Two sides of the Gospel
In the last couple of weeks, partly because of the study I'm working through with my small group but also through a lot of conversations within my community, I've really been thinking about what it really means for me to live Gospel-centered.
One thing that I heard tonight that's really got my brain churning is how we as human beings can even turn the truths of this good news of unconditional, unmerited grace given to us at the expense of Jesus Christ somehow into a moral improvement code.
Several years ago, a guy at Second Baptist gave a talk about the "two sides of the gospel" that has really stuck with me and I've gone back to often. It also explains why we are, in many of our Christian circles, so quick to jump on the "performance bandwagon" - when we only embrace one side of the gospel and not the totality of what God has offered to us.
If you think about "it" in terms of Accounting, consider that we human beings have a balance sheet that is completely full of debits on the "sin" column and empty on the "righteousness" column of the sheet. We do nothing that can please God because at the end of the day every thing we do apart from Christ is tainted by our sin nature. And, in Christ's ledger, there is endless credits on the "righteousness" column and it is empty on the "sin" column.
The way a lot of us understand the Gospel is that a transaction is made when Jesus died on the cross and we freely accept what He did for us. We know that He paid for our sins and we don't have to face the wrath of God because Jesus took all of that on our behalf on the cross if we put our trust in Him. All of us that have prayed a prayer, made a decision, gotten baptized, etc. understand that. "Man, I'm glad I'm forgiven!" We have given Jesus the debits in our "sin" column and he pays for them... on the cross positionally He now owns them. The wrath of God that we deserve is satisfied and we are forgiven.
And that's where a lot of us stop. Now... we feel we've got to show God that we've earned it. We now, that we don't have anything in the "sin" bucket, feel that we've gotta go fill up the "righteousness" column to show Him what a great call He made to save us.
And we stress ourselves out, we worry, and burn out...
Because we're not good at being righteous. In fact, we kind of suck at it. I know I do.
But there's another side of the gospel. Jesus doesn't stop at just forgiving us of our bad things.
Remember that fully loaded "righteousness" column that He has... the one He earned by 33 years of perfect obedience to the will of God that we couldn't possibly do?
That...
Yes, that.
gets transferred into our ledger.
We are not empty ledgers... we are not moral zeros. When we trust Jesus and embrace Him as our treasure...
We are made.... RIGHTEOUS. Not just "forgiven,"
Righteous. Completely and totally.
Does that make you breathe a sigh of relief.
Does that make you stop stressing out?
Does that sound too good to be true?
Given the paradox that we aren't completely severed from this thing in us that makes us want to do bad things, it's sometimes hard to believe... but this is what the Gospel teaches, that we are a new humanity reborn spiritually with a nature enabled by the Holy Spirit to actually do good works that actually please God; not just serve our self-promotion. Even our good works are a gift... does that make you happy?
It should :-)
We don't have to "do" anything to be good... if we trust Jesus, that's just what he makes us.
I wish I could exhaust you (and me - I get pulled away from this so often - my natural inclination is to make rules for me to follow rather than resting in my relationship with Jesus too) with all of the Bible verses that scream this out, but it'd make this blog post so long that you'd eventually fall asleep if you haven't already. So - instead of saying, "just trust me" I'd encourage you to take a 2 hour stint and read through the entire book of Romans in its entirety. When you finish, I hope you see the offer of an unconditional, undeserved, absolutely stunning offer of adoption and regeneration by a God who loves you, wants you to rest completely in His love and favor, and enables you to live life centered in that new reality.
If in our heart, at our core, understand that we are freely cherished by God and freed from law, what is the natural byproduct of that relationship? In that case, it is no longer about me "doing to gain approval," it is living out of a new nature that I have because of what God has done and is in the process of doing in transforming my life (the crazy thing is, our "sanctification" is also by grace; not just our salvation). That, rather than the former, brings life and removes guilt. It enables us to love for the sake of loving rather than because we have to.
In a sense... we do these things, because that is just what we are.
And considering the nature we inherited when we were born, when we realize that we are acting and loving in a truly God-honoring way....
THAT is grace.
One thing that I heard tonight that's really got my brain churning is how we as human beings can even turn the truths of this good news of unconditional, unmerited grace given to us at the expense of Jesus Christ somehow into a moral improvement code.
Several years ago, a guy at Second Baptist gave a talk about the "two sides of the gospel" that has really stuck with me and I've gone back to often. It also explains why we are, in many of our Christian circles, so quick to jump on the "performance bandwagon" - when we only embrace one side of the gospel and not the totality of what God has offered to us.
If you think about "it" in terms of Accounting, consider that we human beings have a balance sheet that is completely full of debits on the "sin" column and empty on the "righteousness" column of the sheet. We do nothing that can please God because at the end of the day every thing we do apart from Christ is tainted by our sin nature. And, in Christ's ledger, there is endless credits on the "righteousness" column and it is empty on the "sin" column.
