Have you ever told a lie? Not a big one, at least not at first, but one of those of the small white variety. Like a similarly colored snowball rolling downhill, one becomes two and two becomes four, and faster than you can stop it your white lie is crushing houses as it picks up size and speed.
You are left wondering how in the world it came to this. We have all been there at least once or twice (or more) in our lives, each time vowing to never get ourselves into such a predicament again.
What if told you though there is a far more dangerous and faster growing lie we find ourselves tempted by, but this lie doesn’t affect our earthly circumstances. It affects our eternal life. It is the subtle distortion of the Gospel, and the truth is lies concerning the word of God are anything but white.
The apostle Paul addressed one of these distortions to the people of Galatia in the letter he penned to them which you know as the book of Galations. They had the gospel mostly right with only a couple things that needed to be corrected.
One of those subtle wrongs was the mandate that circumcision was required upon faith and trust in Christ. It sounds harmless enough. After all the people of God have always had a command to be circumcised. Surely there can’t be any harm in it?
Well, we know from Paul’s letter that he didn’t write to congratulate them on getting the gospel mostly right; he spoke anathema upon them if they didn’t turn from their mostly true Gospel. He did this because a mostly true gospel is no gospel at all. This is a test where you either get a 100 or you fail.
So, what was the lie? It was adding something to the Gospel that Christ did not command, which amounts to denying that the work of Christ is sufficient for salvation. It may seem subtle but the entirety of God’s word hinges upon the sufficiency of Christ. Our Lord alone is either enough for you or he isn’t. Our salvation is either 100 percent Christ or it is no salvation at all.
Do you believe that your baptism has saved you? Have you lived a good life and are banking, even a little bit, on your obedience to save you? Did you walk down an aisle, fill out a card and are now trusting that single act to save you? These things in and of themselves are not enough because they aren’t Christ.
The good news of the gospel is that Christ has done all the work. He lived the sinless life that we could never live, died the death we should have died and was raised for our justification.
All that remains for you, dear reader, is to trust in and take hold of what Christ has already done for you. That’s it. Anything added to that, however subtle it may be, is a lie of the most dangerous kind, the ones that are mostly true. Have you trusted in something or someone else other than Christ? Repent and turn with empty hands to our savior who is enough because He is everything.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.