Grace alone, Faith alone

Encore Post: You’ve seen plenty of ads on websites, TV, billboards, in stores and just about everywhere you go. You can lose thirty pounds if you just eat the new diet. You do not even have to exercise! If you buy that brand new sportscar, you can hangout with beautiful women! That brand new pan will make you into a chef and you can clean it in no time! People who know better will tell you if it’s too good to be true — it is! There is no such thing as a free lunch! And most of the time they’re right!

So, it’s not surprising that people think they need to do something — anything — to earn God’s mercy and eternal life. Every religion on earth is about what you have to do to win the love of their gods. Their gods bless those that do the most. Those that fail have at best a second or third place in their blessings.

Some Christians believe that God expects them to do some good works to match the grace God gives them in order to be saved. This may be as simple as accepting Jesus as their savior, inviting him into their hearts. Others feel they must do certain rituals, confess all of their sins, speak in languages they don’t understand or give substantial money for God to bless them. They may even say that they are saved by grace, just not grace alone.

The problem, of course, as we’ve discussed in other posts, that we are not able to please God by what we do. Without the work of the Holy Spirit we are dead in our sins. That is why it is such good news that Jesus already has paid the price for our salvation on the cross. Because he did this, God loves us, is gracious to us and gives us salvation as a gift — without strings attached. So it is by grace alone that we are saved. He even places the faith in our hearts that trusts this good news and cherishes this gift. It is this faith alone that saves us for Christ’s sake alone. This precious truth is the very center of Christian teaching and the most important of all the insights of Martin Luther and the Reformation.

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Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com