The way a lot of us understand the Gospel is that a transaction is made when Jesus died on the cross and we freely accept what He did for us. We know that He paid for our sins and we don't have to face the wrath of God because Jesus took all of that on our behalf on the cross if we put our trust in Him. All of us that have prayed a prayer, made a decision, gotten baptized, etc. understand that. "Man, I'm glad I'm forgiven!" We have given Jesus the debits in our "sin" column and he pays for them... on the cross positionally He now owns them. The wrath of God that we deserve is satisfied and we are forgiven.
And that's where a lot of us stop. Now... we feel we've got to show God that we've earned it. We now, that we don't have anything in the "sin" bucket, feel that we've gotta go fill up the "righteousness" column to show Him what a great call He made to save us.
And we stress ourselves out, we worry, and burn out...
Because we're not good at being righteous. In fact, we kind of suck at it. I know I do.
But there's another side of the gospel. Jesus doesn't stop at just forgiving us of our bad things.
Remember that fully loaded "righteousness" column that He has... the one He earned by 33 years of perfect obedience to the will of God that we couldn't possibly do?
That...
Yes, that.
gets transferred into our ledger.
We are not empty ledgers... we are not moral zeros. When we trust Jesus and embrace Him as our treasure...
We are made.... RIGHTEOUS. Not just "forgiven,"
Righteous. Completely and totally.
Does that make you breathe a sigh of relief.
Does that make you stop stressing out?
Does that sound too good to be true?
Given the paradox that we aren't completely severed from this thing in us that makes us want to do bad things, it's sometimes hard to believe... but this is what the Gospel teaches, that we are a new humanity reborn spiritually with a nature enabled by the Holy Spirit to actually do good works that actually please God; not just serve our self-promotion. Even our good works are a gift... does that make you happy?
It should :-)
We don't have to "do" anything to be good... if we trust Jesus, that's just what he makes us.
I wish I could exhaust you (and me - I get pulled away from this so often - my natural inclination is to make rules for me to follow rather than resting in my relationship with Jesus too) with all of the Bible verses that scream this out, but it'd make this blog post so long that you'd eventually fall asleep if you haven't already. So - instead of saying, "just trust me" I'd encourage you to take a 2 hour stint and read through the entire book of Romans in its entirety. When you finish, I hope you see the offer of an unconditional, undeserved, absolutely stunning offer of adoption and regeneration by a God who loves you, wants you to rest completely in His love and favor, and enables you to live life centered in that new reality.
If in our heart, at our core, understand that we are freely cherished by God and freed from law, what is the natural byproduct of that relationship? In that case, it is no longer about me "doing to gain approval," it is living out of a new nature that I have because of what God has done and is in the process of doing in transforming my life (the crazy thing is, our "sanctification" is also by grace; not just our salvation). That, rather than the former, brings life and removes guilt. It enables us to love for the sake of loving rather than because we have to.
In a sense... we do these things, because that is just what we are.
And considering the nature we inherited when we were born, when we realize that we are acting and loving in a truly God-honoring way....
THAT is grace.
Comments
The purpose for this blog with was to counter the performance-based approach that people (especially people like me) relate to God around. It's really easy, especially when the Gospel is presented in the form of a sales pitch (either high or low pressure), for us to accept the gift of grace but keep our own habits of trying to earn favor with God. The great news is that not only do we have that, but we also have a God-pleasing nature that enables us to do good works through God's power; which conflicts with our "BC-nature" that sticks around like an annoying relative that just won't leave you alone and sometimes it's hard to distinguish between that old self and the new self that God declares through the Gospel is the real us in Christ.
Regarding "sanctification" (a big church word for learning to be like Christ in our day to day) we do participate in it...
There are two transformations we encounter... one is instantaneous when our sin nature is broken and we are given a righteous nature at salvation (which is what I was writing about), and then the process of sanctification where our affections and behaviors are conformed to align with that reality because as a Christian our true nature in Christ conflicts with the old nature of who we were before Christ changed us.
The question I always have is, "How much of that is us, and how much of it is God?" The scripture that says that we should "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" immediately follows with "For it is God who is at work within you." When I have read Romans, what really stands out to me is that our "duty" is to deepen our relationship with Jesus and listen and obey the Spirit (walk with the Spirit) and that deepening relationship produces life change. Tim Keller, in the Gospel in Life study talks about every sin that we commit being underwritten by the sin of idolatry, which means that at the root of all of our bad habits is a competitor with Christ that we ultimately have to give up and replace with our relationship with Christ.
Just some thoughts.
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Since these are some big theological points, I would note to anyone that these are my views and you may disagree with me and that's fine :-). What is essential is that salvation is by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone. All of the nuances of "how" and "why," etc are great discussion points but shouldn't get in the way of our unity as Christians, which is the most important thing.