The Salvation Gap
May 26, 2002
Dear Friends,
Galatians 2:21 is one of the most subtlety powerful verses in the Bible. It reads “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” This may be one of those verses that you casually glide by in reading, but it is a concept that has tremendous implications for the person who will but study its meaning.
The initial implication for the verse is simple. The Judaizers, believers in Jesus who taught that salvation still came through following the Law of Moses, had put themselves in a untenable position. They had, in effect by their teaching, made Christ’s death on the cross meaningless. Paul states the logic as follows: 1) If salvation comes by the Law of Moses 2) and we already have had the Law of Moses 3) then Jesus did not have to come into the world to save us 4) hence his death was meaningless. The Judaizers had made the Law of Moses the thing that needed to fill the salvation gap – the gap between baptism and salvation in the Kingdom. In other words, it was fine to believe in Jesus and become baptized as taught by Jesus and the apostles. However, the Judaizers inserted a step between baptism and the kingdom that enabled salvation. Their stopgap was the Law.
We readily see the logic and validity of the argument when we apply it to the Law of Moses, but do we see it when we apply it to other things? Do we see that we commit the same error when we take that verse and subtract “the law” and put something in its place? For example, let’s take out “the law” and put in “works” and see if the logic still holds? “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by works, then Christ is dead in vain.” The logic again is irrefutable. Isn’t this the logic of Eph. 2:8,9? “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”
The fact is that everything — EVERYTHING — that can be done for us in the way of salvation was done for us on the cross by Jesus Christ. We might be able to take ourselves out of the way of salvation by refusing to act on our “faith”, but we cannot do anything more to save ourselves than we did when we believed and were baptized into the saving name of Jesus. When we appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, it is not to see if WE have saved ourselves, but to see if we have keep the precious gift of salvation that we were given in an appropriate manner or have we buried our talent in the earth of our flesh.
All human created fillers for the salvation gap — works, Bible study, being nice to our neighbors, etc. — as important as they may be, will not save us because that work has already been finished. When we do those things (and rest assured we MUST do these things), it is not to save ourselves, but because we have been saved. These acts of faith must be done or we do not possess the faith that saved us in the first place.
We fear this position because it hurts our human pride. We have nothing to brag about (which is the point in the first place). We also fear, like Paul’s judaizing opponents are quoted as saying, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” This too is a complete misapplication of Scripture. Having our names written in the Book of Life is not about license to sin, but about understanding the process of salvation. The last thing we want to do is be guilty of teaching that “Christ is dead in vain.”
Have a great week!
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