Army of Priests

The bible’s picture of a New Creation seems far removed from what exists in Church’s today. The primary mission of this blog is to inspire people to turn from “born again lazy” into “samurai”. It is time western Christianity got itself into gear and started going all out for God. This is difficult, for we have taught ourselves a gospel that isn’t as good as the Good News should be. In light of all that we have studied so far, let us examine in this final post where we go wrong.

Saved by Works

In the past people feared that if they sinned after they were baptised they were doomed. Sin was condemnation. Consider: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), “He repays everyone for what they have done; he brings on them what their conduct deserves” (Job 34:11), “The dead were judged according to what they had done” (Revelation 20:12), “God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger” (Romans 2:6-8), “Those who obey the law who will be declared righteous” (Romans 2:13).

The bible makes one thing clear: actions are important. As such the majority of Christianity over the last two millenniums has focused on us eliminating our sin. There is one problem – it doesn’t work! I cannot go a day reaching God’s standard. This is old covenant ideology. Yet we see much condemnation being poured onto sinners by so called Christians. Perhaps they have the wrong idea of what saves them – or worse, maybe their frauds interested only in appearance!

The idea here is that we make ourselves as righteous as possible to get into heaven.

Saved by Faith

There is another idea that faith in God is what it takes to save us. We can’t do it on our own, but if we believe in God he’ll get us into heaven. Consider: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8), “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9), “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Thank God! We can’t save ourselves so he helps us out. We need only believe in him. Unfortunately, James gives us a wake up call: “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? … You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?” (James 2:14, 20-21). And then there are the verses in the section above.

The bible suddenly appears contradictory. What saves us – faith or works? In the mean time millions of Christians blissfully go through life confident that they are “saved by faith”. This ideology produces a dead Christianity.

The idea here is that we have faith and God removes our sins to get us into heaven.

Saved by God

Fortunately for us there is a much grander gospel which most Christians miss. According to Kenny Luck, mercy is when we don’t get what we do deserve and grace is when we get what we don’t deserve (Risk, pg 45). Consider this verse: “To the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness” (Romans 4:5). God justifies the wicked (mercy) and credits us with righteousness (grace). He saves us from hell (mercy), but then does more (grace). What is this more?

Let us return to the beginning. We were made perfect. We stuffed up. Consider part 4, that God makes us New Creations. God doesn’t just plan to get rid of our sin. He doesn’t even just plan to get us into heaven. He plans to return us to intimacy with him. This is the good news! It’s not about heaven, it is about restoration. We can be perfect again!

Because we cannot defeat sin on our own, God places part of Himself in us. He begins the process of restoring us to intimacy with Him simply by being intimate with us. In this way he changes us from the inside out. Rather then enforce external rules we find that through faith God begins to change us. He makes us a new creation. Rather then fight that sinful nature God wants to slowly get rid of it all together!

He does this by walking with us. When we stumble, and we will, we are not condemned to hell. God would never condemn us for our sins. He’ll discipline us for them, but only in his loving pursuit of making us perfect again. Our part is not passive rather our salvation is a partnership. God works with us to remove our sin. Not just the record of them, but our actual doing of them.

This is the New Creation – a person who walks with God; a person who passionately seeks Him as He seeks us. The more we go after God, the more we find that we don’t want to sin. The more we become a new person.

It is an awesome privilege, and great news. I don’t need to struggle constantly against sin in my life only to fail again and again and again. Nor do I live as some born again lazy Christian relying on my belief in some 2000 year old dead guy. God is making me good and I want a part of that. My job is to follow him, and give him permission, as he does his work in my life. He is the potter and I am the clay.

Salvation comes neither by works, nor by faith. It comes from faith, expressed only by action, that a living God can change you. This is the resurrection. We haven’t just died to sin; we have been raised in new life! This is good news. We are New Creations. This is better than can be imagined. It’s not just about heaven; it is about becoming whole again. It is about redemption, not survival.

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This concludes this series. I have barely brushed on this topic and missed much. But I challenge you to seek God as he changes you. Don’t try to change yourself. Don’t sit back and keep living your sinful life. Seek God. Let him credit righteousness to you. Become a New Creation.