Only faith in Jesus connects us to God’s grace and makes us good enough for God.
The U.S. Marines have two slogans that make great soldiers. The slogans are two sides of the same coin. One is, “Earned, Never Given.” Marine recruiting ads picture those words with a sword in the background, the idea being that the Marines don’t give the symbolic sword of membership to anybody. You have to go through boot camp and prove your mettle before you become a real Marine.
The other slogan is, “The Few, the Proud, the Marines.” Pride goes hand in hand with earning your sword. If you have earned your place, if you deserve to be a Marine, then you have something to be very proud of.
However, as valuable as these slogans are for making exceptional soldiers in this age, in another arena of life—one’s relationship with God—these slogans perfectly illustrate spiritual attitudes that can make it impossible to have a relationship with God.
(Don’t misunderstand. A person can be a great Marine and a great Christian. You just can’t approach God to become a Christian in the way you approach becoming a Marine.)
These attitudes—earning your way, and the pride that come with it—are diametrically opposed to the gospel and repugnant to God.
Good enough for God
Ephesians 2:8–9 states that clearly: “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
By grace…through faith…not your own doing…the gift of God…not the result of works…that no one may boast. That is the exact opposite of “earned, never given” and “the few, the proud.”
Continuing my series on what we learn about God from the gospel, in my previous post we talked about God’s grace, and now we will focus on faith. The message of the gospel is that you are saved through faith, not through works. Specifically, the gospel says your faith must be in Jesus Christ, that he is God’s Son, that he is Lord, that he died for our sins, and that God raised him from the dead.
People once asked Jesus, “‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’” (John 6:28–29).
These people had been raised under the Law of Moses, and as a result their mindset was you find acceptance with God by carefully keeping hundreds of rules, by doing the works of the Law. Jesus explodes that approach. His answer was to believe in him. That’s the work. That’s the gospel.
The apostle John said he wrote his Gospel “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).
Faith and humility
Faith precludes boasting. Faith is complete reliance on God rather than self. That’s why it pleases and glorifies God rather than exalting us. Gospel faith utterly abandons self-reliance and self-righteousness.
When Paul the apostle thought of his own sparkling spiritual pedigree as a standout former Pharisee, which was the strictest sect of Law-keepers in Israel, he nevertheless said he now “put no confidence in the flesh” and “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:3, 7–9).
This is the gospel. Righteousness—right standing with God—comes through faith in Jesus.
Moreover, even faith itself is not a meritorious work; that is, faith is not something we can boast in. Righteousness is not from faith, but rather “through faith” (Philippians 3:9, above). Faith simply receives what God has given. Faith simply depends on another, on Jesus.
A different gospel
Furthermore, coming to God on the basis of faith in Jesus, instead of on the basis of the works of the Law, is not optional. These are mutually exclusive approaches. To choose one way is to abandon the other.
For example, the apostle Paul taught that some people who professed faith in Jesus were unwittingly breaking their relationship with him by teaching that Christians had to keep the law of circumcision in order to be saved. Paul called this “a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6–7). Paul battles this different gospel for the first five chapters of Galatians (read it!) and concludes with this black-and-white assessment of their situation:
“Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:2–6)
This is the true gospel. A different gospel will get you nowhere with God—nowhere. This is what we must learn about God and his ways. This is how the gospel is a photograph of God. You don’t know God rightly until you know this: He is not impressed by those who try to gain access to him by any other means but faith in Jesus.
That is because any other approach is a self-reliant approach that depends on your being good enough morally for God. Only the cross of Jesus offers a God-reliant approach.
Only faith in Jesus connects us to God’s grace.
Never good enough for God
That’s why Scripture says God rejects generic faith in God that rejects Jesus (Acts 4:12), presuming thereby not to need Jesus, presuming to be good enough to have earned God’s approval.
He rejects any kind of religion that rejects Jesus and tries to earn God’s approval by keeping a moral code.
God even rejects those who zealously believe in the God of the Old Testament but reject Jesus. Paul writes of his fellow Jews:
“1 My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:1–4)
Notice that Paul says in verse 1 that they are not saved.
Notice in verse 2 that they believe in God and are zealous for God. Still, they are unsaved because their belief is a wrong belief, that is, “not according to knowledge.”
And notice in verse 3 that they tried to establish their own merit through self-righteousness, through law-keeping. They would “not submit” to God’s way but tried to do it their way. This was a proud act of disobedience.
Notice in verse 4 that faith in Christ is the opposite approach, the end of trying to be righteous through keeping the law.
Our way and God’s way
Our way: We want to trust in ourselves rather than God.
God’s way: Righteousness and the salvation that come with it are given, never earned. God is fiercely opposed to self-reliance as a means of righteousness, and to human boasting. He loves faith, but not any sort of faith. You must have faith in Jesus.
Life principle: No matter how long we live as a Christian, we need to keep our faith in Jesus and his Word as our means of acceptance with God.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)