It's Not Free If It's a Discount

Does the Gospel come at a reduced price or is it free? Although Christians will talk about "God's gift of salvation," the shocking truth is most don't believe in what they are saying. Imagine at a holiday or birthday offering your spouse, child, or dear friend a gift for a small price.

"Oh, I don't expect you to reimburse me for the gift. You can just pay one tenth of what I paid. As soon as I get the money, this gift is yours!"

That's a pretty good deal at 90% off the sale price. Not many stores have sales that good. But no one, and I mean no one, would call that a gift. Especially not God, who has all the resources of an Infinite Creator and can afford extravagant generosity.

Consider the common reading of Paul from which the best known version of the Gospel message has been derived. God loves you, but he is holy and you are a sinner. You know this is true because you can sense God as the necessary cause of the universe and you know in your inner person what right and wrong is. You have sinned against the Creator and he takes all sin very seriously, punishing even minor sins with hellfire. Thankfully, God's son lived among us without sinning and offered himself as a sacrifice to wash away the sins of others. All you have to do is have faith in Jesus.

According to the justification Gospel (the common reading), faith is the price of salvation. If you don't choose to believe some facts about Jesus, God has nothing for you but extreme heat and wrath. In this view, faith is called "saving faith" because your faith, supposedly, saves you.

Now faith is important and I will say more about it at the end of this essay. But consider a few contradictory truths that reduce the justification Gospel and its notion of "saving faith" to ruins.

God and God alone saves you.

Salvation is a gift from God.

There is no boasting in salvation. We earned nothing. It was given to us.

"The wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life," says Paul in Romans 6:23 (NASB). We are "justified as a gift by his grace" (Romans 3:24 NASB). In Romans 5, Paul makes an elaborate contrast between the offense of Adam and the gift of the Second Adam, who is Christ. The gift is not like the offense. By the offense of one person (Adam) the many died, but even more powerful is the gift given to us by Christ which makes all alive.

Perhaps the clearest explanation of the gift is found in Ephesians 2:8-9:

For by grace

you have been saved

through faith;

and this is not of yourselves,

it is the gift of God;

not a result of works,

so that no one may boast.

—Ephesians 2:8-9 NASB

Now the common reading is able to use these verses as part of their theory—but only by misusing them. The justification Gospel can say that the "through faith" means "the Christian's faith, which earns them salvation." But the common view has trouble explaining the "this is not of yourselves." One way to sort of make it work is to say the "this" means the grace from the 1st line but does not include the faith from the third line. In other words, "this grace is not of yourselves since grace is ultimately God's, but this faith certainly does belong to you because by its virtue God saved you."

It's a strain, but maybe we could believe the common reading of Ephesians 2:8-9—if not for the next line: "it is the gift of God." Paul says gift, not discount. In fact, we could parody the common reading by morphing Paul's actual words into these:

For by grace

you have been saved

through faith;

and this grace is not of yourselves,

although the faith came from you and saved you.

It is the discount of God;

not a result of works,

so that no one may boast.

—Ephesians 2:8-9 Said No Version Ever

And the last line of Ephesians 2:8-9 is not good really for the common reading either. Christians who are saved according to the justification Gospel certainly can boast (and do, every week in thousands of churches). They can boast that they, unlike most other people, were able to achieve saving faith. People really need to learn what "that no one may boast" means!

The Importance and Role of Faith . . .

It might sound like we're saying the faith of a Christian is unimportant. May it never be!

Paul talks a great deal about faith, the faith of Jesus and also the faith of Christians. Faith looms large in his sublime ode to love in 1 Corinthians 13:

But now faith, hope, and love remain,

these three;

but the greatest of these is love.

—1 Corinthians 13:13 NASB

Faith is part of the great triumvirate of living in this present age as a child of God. And Paul is frequently addressing our beliefs, arguing that we should disbelieve some things and believe others. In order to believe and disbelieve the right things, we have to study to find reasons sufficient for belief. Another word for our beliefs about God is theology.

But when Paul mentions faith, in many cases he means Jesus' faith, Jesus' total belief in and commitment to God. This is a crucial topic for Paul, an insight he derived from a verse of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament): "The Righteous One will live by faith" (Habakkuk 2:4).

Paul sees one meaning of this verse as a reference to Jesus, the Righteous One, who had the faith and faithfulness to surrender his life for the benefit of human beings and who came back to life. By his faith that led him to the cross, Jesus lives even though he died.

Therefore Paul can say:

But now apart from the Law

the righteousness of God has been revealed,

being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,

but it is the righteousness of God

through the faith of Jesus Christ

for all those who believe.

—Romans 3:21-22 MODIFIED NASB

It is the faith of Jesus that saves. But we, as Jesus-followers, do have faith, need faith, and benefit from faith. But here are a few things to know about faith.

Faith is a gift, not something we can acquire ourselves.

God grants faith to Christians as a gift.

Faith is not a condition of God's love.

Faith is the sign that God has poured out his Holy Spirit on us in love. What do I mean when I say it is a sign? Ask yourself, do I believe that Jesus died and rose and that I have died with him and will rise with him? If the answer is "yes," then the next question is, "Where did that faith come from?"

Did I choose to believe? Nonsense. We don't choose our beliefs. You have to be truly persuaded. When it comes to faith in God through Jesus Christ, this can only be obtained for free as a gift from God. "No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13 NASB).

Therefore, since I find in myself a definite faith in Jesus, I conclude that God gave me this faith. The faith I have been given is a sign that God has previously worked in me.

The Difference Is Clear . . .

The Discounted Gospel says you can buy salvation cheap, for pennies on the moral and theological dollar. Just believe. What minimum concepts must you believe to get a passing grade from the Angry God for your "saving faith"? I'm not sure and neither is anyone else. This is one of many problems for the justification Gospel.

Thus, for example, would a justification advocate say someone is saved if they do not believe Jesus is God of very God?

The Free Gospel in which Paul actually believes says, "Keep your pennies. God owns everything and gives it for free."

Yes, it's mind-boggling. If I am saved without cost, how can I feel like I am better than my neighbor? Since Jesus gave salvation away at a great cost to himself, how am I to treat other people? Is God fair? Why save me? Why isn't so-and-so saved? Is God arbitrary? Will he save a few, many, or all?

All these questions and more, we will discuss eventually. But for now, I leave you with yet another great thought from Paul:

Oh, the depth of the riches,

both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable are His judgments

and unfathomable His ways!

—Romans 11:33 NASB