Grace, Plus Nothing

In his book, April 1865, Jay Winik wrote these words in the foreword: April 1865 is a month that could have unraveled the American nation. Instead it saved it. It is a month as dramatic and devastating as any ever faced in American history- and it proved to be perhaps the most moving and decisive month, not simply of the Civil War, but indeed, quite likely, in the life of the United States.

The burning issue that the nation faced was also the question that consumed Lincoln just before he was assassinated: how do you reunite two separate political, social and cultural entities that had been bitter military enemies just days before. It was a defining moment in the history of our nation – and how they answered that question had the power to either make us, or break us, as a nation.

As we come to Acts chapter 15 we come to a defining moment in the book of Acts and in the history of the church, a moment that could have had devastating effects on the future of the early church. A bitter debate erupted over what Gentile believers needed to do in order to be saved and how they were to be united to the community of Jewish believers and how the church and its leaders answered that question had the power to unravel the church or preserve and strengthen it.

Acts 15:1-5

Just to set the context: Paul and Barnabas had recently returned from their first missionary journey into Asia Minor, and there in countries that had never heard the gospel before; they saw many Gentile pagans come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. At the end of chapter 14 it says that they declared all that God had done with them, and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. (vs. 27)

But pretty soon some men came down to Antioch from Judea teaching that Gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to be saved. They were teaching that believing in Jesus Christ was the first step for salvation, but it wasn’t enough: they needed to add circumcision and obedience to the law of Moses to their faith.

This would have carried a lot of appeal to many of the Jewish believers. Remember, the first Christians were Jews whose relationship with God and identity as God’s people was wrapped up in being circumcised and keeping the Mosaic law. Now the church is being flooded with Gentiles coming to faith in Jesus Christ, and the question many are concerned with is, how do we unite Gentile, ex-pagans to the community of faith without the church’s standards and morals being compromised by the addition of so many Gentiles. With that as a backdrop, some teachers came from Judea, supposedly from James and with the authority of James, teaching that these new Gentile believers had to add to their faith in Christ the requirements of the law, beginning with circumcision.

They weren’t denying faith in Christ, they were adding to it. Believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior was the first step to being saved, but it wasn’t enough. Now they needed to be circumcised. Now they needed to keep the Mosaic law. It was grace plus circumcision. Grace plus keeping the dietary laws. Grace plus observing the Sabbath. Grace plus.

Paul and Barnabas realized that this teaching threatened the very gospel itself and they vehemently argued against this teaching. Paul knew this was another gospel than the one he had received from Christ, and, as he would write to the Galatians (probably about the same time), if anyone, even an apostle or an angel from heaven, preached another gospel than the gospel of Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. To add human effort to perfect what God had done through Christ was to nullify grace and make it of no effect. Paul wrote this warning to Galatian Gentile believers who are toying with adding law-keeping to their Christian faith, You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

The gospel is God’s grace, plus nothing. We are saved by the work of Christ, plus nothing. We are forgiven and washed clean by the blood of Christ – plus nothing. We preach Christ, plus nothing. When we try to add any work, any effort, any contribution of man to God’s grace in order to win God’s acceptance and earn merit in His eyes, we have legalism – trying to earn acceptance with God through our own efforts. And legalism is the enemy of grace.

Legalism can be attractive

Let’s pause here and say that, while legalism takes different shapes today, it is still very much alive and well in the church today. It can come disguised as a deeper commitment to Christ. It can use terms like being serious about our faith or living a life of “no compromise”, or “protecting the purity of the church”. And legalism can be very appealing to our pride, making us think we can be worthy of a relationship with God, even worthy of Christ’s atoning sacrifice.

ILL: In the movie “Saving Private Ryan” 8 soldiers fighting in WWII are sent on a mission to find Private Ryan and have him sent home immediately. The reason for this mission is that Ryan is the youngest of 4 brothers and the other 3 have all been killed in the war within a few days of each other. To spare the mother the grief of losing all her children in the war, priority is given to finding Private Ryan and getting him out of the war.

In the end all eight soldiers give their lives to save Private Ryan, and as Captain Miller is dying, his last words to Ryan are “Earn this…earn it!” Ryan spends the rest of his life with this impossible weight of trying to be worthy of the 8 lives sacrificed for him. 50 years later, as an old man, he still his unworthiness and begs his wife, “tell me I’m a good man!”

For many Christians today, legalism speaks in a voice surprisingly similar to Captain Miller saying, Jesus died for you, he paid the ultimate sacrifice for you…now earn this. Are you living a life worthy of His death? Are you a good enough Christian to make His sacrifice worthwhile?

I read a review of Saving Private Ryan from a Christian magazine that said, One character gives his life for another and instructs him to "be good" and to remember the sacrifice made for him. The saved one remembers this for the rest of his life, feeling unworthy. Very seldom does one see so many Christian themes in a big-budget Hollywood movie treated in such a serious manner…

The sad thing about that review is that what the reviewer labels as Christian themes is actually legalism. Legalism doesn’t deny Christ’s sacrifice outrightly, it denies it by adding to it our effort to be worthy of it. Legalism disguises itself as the protector of Christianity: Jesus gave his life for you, now you need to be worthy of what he did. It points to the cross and says, “earn this. Earn it!”

