Salvation does not come through our own efforts to keep God’s law.
Salvation does not come through our efforts to deny or circumvent God’s law.
Salvation is not automatic.
Salvation does not come through our keeping of ordinances, by doing the things God requires of us in His name but without His Spirit. Does God require us to keep the Sabbath? Yes. Does keeping Sabbath save us. No. Sabbath remains the seal of God between Him and His people (Ezekiel 20:12,20; Revelation 14:7), but it doesn’t make us His people. Rejecting the keeping of the Sabbath day holy is to reject God, but just going through the motions of going to church on Saturday does not establish our faithfulness to God. We become God’s people when we accept His only begotten Son as our Savior. (John 3:16) If we deny Christ then our Sabbaths and good works in His name will be met by Jesus saying, “‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:23) To accept Christ is to accept His Spirit in us that replaces our former carnal spirits with His righteous life and His power to live it.
It’s all about being a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven here and now which is to live spiritually rather than worldly which is possible exclusively through the power of the grace of Jesus in us which is our only hope of glory, of being one with the Father with eternal life. This is the mystery of God made known, Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:26-27) “… to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:2-3)
There is a false gospel, a false grace which is just an avoidance of God’s law and as such is still legalism, only it’s the sleazy back alley variety that takes pride in supposed loopholes of the law. This and any other false gospel are worldly. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned and are foolishness to those who have not died to self. Full submission to Christ, the whole self through the baptism that buries our carnal natures is our only hope of glory, the hope of receiving clean hearts to know the Father and live forever. These false gospels are the philosophies of men even when constructed with biblical vocabulary in the name of Jesus. Philosophies of men always lead to death. Only by the mystery of God, Christ in us, can we comprehend the foolishness of worldly philosophy.
Legalism is an often used term to describe anyone who shows a desire to obey God. People who truly believe and practice legalism are sufficiently uncommon that it would be very challenging to name one. Legalism is the idea that one can save themselves, without God, just by being good enough. There are doubtless a limited number of people with philosophies that approach a legalistic theology, but dramatically more rare than those who make accusations towards others that they are being legalistic when they aren’t. Obedience is not the opposite of legalism. Most often, people who are quick to accuse someone of being legalistic are in reality themselves simply being ‘illegalistic’ which is to say disobedient. These people simply want to justify their disobedience by claiming that it is not possible to obey God. This is just an excuse for continuing to sin while simultaneously denigrating anyone who is convicted to actually endeavor to stop sinning. We can stop sinning, just not by our own power. Obeying God is accomplished by the power and grace of Jesus. If we love God, we will obey Him. Anyone interested in being saved or helping to save others should avoid the common and misused accusation of legalism.
Of course, God’s law has no loopholes. We are either in harmony with God’s law or we are out of harmony with God’s law. Being in harmony with God’s law is a straight and true path. Any vector away from straight truth is out of harmony and is called a broad path to destruction.
Satan wins by getting us off the straight and narrow way. He can do this many ways from causing us to outright deny God or to worship a false god.
Salvation comes only through obedience to God’s laws by the power of real grace. Real grace is “Christ in you the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) From what are we to be saved? We are to be saved from sin, from transgressing the law of God. (1 John 3:4) If we say we know God but don’t obey His commandments, we are liars. (1 John 2:4) Don’t disregard the gravity of these Bible truths about keeping God’s law. Obeying God is not the same thing as legalism. Legalism is to assert that we can achieve our own salvation and righteousness by keeping God’s law, but true relationship with God allows us to be transformed by His power, not ours, and the result is righteousness, doing what is right, not sinning.
The way that Christ is in us is through His Holy Spirit. We lose salvation if we reject or deny the Spirit of Christ. The way that we receive the Spirit of Christ is by the death of our carnal nature replaced by a spiritual nature which is possible exclusively through Jesus Christ our Savior. Jesus calls this being born again. That’s what it means to be our Savior. If there was any other way to be restored to the Father then Jesus wouldn’t be “THE WAY.” Jesus would only be “A WAY.”
