I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! (Gal. 1:6-9).
Occasionally in his New Testament letters, the apostle Paul went “completely Billy Jack” on certain groups who were trying to influence the church. If you aren’t a baby boomer who watched a lot of movies in the 60’s you may have to do some research on that expression. In his letter to the church at Galatia, Paul runs quickly through a curt greeting and then assaults a group who had come to Galatia soon after Paul had departed. This was a group who had come to present a “different gospel” from the one Paul had presented. It was, in fact, so different that Paul judged it to be no gospel at all and declared a curse over those who had brought the teaching. The curse was for them to be eternally damned. He was so serious about it that he spoke the curse twice.
What in the world would get Paul stirred up so much that if he had been present I’m certain he would have gotten physical with these “teachers?” In a nutshell, Paul preached a gospel of grace through which salvation comes by faith not by the stringent keeping of laws and rituals through which a man earns his salvation. Those who came after Paul were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah but that keeping the Law of Moses faithfully was still a condition of salvation. Their formula would have been “Jesus + good works + faithful obedience to the Law of Moses = salvation. Pauls’ formula simply read “Jesus + faith = salvation.” To add more to the gospel condemns man to a slavery under law. That’s why Paul felt so strongly about it. As a former Pharisee he knew how spiritually debilitating living under a religious system could be.
For those of us who have never lived under the Law, that might not seem like such a big deal. After all, aren’t we as Christians supposed to do good works and keep the commandments of Christ anyway? Yes, but we do those things as a response to the grace of God that gifted salvation to us rather than as a means to earn our salvation. The difference is worlds apart.
Under any system of religious law we are left to earn our salvation on the basis of faithfulness and good works as defined by the religion. The problem is that you never really know where you stand. Somehow I lost my catalogue that tells he how many salvation points are required to get into heaven, how much each good work is worth and how much is subtracted from my total score on the basis of sins and bad attitudes. I also have no way of assessing how much faith is enough faith, how much love is enough love, or how much godly sorrow is required before it counts. Do Wednesday nights count more than Sunday mornings and do I get bonus points if I drove to church on slick roads? I’m also left to wonder if there are penalties and interest that accrue if sins go unrepented for significant periods of time.
In short, a person can never be sure of his or her salvation if we must earn it or merit it somehow. Islam is a great illustration. Because it is a religion of works and judgment, a Muslim can never know with certainty whether he will be given access to paradise or not – unless he or she dies in defense of Islam. Suicide bombers then have the only real assurance of salvation but even then entry is not guaranteed but only highly probable. But the uncertainty is enough to drive many to blow themselves up along with the infidels in order to get a good shot at salvation.
Whenever Satan wants to derail faithful believers in the kingdom of heaven, he simply introduces an element of legalism into the faith. He introduces a different gospel. Ask any pastor who does much counseling in his congregation and he will tell you how many believers stumble through life under the weight of guilt from past sins. He will tell you how many still operate under the unspoken assumption that God’s love is conditional and based on their own goodness or religious performance. They carry a profound sense of unworthiness that steals their faith in the promises of God. They don’t feel worthy to ask God for big things and if they do they have no real expectation of having their prayers answered because they are too insignificant or sinful for God to say yes to them.
Multitudes of Christians live with the assumption that continued salvation and the promises of God all depend on them – their goodness, their perfection, and their performance. That is a form of legalism that cripples the church. Notice how that kind of religious system affected the Pharisees. If you assume that people earn their way to heaven and you know that not everyone gets in, then you must make assumptions about percentages. Does the 50th percentile get a passing grade or must you be in the 70th or 90th percentile? If only so many get in, then you are not only invested in doing better but you must also be invested in others doing worse. The result is that you must tout your own righteousness while pointing out every other person’s failings. In fact, you might even be invested in helping them fail. Jesus often confronted the Pharisees about their self-righteousness, their willingness to throw stones at others, and their willingness to pile religious demands on the multitudes while not lifting a finger to help them meet those demands. Rules and ritual become the test of faith because only those can be measured.
As believers, we don’t have to have a well-developed religious system like the Pharisees to fall prey to legalism. Satan will simply point out a few attitudes or weaknesses or past sins that he will highlight as the very things that make us unworthy and unacceptable to our Father. He gets us to focus on our self and our sin rather than the all-encompassing sacrifice of Jesus so that we feel the pressure to be perfect, to deny our own sin, or to blame others for our shortcomings because we are participating in some kind of vague score keeping. If we don’t blame others we still always feel unqualified to share our faith, walk in the power of the Spirit, lead in our churches, or ask God to do great things using us.
As I have said before, God isn’t hung up on our imperfections, we are and Satan delights in whispering a gospel to us different from the one we first received. We were saved by grace and continue by grace. We serve, we make mistakes, we get up, we dust ourselves off and keep going by grace. God’s mercies are new every morning and so we are able to put yesterday’s mistakes under the blood of Christ every evening and rise the next morning fresh in the Lord. We are able to rise ready to serve him and love him in better ways today than we did yesterday – not in order to be saved but because we are saved.
Paul said that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free – freedom to live each day new in the Lord and freedom to know that perfection is not a requirement for salvation. The faith that we have is enough for today and God will give us more for tomorrow. Our part? Refuse to accept a different gospel from the enemy or people who don’t know any better because a different gospel is no gospel at all. Feel free to be imperfect today in Jesus and love him all the more because you can. Be blessed in Him.