“Now if by grace, then it is not by works; otherwise grace ceases to be grace.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

This verse really goes with the last section. I could have kept it all together, but what Paul says right here is important enough that I felt like it needed to be treated individually. It’s important enough that Paul actually dedicated most of an entire letter to exploring and unpacking it (that would be Galatians). We won’t spend quite that much time on it today, but let’s take at least a couple of minutes to talk about the clearest statement Paul may have ever written on this absolutely essential Gospel concept.

Funny story. Last night was our Wednesday night Bible study. We were studying at the end of Matthew 16 where Jesus is talking with His disciples about the cost of following Him. At the end of that section, Jesus speaks of His eventual return and the judgment that will accompany that great and terrible day. He says very specifically that He will reward each according to what he has done. In other words, the judgment coming at the end of history is going to be based on works.

That’s not the funny part. That’s actually the uncomfortable part. The funny part is that I made that statement and then ended the Bible study because we were out of time. The faces of the majority of the room who had rather large and demanding questions to be answered after hearing something that didn’t seem to jive with everything they’ve ever been told about the Christian faith and salvation made me laugh out loud. And then I prayed and sent everyone home. But I assured them that as long as Jesus doesn’t return before then, at which point we’ll all learn together exactly what He meant in that verse, I would explain my statement thoroughly next week.

When God judges the world – something He is entitled to do as its creator – that judgment will be based on what we have done. The standard for surviving that judgment and being welcomed into His eternal kingdom will be a moral perfection that is a full reflection of His own righteousness and holiness. Any deviation from that in our actions will result in a permanent separation. In other words, nobody’s going to make that cut.

Thankfully, there’s a way out from under that heavy load. That way is Jesus. Jesus came and lived the perfect life that the rest of us have only ever failed to achieve. Then, in the greatest act of love ever displayed, He willingly laid down His life in exchange for ours. He took the punishment for our sins on His shoulders. This is just as the prophet Isaiah had said it would happen about 700 years before He went through with it.

Now, with sin’s power broken by Christ, all those who are willing to place their faith in Christ can receive and enjoy the life of God’s kingdom. This is because God has accepted Jesus act of atonement as sufficient to pay the price for the sins of the whole world. Every person who has ever existed or will yet ever exist had their sins covered by Christ’s sacrifice. If they are willing to accept on faith that He really did do what He did and that it applied to them – an acceptance demonstrated by their adjustment of their lifestyle to reflect His example and commands – they can receive the life He earned.

God didn’t have to do this. We certainly didn’t deserve it. But He did it anyway because of His great love for us. The definition for this whole exchange is grace. Grace is unmerited favor. It is giving someone something they don’t deserve and didn’t earn. It is giving without expecting anything in return except for the recipient to receive and enjoy the gift. And this is what salvation is. It is grace.

When God extends salvation to us in response to our putting our faith in Jesus and receiving Him as our Lord, that is an act of grace. It is pure and undiluted grace. And as Paul makes clear here and far more thoroughly in his letter to the Galatian churches, it has to be grace. If it isn’t grace, then it is by works. And if it is by works, a whole world of problems enter the picture that make a terrible mess of the whole thing very quickly.

Paul puts the matter plainly here: “Now if by grace, then it is not by works; otherwise grace ceases to be grace.” If something is a gift of grace, it cannot be earned or deserved. Period. If it can be earned or somehow deserved, then it isn’t a gift of grace by definition. Salvation is either by grace meaning there’s nothing we can do at all to earn it – no amount of good works on our part contribute in even the smallest way to God’s giving it to us and our receiving it – or it is not at all by grace. If even a single work is required to receive it, then it isn’t by grace. It is by works.

Well, the consistent witness of the New Testament authors with Paul at the head of the parade is that salvation is by grace and grace alone. We don’t deserve it. Period. We can’t earn it. Period. If we could have earned it, someone other than Jesus would have done so by now. But they haven’t. Because we can’t.

If salvation can be deserved, then some people are going to be more deserving than others. This would create a two-tiered (or even multi-tiered) society of those who are worthy of salvation and those who aren’t. Every dystopian story ever written would come true in that case. It would be ugly. And messy. It would be a system that deserved to be turned upside down and destroyed just like so many of our stories imagine. We inherently understand that wouldn’t be a good thing.

Thankfully, God didn’t design it that way. It’s all by grace. That means everyone can receive it. No one is left out unless they choose to reject the gift. That’s on them, not God. Because salvation is entirely by grace, it doesn’t matter what is in your background. Jesus covered that. It doesn’t matter how far from God you’ve gone. Jesus can bring you back. It doesn’t matter where you are from or how much you have or what your political leanings happen to be. Salvation is for everybody. Equally. All the time. All you have to do is receive it. Thanks to Jesus, you can do just that. I hope you will.