Perhaps this will make it clearer:
There was a man who really wanted some coffee. He had no way
of getting coffee because they didn’t sell it in his town or even his country.
You had to be perfect to get coffee. Someone else who had access to coffee
(because he was perfect) obtained some coffee for him and wrapped it up in a
gift basket with a coffee maker and a mug and set it on the man’s porch as a
gift. But the man who wanted the coffee wanted to earn it… so he did all kinds
of good things. He kept his porch clean and swept all around the gift basket
every day. He was usually kind to his neighbors and tried not to do bad things. Most people would say that he did
a pretty good job of being good… he only failed in little things, like
sometimes fudging numbers on his taxes or the one time he dropped leaves into
his neighbors yard because he didn’t want to clean them up himself. He was a
good man. The day finally came when he could stand in line for the coffee shop
and be examined for perfection. The examiner looked over the man’s good things
and said, “you have done well in these,” but then looked at his bad things and
said, “but there’s no way you can ever outweigh these because even one bad
thing means you have failed to be perfect.”
The man was very sad and he remembered the gift basket on
his porch, but while he was in line to be examined for coffee, his house had
been destroyed and there was no way for him to go back there and pick up the
gift of coffee someone else had given him. It was too late.
"There was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night
and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no
one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most
assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man
be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and
be born?”
Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say
to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom
of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell
where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the
Spirit.”
Nicodemus answered and said to Him,
“How can these things be?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Are
you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say
to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not
receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you
do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has
ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness* even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
He
who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned
already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of
God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For
everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest
his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that
his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” John 3:1-21 (NKJV)
*See Exodus
21:4-9 where those who had complained against God and been bitten by “fiery
serpents” from God looked upon the bronze serpent that God told Moses to make
and were healed – because they looked to God for their salvation.
The reason what we believe about salvation matters is
because the Bible is pretty clear that good works are great… we are called by
God to walk in them – but we are called by God first to be made alive.
The works we do when we are still “dead in trespasses” are worthless, because
no amount of good works can wipe out the “dead in trespasses” status we
have.
Only God’s mercy and grace can do that.
Ephesians 2 says:
“But you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and
sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of
disobedience, among whom we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our
flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love
with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive
together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up
together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. For by
grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is
the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Grace is so important – grace is “unmerited favor.” It’s
different than mercy, which says, “I’m not going to punish you for what you’ve
done.”
But the thing is, mercy implies that there is a code of
justice (that we deserve something else) and indeed God is also a God of
justice. Our good things can’t outweigh the sins we have committed. Sin leads
to death – and in our sin nature, we are spiritually dead. So Jesus implemented
justice for our sins – He “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree
that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness” because by His
“stripes you were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)
The book of Colossians speaks about believers in Christ
being “qualified,” not by their own righteousness, but by the God who has given
us an inheritance (Grace) and “delivered us from the power of darkness and
conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love – in whom we have
redemption though His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Mercy).
Grace says, “To all who received Him, He gave the right to
be called children of God.” (John 1:12)
So why does it matter what someone believes about salvation?
Because (as C.S. Lewis said) it is something that can’t be “moderately
important.” If it is true, it is of utmost importance. If it’s all a lie, then
it doesn’t matter at all.
But it breaks my heart to meet people who believe in God,
who believe in Christ, who believe that He died and rose again – and who also
believe that they have to be good enough. They reject the gift of God because
they want to earn it.
But the thing is, it can’t be earned. Isaiah 64:6 says that
“all our righteousnesses are like filthy
rags” – the Hebrew word used for
“filthy” is associated with menstruation… and it reminds me of the first apartment
I lived in, which had some nasty aspects to it actually and what I’m about to
say is also pretty nasty. Someone dropped a bag of garbage in the hallway and
there was a used tampon that spilled out. It lay there in the common hallway of
the apartment building for weeks. Everybody saw it, but nobody wanted to touch
it… because it was disgusting… it was filthy – and THAT is what our good deeds
apart from God are when it comes to earning salvation… a used tampon laying in the hallway. Our good deeds apart
from God may be nice… they may help people. But they do nothing to reconcile us
to God.
For that matter, our
good deeds in God do nothing to reconcile us to God. Reconciliation is
His gift, apart from anything good we can do. The good that we do is meant to
be a reflection of God in the world.
I do not have a problem with saved people being in the
Orthodox church… what breaks my heart are the ones who are in the church
physically, but in their hearts have actually rejected the gift of the God the
church is all about and chosen to keep on living as dead men.
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