Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

• Ephesians 2:8-9

he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

• Titus 3:5

And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

• Romans 11:6

know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

• Galatians 2:16

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

• Isaiah 64:6

“Scripture, when it treats of justification by faith’, leads us in a very different direction.  Turning away our view from our own works, it bids us look only to the mercy of God and the perfection of Christ. The order of justification which it sets before us in this: first, God of his mere gratuitous goodness is pleased to embrace the sinner, in whom he sees nothing that can move him to mercy but wretchedness, because he sees him altogether naked and destitute of good works. He, therefore, seeks the cause of kindness in himself, that thus he may affect the sinner by a sense of his goodness, and induce him, in distrust of his own works, to cast himself entirely upon bis mercy for salvation. This is the meaning of faith by which the sinner comes into  the possession of salvation, when, according to the  doctrine of the Gospel, he perceives that he is reconciled by God; when, by the intercession of Christ, he obtains the pardon of his sins, and is justified; and, though renewed by the Spirit of God, considers that, instead of leaning on his own works, he must look solely to the righteousness which is treasured up for him in Christ. When these things are weighed separately, they will clearly explain our view, though they may be arranged in a better order than that in which they are here presented. But it is of little consequence, provided they are so connected with each other as to give us a foll exposition and solid confirmation of the whole subject.”

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Volume 2

John Calvin (1509-1564) and Martin Luther (1483-1546) may have disagreed on a few details, Faith alone and Scripture alone and Christ alone were areas of agreement.

I watched most of a podcast recently about why this person was not a Catholic.  I found it odd that he had acquaintances trying to get him to convert, but his argument centered around salvation by faith alone.  There were other low hanging fruit, but that one has been a problem for the past 500 years since Martin Luther wrote his 95 theses.

Isaiah 64 says that the best that we can do is like filthy rags.  I heard a pastor explain that the filthy rags were the filthiest type of rags.

But it comes back to the philosophical argument about whether there is a truly selfless act of kindness.  Even if you gain nothing directly, you show others how wonderful you are.  Even if you do it in the dead of night, you feel the endorphins surging in your body.

And if there was that one thing that you could do to be saved, every murderer, rapist, and thief would do that one thing.  Their ticket has been punched.  They can go back to their wicked ways.

In the documentary, American Gospel – Christ Alone, they argue that any time that you add something to Christ Alone, Faith Alone, you get into trouble.  We start saving ourselves.

Politicians may argue about one thing or another and demand that we “do something.”  In nearly every case, humans cannot fix whatever it is.

With our sin nature, the more works we do for salvation just digs us a deeper hole.

Salvation is by faith alone.  We have faith in Jesus Christ – alone.

Our good works are to glorify and praise the God who loved us so much that He saved us.  Those works are after we are saved.  Those works are a pouring out of the Love that God puts into us upon accepting His Son, Jesus.

Those works do not save us.  They become our expression of gratitude for having been saved.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.