Wherever faith is proclaimed to be the only decisive means of taking hold of salvation for the believer, there will be those who will scream even louder that faith in Jesus Christ is not enough. Those who say such things openly pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ and hinder the grace of God. Let me say it this way first: Faith that comes from God always comes with good works and these good works were prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. The New Covenant is glorious because it is the proactive grace and mercy of God poured into our hearts. The New Covenant is essentially God creating in us what he commands. If there be anything which I am to do in the covenant to secure it, then will it be an insecure covenant; But if the covenant be all God’s doing and if my name be in that covenant, my soul is as secure as if I were now walking the streets of heaven. This truth of the gospel is for some hard to completely receive even when we know it to be the grace of God. As fallen creatures we naturally want to have the reigns of control on our own happenings. We are always looking for our end of the deal and this end of the deal must be a work. Works and achievements cater to our self promoting pride. Pure grace to the human heart is rejected and makes us uncomfortable and vulnerable. Grace is unsettling to the fallen condition of man because it seems to rob us of our precious pride and boasting and this concept is hard to make sense of. To make sense of it, many will desperately create ways to advance the human will component in salvation. People will go to great pains to promote the human doings and never give the grace of God its full measure of splendor. The way of salvation as stated in Scripture is done in the very plainest terms, and yet there is no truth about which more errors has been uttered, than that concerning the faith which saves the soul. It is faith that ties the heart to God. Paul says that Israel while pursuing the law of righteousness never arrived at the law. He means they never obtained the righteousness they were pursing. Why? because they did not pursue it by faith but as though it were by works (Romans 9:31-32).This same unfaithful understanding that cursed old Israel has been carried over into the age of grace and has cursed many would be followers of Christ. The principle of works has no part in the grace of God other than work of Jesus’ perfect life lived on our behalf to be a substitute for our sinful works. Some will think if I do this or if I do that and to place confidence in such things. The truth is that you could not believe in Jesus if you had done that because then you would believe in yourself and not Christ. This is the plain truth of it. There is no getting around it. If you were so and so or if you did this and that then you could have confidence. Confidence in what? Confidence in your doings. To have that is the exact opposite of confidence in Christ. Grace is not fifty-fifty or even sixty- forty. Grace is 100% God. Faith is not to gage from something good within you or to somehow lower the standards of Gods perfect law as to delude yourself into thinking you are actually pleasing God by your filthy rags. But faith is to say in spite of the fact that I am guilty in the sight of God nevertheless I believe that the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all sin. To have faith like this is the scariest thing in the world and the most assuring thing in the world because God is never changing and he is eternally faithful. Because of the human soul’s propensity to default to a works based righteousness, it is no wonder there is a widespread misunderstanding of the Covenant of grace and saving faith. There will always be a need of reminding ourselves of Christ alone and there will remain a need for teaching and biblical persuading in the ways of true grace.
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