I’m reading a book right now from the Gospel Coalition, Christ Has Set Us Free. It’s a study on Galatians. It uses a lot of big words that I don’t necessarily understand and have to Google often but beyond that the message is simple: faith vs. works.
Too often as believers we tend to add to the Gospel message. We don’t mean to but we do. The Gospel message is simple. Believe in Jesus Christ. That’s it. That’s all that is “needed’ for salvation. Faith. Faith alone. Christ alone. Scripture alone.
You don’t need to be in a Bible study to be saved. You don’t need to serve to be saved. You don’t need to go to church to be saved. You don't need to do anything to be saved except to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior. Those other things help connect us to the Savior we love.
In Galatians, Paul is preaching against having to get circumcised to be saved. Circumcision is a symbol of the law. Jesus came to do away with the Law. To fulfill the Law. We no longer need to do all the “works” in the Old Testament. We just look to the one who fulfilled it, Jesus. The same is true today.
One of the best leaders I’ve had would always answer all of our tough questions about people who look like they live in sin but proclaim they believe. He’d say, “saved by grace, err on the side of faith”. We’d ask another question… He’d answer yet again “saved by grace”
The Gospel message is not complicated. Humans throughout history have just complicated it. Meddled in it, added to it. We need to get back to scripture alone, to serve Christ alone and realize it’s faith alone that saves.
I leave you with this quote: “Without the Bible, the Christ you preach to others is the Christ of your own imagination as you attempt to make others in your own image, not into the image of Christ.”
