A quarterly magazine for the proclamation and defense of the Gospel
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A quarterly magazine for the proclamation and defense of the Gospel |
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Vol. 4, Issue 1 | Spring 2010 |
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Primum Mobile is a quarterly web magazine. This issue and all its contents are © Copyright 2004-2010 by the editors. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
by Paul Lytle
For 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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.-Ephesians 2:8-10
I’ve been hearing a certain phrase quite a bit lately. It is one that sounds pretty right and important, and it is “Deeds, not Creed.”
The meaning is plain enough. The Church has, people will say, spent too much time in learning obscure theological facts instead of going out and serving people. Instead of trying to figure out who the Antichrist is, people will say, go feed the homeless. Go serve at a women’s shelter. Go do something.
This call to action seems almost like a shorthand version of the quote often attributed to Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel. When necessary, use words.”
The call is compelling — let the good news of Christ be evident in our actions more than just from our words. Christians are asked to put their money where their mouth is and act out the very Gospel that we have been preaching.
Some go even farther. I have heard from several sources this statement: “You are the Gospel.” In this case, the Gospel is not something we proclaim at all, but it is something we bring wherever we go. Again, whenever we work to make the world a better place, we are proclaiming the Gospel in our actions. We are bringing something of the Kingdom of God to others.
Honestly, all of this sounds great. So often we talk about how people should spend less time pontificating about the problems of the world and do something about them. Our culture respects actions a lot more than words. And the Church has gotten something of a bad name for shutting ourselves off from the world. We hang out at church, read our theological books, complain about the sinners outside, and don’t lift a finger to make things better. So this call toward “deeds, not creed” is an attractive one.
Too bad it’s completely contrary to Christianity.
To explain why I say this, we need to start with the Gospel. We need to understand the Gospel very well to see if it is something we are or do, or if it is something outside of us.
To do this, let’s jump over to 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul gives the most clear and concise definition of the Gospel in the Scripture:
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
-1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (emphasis mine)
That’s the Gospel, that Jesus died and rose again. You may be asking why that is important, so let’s back up a step.
We are sinners. People throw that term around a lot, and it may be easy to admit that you are a sinner, given how casual of a word it is now. But the term means something, and it is something very important. It means that we have offended God with our thoughts, words, and deeds. We do not deserve eternal life, but instead we deserve death and hell for what we have done.
We may look at the people around us and think, “Hey, I’m doing okay,” but that is only in comparison with people who are perhaps a little worse. The Bible tells us differently. It tells us that we have sought our own desires above obedience to the God who created us. It tells us that we have lusted after others, that we have conceived murderous thoughts, that we have been prideful and greedy, that we would rather others serve us than for us to serve God.
We will be judged by our thoughts. This should make every one of us worried, because our thoughts are not at all pure.
The Bible summarizes our state this way:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”-Romans 3:10-18
So the problem is very simple — not one of us has been good enough to earn a place in heaven. In fact, we’ve all earned exactly the opposite: hell.
And this is where the Gospel comes in. Jesus came to earth, took the form of a man, and died upon the Cross in our place. We could not earn eternal life, but He earned it in our place, and so too did He die in our place, taking upon Himself the sins that we have committed.
It was a legal substitution. By the Law, we have been found guilty, and the punishment set by that same Law. It would be just for us to pay for those crimes in death. But Jesus stood in our place in that death. Now justice has been sated, and we are freed from that punishment.
We see right away that the Gospel is not something we can “do.” None of us can live perfectly so that we could earn heaven. In fact, the Gospel is something that has already been “done.” It was finished by Christ on the Cross.
Not everyone will be given eternal life because of this Gospel. The Bible still warns of damnation for those who do not repent and believe this Gospel. Peter tells us very frankly what must be done: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:38-39).
Repent and believe. That is the call to the Gospel, the call to be justified in the eyes of God despite your sins.
Let me stress this point again, because this is at the heart of our discussion. The Gospel is not something we can be, do, or earn. It is something Jesus did for us, as a gift. We have already seen that we cannot earn our way to heaven. We are all drowning in our own sin. But Jesus did earn it, and He gives it to us freely.
Repentance is not simply telling God, “Sorry,” sarcastically and going about your day. No, repentance happens when you come to a realization of the terribleness and evilness of your own sin. You turn from it, rejecting the way you were as wicked and wretched, and turn to Christ for your salvation.
It does no good to turn to someone else, or to a false god, for forgiveness. Remember that this is a legal situation here. Those false gods did not pay the price for your sin. They can do nothing for you. That is why faith is the key to salvation. John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (emphasis mine).
You have to believe in the right Person on this one. The reason is clear — only Jesus died for your sins. No one else has, or even could. If you are looking to someone else for salvation, it’s not going to work.
On our side of things, that is the critical piece of the Gospel — faith. It is not what we do that saves us, but what we believe.
This rubs us the wrong way, I know. We are used to earning things. We are used to getting in proportion to what we give. We don’t like it when we hear of people getting a free ride. We are in a culture where you are supposed to earn what you get.
So the Gospel is counterintuitive. It is telling us something that we may not like: that you cannot earn it.
