8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
12 Brothers,[c] I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?[d] 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.
— Galatians 4:8-20, English Standard Version
It is well worth reading through the whole of Galatians and listening to this superb sermon from John Macarthur after you do it, by the way:
I do not generally care about or concern myself with what I genuinely consider to be nothing more than “food fights” between various Christian denominations. So I am simply not bothered by whether or not my Roman Catholic or Orthodox brothers are “true” Christians. By any reasonable standard, I am a very, very bad Christian myself.
But I do know this about Christianity:
It is a religion of faith FIRST, and works SECOND.
There is a REASON why the Bible says this:
We have all become like one who is unclean,
— Isaiah 64:6, English Standard Version
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
Actually, this is one of the few cases where the ESV does not quite capture the power of Scripture properly. The NIV and other translations give those last two words as “filthy rags”, which may be imprecise, perhaps, but certainly conveys the power of the thought much better.
ALL other faiths, including modern Talmudic Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and especially the blasphemous heresy of Islam, are works-based faiths. You gain or lose salvation based on how well you conform to certain rituals, recitations, and traditions.
Yet, once you boil away all of the paraphernalia that our churches have placed around the Gospel, we Christians have no time for any of that.
Our faith is a simple one, yet it is profound. We believe that the God of Creation became flesh – deigned to turn Himself into a human man – and dwelt among us. We believe that this man’s name was Yeshua (Jesus), and that He performed all of the signs and miracles and fulfilled all of the prophecies that marked Him out as the Messiah of ancient Scripture as recorded and captured by the Jews.
And we believe that Jesus was captured, condemned, tortured, and crucified by the Romans and the Jews.
That last part is THE single most central and widely researched issue in all of human history. And EVERY serious scholar who has studied the actual evidence, has concluded that this is what happened – even atheist scholars acknowledge the truth that Jesus died on the Cross.
What separates us from everyone else is that we believe that Jesus rose again from the dead.
All of the traditions and mutterings and rituals and incense-burners and funny robes and recitations in different languages are all ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT, if this did not happen.
If Jesus Christ – the man who is God – did not die for us on the Cross AND RISE AGAIN, everything else ceases to matter. Works are useless. Faith is useless. We are all doomed and damned and the Christian and the Muslim and the Hindu and the atheist alike have no meaning whatsoever to our lives.
But Jesus did rise again from His tomb. He did walk amongst His followers. And He did lay down a radical new understanding of faith that sets us completely apart from everyone else.
So let’s stop pretending otherwise. Let’s stop arguing about whether or not works can save you – they CAN’T. All that can save you is whether or not you BELIEVE in this central pillar of faith.
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