The Trinity god promoted by the world through many religious entities is a false god that denies the Father and His only begotten Son. If Satan can persuade you to believe the Trinity god then he will have succeeded in getting you off the straight path. The Trinity god makes God a liar. God says that He is a father, the father of His only begotten Son. The Trinity notion claims that Jesus is not really a Son, that Jesus has existed without a beginning just as the Father and that the ideas of Father and Son are merely philosophical concepts, metaphors, and that these two gods are simply role playing. That’s not what God’s Word says. Either God’s Word is a lie or the Trinity is a lie. The Trinity claims that there is a third God separate from Jesus called God the Holy Spirit. This too makes God a liar and destroys Jesus as Savior. The Trinity is a deception designed to keep us out of the Kingdom of Heaven. Believe it at your own eternal peril. There is indeed a true Holy Spirit, but that spirit is the personal spirit of God the Father and His Son Jesus, our Comforter.
Cheap grace denies Jesus by rejecting the power of His grace through His spirit to transform us from carnal sinners into spiritual victors in the Kingdom of Heaven. Cheap grace rejects obedience to God’s Word and law which is to reject the only power by which we can keep the law, the true grace of Jesus through His Holy Spirit made victorious as our Savior through His sinless life and His death and resurrection. Cheap grace is a false gospel that will keep us from knowing God and having eternal life. Cheap grace does religion in the name of Jesus without knowing Jesus.
Cheap grace operates on the premise that we can by our own reason understand our hearts and minds and devise principles for correcting ourselves. In practice, this premise is applied to others and the carnal heart determines reasons to break and abandon relationships rather than seek to serve others, even our enemies, and restore relationship. However well intended things seem to be, man-made philosophies will reliably fail at understanding our own hearts much less the hearts of others. Just look at the most popular works by “Christian psychologists” for examples of this. Psychology, yes Christian psychology, is used in ways that contradict God’s Word. God’s Word is our reliable guide. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Accepting God’s grace requires accepting God’s Word. If God’s Word is not truly and utterly authoritative in our hearts, then something else is and that something is self. We deceive ourselves with fancy philosophies based upon our own understanding, often in the name of God and Jesus, but this is ultimately just us refusing to acknowledge our sinfulness and refusing to wear the robe of Christ’s righteousness.
Practitioners of cheap grace will have the fruits of iniquity while denying they do. Lying, falsely accusing, bearing false witness, hypocrisy, cheating God’s laws and man’s laws, adultery and idolatry are some of these fruits. By their fruits we know them. Practitioners of cheap grace will viciously claim to have the fruits of the Spirit while denying the real Holy Spirit who is Jesus Himself glorified by His Father following His total victory on the cross. Those who live by cheap grace are slow to say the words “I forgive you” if these words are ever even uttered. Moral violations are justified in the worldly lives of those who promote cheap grace. True grace provides the power to overcome sin, not our own power, the victorious power of Christ through His spirit in us. To recognize cheap grace, look for the absence of repentance of sin.
Your salvation is dependent on you knowing truth from deception. God has removed all excuses for not obeying Him by giving us His Word in the form of Scripture by which we can test and discern truth and error. As Jesus tells us in John 3:16, we will either perish or have eternal life. These are both real alternatives, unavoidable choices. You will either believe Jesus on His terms or not. You don’t get to make your own terms. Believing the false philosophies of other men will be no excuse. God gives His Word. God says that if we believe and obey His Word as He gives it then we will be restored in relationship with Him and have eternal life. All other options are eternal death. Let him with spiritual eyes see. Let him with spiritual ears hear.
It’s often said that it doesn’t matter what we believe about certain things, such as who God really is. This is typically followed by the proposition that we will understand truth after we get to Heaven. The problem with that is that without accepting the truth God has revealed already in His Word, we won’t be going to Heaven. This concept of it doesn’t matter is fundamentally the same lie that Satan told Eve at the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that she wouldn’t surely die. Mankind’s allowance for ignorance was ended when Jesus completed His ministry on this world. God says that He used to wink at man’s ignorance, but no more. We are without excuse for not accepting what God has revealed and choosing to live according to His Word.
Acts 17:30-31 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Christ in you is the hope of glory, the ONLY hope of glory. Without dying to self and being reborn we remain under the law whether that looks like salvation by works or whether it looks like salvation by denying God’s law with cheap grace.
One of the saddest realities made known to us by the words of Jesus is that “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” Pasting the word ‘Christian’ onto the philosophies of men doesn’t make them God’s Word.
Know the mystery of God, Christ in you. Believe it. Accept it.