, in a Pharisaical sort of way, when, in our eyes, they don't measure up. Let me ask you, is salvation obtained, or is it received? Do we quest after our salvation, as Jason sought for the Golden Fleece? If someone has convinced you that salvation is something you can ever attain to by dint of effort, you have been fleeced! Here's another question for you. Is salvation a reward, or is it a free gift? (Hint, if you are unsure, check the verse cited above.). Again, if you have been led, by whatever means, to believe that there is something, anything, which you can do to qualify for salvation, you have been misled.

If the Bible is true, and of course it is, when it says,

None is righteous, no, not one...
All have turned aside...no one does good,
not even one. (Romans 3.10-12; see Psalms 14.1-3; 53.1-3)

then there is absolutely no possibility of any of us contributing anything at all, even a decision, to our salvation. All have sinned, all fall short; our justification is by God's grace alone, a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3.23-24). To suggest that God, having chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestining us for adoption as his children, would tear up the “adoption papers” because we sinned, because we didn't “freely choose” Christ, because we did not produce sufficient fruit in our lives to evidence true regeneration, is to say that Christ died for nothing. For, if all these things mattered in the question of our salvation, then Christ's death on the cross is not sufficient in and of itself to deliver us from sin and death.

Should there be even the slightest thing is us that we on our own could count upon for salvation, then there was no need for the Son to die on the cross for us. None of us can claim credit for claiming Jesus as Lord and Savior, for even this most basic and essential confession is beyond us without the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in us (1Corinthians 12.3).

Now, if we believe that our salvation is a matter of our choosing to be saved, we can see how the corollary to this belief would be that we could somehow unmake that choice, and lose, or throw away what we had once obtained. I have heard it argued that Hebrews 6.4-6 supports such a position. The problem with using this text in this manner is that it is in fact misusing it. Hebrews 6 is not discussing regeneration and salvation, but growth and sanctification. The author of Hebrews is exhorting his congregation to keep going and growing in faith. In Hebrews 6.1 we are encouraged to “move on” from the basic and elementary doctrines, which form, as it were, the foundation of our faith, to build up our faith. What is “impossible” in verse 6, is re-regeneration, re-baptism, and re-rebirth. All believers stumble and fall, but this doesn't mean that they must go back and repeat the process of their justification again as if it had never happened.

This passage is also talking about something worse than stumbling and falling, it speaks of a forceful and outright rejection of Christ. Well, such a thing is not actually possible for those who have truly received him. Yes, we can fall away, distance ourselves from the fellowship of other believers, and embrace sin. All this is a manifestation of our persistent human frailty and sin nature, which continually wars with the Holy Spirit within us (Galatians 5.17). To reject Christ would require that the Holy Spirit be evicted from within us, which would be to say that our sin nature is stronger than the Spirit. If this were possible then God's grace, by which we are saved, could no longer be said to be either irresistible or sufficient. And faith built on anything other than the foundation of God's grace is faith built on sand rather than rock, it is counterfeit faith from the beginning, really not faith at all.

Jesus came to give us the free gift of salvation. This is not to deny the terrible cost Christ paid so that we should be forgiven our sins and receive eternal life. If we are going to be Christ's disciples, and participate in the Gospel ministry, let us have none of this business of demanding anything of those who desperately need redemption, but rather offer it freely. That's what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimiwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4