But this is the very heart of love. Love can never be truly earned, can it? My wife loves me, even though I have done terrible things in my marriage. My parents love me, even though they had to change my diapers countless times.
In love, God sought to rescue us from a fate that we would not like and give us one we did not deserve. And to do this, He sent His Son to pay the price we had deserved so we wouldn’t have to. This is an incredible act of love, and one we could never repay. And yet it has been done, and there is nothing for us to do but to accept or reject it. No matter how much we would like to earn it, we cannot. So I pray that you have humbly accepted it.
In the end, the important question is this: What do you believe? Forget earning it; what do you believe? In the end, it is our creed, which is a fancy term for what we believe, that matters most. It is this creed that can save us.
We see now that, to put it bluntly, Francis of Assisi (or whoever really gave us that quote) didn’t really understand the Gospel. The Gospel is that Jesus’ Blood can save even me because of grace, not that I’m a good person, so it must be because of Jesus. The latter may be true, but that’s not the Gospel.
So it is that creeds are at the heart of everything. It is what we believe that matters most, because it is our only hope. We cannot be good enough, except that Jesus was already good enough for us.
Does that mean we can just live however we want and let God take care of things from here? In a very real way, yes, but not in the way the question is asked.
The key here is that statement — let God take care of things from here. The problem we have before Christ is that we want to sin. We are sinners, after all. It is our desire to chase after money, sex, power, fame, and material things. That is the way we are oriented. But a real part of repentance, enabled by God, is the turning from this sin.
We do not become perfect, or anywhere close, but our desires are turned away from the world and toward God. God gives us the Holy Spirit to indwell us, and we are guided by that Spirit.
As time goes on, that same Spirit changes us towards greater righteousness. This change does not happen by force of will, but by conviction of sin and repentance.
I cannot stress this enough, because almost everyone misses it. If you go to a Christian bookstore and look through the relationship books, they are almost all going to be focused on trying harder. If that worked, I wouldn’t need a crucified Savior! I would just try harder. But when we are convicted of our sins, then change happens. That is a work not of our own efforts, but it is an effort of the Holy Spirit.
By force of will I can modify my behavior to force myself to do better in some area, but it does not change my heart. When the Spirit convicts our heart of sin, we are changed from the inside out.
This process is known as sanctification. We are not perfected in this life, but the Spirit moves us gradually toward that.
Now, the question at hand was this — can we just live however we want and let God take care of things from here? In a very real way, yes, because the Spirit has turned us from sin and toward God. In other words, what we now “want” will be more in line with God. Therefore we can do whatever we please, for we will be pleased to do good.
It is not that we unfailingly want to do good, but that turn has been made. If that turn has not been made in someone who claims to be Christian, I would be concerned about the claim, for all Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The change may be very gradual, but it will be.
This is much better than the alternative. The alternative is to force yourself to be better out of guilt and shame, and twist your own nature to try to make your inward thoughts reflect the outward behavior you are forcing. Instead, let us repent of our sin. If you stumble again, repent and turn to the Cross. If it happens five thousand times, repent five thousand times. Jesus died for that too. The Spirit will guide our hearts in conviction to be changed by His divine power.
And here, at last, we will come to deeds. With a changed heart and by the direction of the Holy Spirit, the Christian will be anxious and willing, out of an overflow of love, to do good deeds. They will be deeds done out of faith, not coercion, and will find the approval of God.
We do deeds because of our creeds. Any other combination cannot please God, for without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).
Let that point sink in. If you, in human terms, are the best person ever, if you spend all your time and money helping the poor, if you are caring and compassionate to everyone you meet, if you end world hunger and poverty and AIDS and cancer and all disease — if you do all of that, but have no faith, then you have done nothing in spiritual terms. You are still as bad as the rest of us. You have missed the point of everything! The point of everything is to bring honor and glory to God, not yourself or another person! So if you work really hard for someone or something that isn’t God, then you’ve completely missed it! Repent of your pride and God-belittling ways and turn to Him in faith. That is what pleases Him, and that is what will lead to true Christian good works.
He is the greatest good in the universe, so whatever good you think you are doing is not good enough without Him.
Ephesians 2:8-10 teaches us something critical. We have been saved by grace alone, not by works. And when we are saved, we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works.” The order here is important. Don’t get this mixed up. We do good works once saved and remade in Him. We are not saved because we do works.
In short, our motto would better be, “deeds by creeds” rather than “deeds, not creed.”
If you are not in that place right now, I will not tell you to go do good works. I will not tell you to suck it up and go help people. I will not try to put a guilt trip on you so you’ll go help at a soup kitchen. I tell you instead to look to the Cross. Fall upon your knees in repentance for the sin of selfishness. By His Blood you will be forgiven! Turn to the Word of God, which reveals to us the character of Christ. He will be your Savior and Redeemer.
Do this even if you are already a Christian. I need His Blood today as much (or more) than the day I first believed. I need His Spirit to guide me as much today as ever. Repent of your sin and look to the Cross.
When His love overwhelms you, no one will be able to stop your generosity. It may not happen today, but the Spirit will be your guide. Let those deeds come from Him rather than from your force of will. Let your deeds be driven by your creeds.
