Faith or Works?

One of the greatest misconceptions people have in relation to salvation is that people can make it to heaven if they are good people. The problem is that God doesn’t work that way. God is a perfect God and as such he cannot tolerate any imperfection near him. This means ANYTHING less than perfect. Any of the slightest sins might as well be a mountain of evil because the result is the same - less than perfect will be cast aside or destroyed. My favorite comparison is with the Fielding Average in baseball. Every attempt a player makes on a ball is risk of becoming an error. If a fielder completes every attempt successfully, his fielding average would be 1.000% or perfect. If the player makes one error, than his fielding average drops below 1.000% and he will never be able to recover and correct the error, thus the fielder is no longer perfect. Substitute the word error for sin and that is what we have. Only fielders with 1.000% can be allowed into heaven. And to date no player has completed a career with a perfect fielding percentage. Back to our story.

With us, we are condemned to be sinners for the entire span of our life. We will sin daily, hourly, and sometimes by the minute. With each successive sin, we bury ourselves deeper into the pit filled with our sine and we cannot dig ourselves out no matter how hard we try. God knows this and this is why he sent Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sins, because only his sacrifice will wash our sins away and make us as the perfect being we need to be so we can be by God’s side so we can worship and sing his praises.

The problem is that fallacy that some people believe that if they do good things and love one another that will be good enough. The issue is that regardless of how many lives you save or improve one sin is all it takes to move your fielding percentage below 1.000%. Furthermore, what we feel we do that is good down here is actually not good enough by God’s standards as we are stained with sin as anything we do will also be stained. One way to look at this is whatever we do or accomplish will always be less than perfect because we are less than perfect. Nothing that came from something can be better than the maker unless there was outside influence that improved the original act or product. The only thing that I know of that can improve whatever we do is Jesus and his sacrifice.

For instance look at the Law that Moses and the OT founders submitted to the Israelites of the day. The Law was constantly updated and evolved into a mish-mash that the people couldn’t follow. This was a classic example of mankind screwing up something that was simple and pure, the Ten Commandments and directions in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Paul addressed this in Galatians 2:16 -

The Holman Christian Standard Bible Chapter 2

know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. And we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no human being will be justified.

Paul specifically points out that the law was incapable of rendering us pure enough to be with God but that the outside influence a/k/a extra credit (Jesus Christ) will justify us and allow us to be in heaven with God. Paul continued by condemning those who rely on the law for salvation in Gal 3:10 - 12 -

Lastly, our less-than-perfect attempts to gain entrance into heaven by our good deeds do not accomplish God’s ultimate objective of glorifying God’s own, perfect, actions. One of the most pointing verses found on this is Ephesians 2:8-9 -

The Holman Christian Standard Bible Chapter 2

For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.

God has saved believers by our faith in Christ Jesus and his mission of being the sacrifice we need to be with God. Our faith points to Jesus as the Son of Man, perfect in every way who died on the cross for our salvation. This faith of ours in Jesus results in God’s grace being extended to us so that we will be able to worship our Savior, Jesus Christ and opening the gates to heaven for us. And there is nothing that we can do that will improve our fielding percentage without Him.