Christians and churches move away from the gospel of grace to the poison of legalism when they begin to look to rules and prohibitions to promote holiness, rather than grace working in the heart. And so you have the obvious ones:

• Don’t go to movies/ Don’t drink alcohol/ Don’t listen to music with a beat/ Don’t wear pants if you’re a woman – a couple once told me they attended a church where the female pastor taught that a woman wearing pants was a sure ticket to hell/ Don’t have an earring if you’re a guy. And on and on. These churches might not stop preaching grace, they preach grace, plus.

Or it can be grace, plus our traditions. Our denomination is the one who got it right, so the traditions we’ve known and the beliefs we’ve held are essential to be a good Christian. If you don’t hold to our denominational creeds, at best your Christianity is suspect. And don’t think this only goes for old denominations. New movements and groups can have the same pride of tradition, even if their tradition is only one year old and is basically a tradition of bucking tradition.

Legalism isn’t having traditions or convictions – we need to have those things. The danger is when we elevate them to being necessary to be saved or spiritual - when our message becomes grace plus.

This legalistic teaching being introduced in Antioch grows into a serious debate and they realize it can’t be settled among themselves – this Gentile question must be brought and settled by apostolic authority. And so a group of them, including Paul and Barnabas, travel to Jerusalem where a council is held to decide this matter.

Acts 15:6-11

After a time of arguing Peter stands up and he reminds them of his testimony. In essence he reminds them that every step of the way it was God who initiated the events, and that in the end, God made no distinction between Jew and Gentile. Peter then boldly confronts the Judaizers with a devastating question: why are they trying to put a yoke of bondage on Gentiles that they as Jews were never able to bear? He summarizes in verse 11 (look with me): But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.

Then Paul and Barnabas stand up and testify to all that they’ve seen God do among the Gentiles. Their ministry is on the cutting edge of reaching Gentiles with the gospel and it was their success that fueled this debate in the first place, so they share about God’s blessing. And finally, James, the brother of Jesus and the leader of the Jerusalem council, stands up and calls everyone to listen to him. The Judaizer’s had been claiming James as their authority for what they were teaching, and James holds a unique place of leadership in Jerusalem at this point, so his judgment on the matter will hold tremendous weight. He begins by anchoring his decision on the testimony of scripture–and he quotes from Amos 9:11,12.

In context (in brief) Amos declares that judgment is coming on Israel and “all the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, “Disaster shall not overtake or meet us”.

But in verse 11 God shifts from judgment to a promise of restoration. The restoration of the tents of David was looked at as a Messianic promise that God will restore the people and the kingdom of David, and in Christ that has been fulfilled. But that restoration will reach beyond the Jewish nation as God will include Gentiles who are called by His name. He will call a people to Himself and it will include Gentiles. James points out, this is a message that all the prophets proclaimed. So what happened to Peter and Paul and others was God calling to Himself a people from the Gentiles called by His name, just as He promised.

So led by James they write a letter to the Gentile Christians in Antioch, and I wish we had more time to spend on that letter. Let’s read the letter and response together. Acts 15:22-31

It is not a letter filled with rules and regulations. It doesn’t call the Gentiles to be circumcised or keep the law of Moses. It purposely doesn’t try to lay a lot of burdens on these new ex-pagan believers to “keep them in line”. In the spirit of brotherly love and affection, it requires 4 things of them for their own good. Three things are essential to protect the fellowship between Jewish believers and Gentile believers. 1) Avoid food that has been offered to idols, 2) keep from eating meat with blood still in it, 3) or food that was strangled. These three things would have been offensive to Jewish believers and might have damaged their fellowship and ability to eat together. And the fourth requirement, abstain from sexual immorality is necessary because their pagan background would have desensitized them to the sinfulness of sexual immorality and they needed to know its danger to their souls.

Their goal in sending this letter with these strong brothers is to strengthen them in the grace of God and then commend them to the grace of God. They can’t devise lists long enough to cover every sin and temptation they will face. They need to trust God and promote grace in them to protect them.

If you come from a background that contains some legalism in it, you might be thinking, this sounds a little dangerous to me. Preaching God’s grace extravagantly could lead to licentiousness, to compromise, to worldliness. It might. People taking to glorious gospel and twisting it to become a blank check to do what they want to do is always a danger where the gospel is truly preached. The problem is that the lists and rules of legalism offer a false protection from these things. The law was never meant to be kept in order to be saved – that’s not why it was given. It was given to reveal our desperate plight as sinners and drive us to Christ. The Jews were never meant to put their trust in circumcision, they were meant to put their trust in God and that would have positioned them to love and trust Christ.

Here’s the great danger: while you’re not listening to that music, or watching that movie, or drinking that drink, or doing that thing, something much more dangerous is happening. Your heart is growing proud, cold, hard, unloving, judgmental. The danger of legalism is the heart drifts far from God while smugly thinking that it is growing closer to God.

God’s answer isn’t lists, and it isn’t licentiousness either. It is grace. True grace actively works in our hearts causing us to want to obey God from the heart. Causing us to desire to glorify God with our lives and actions. Motivating us to good works, not to earn grace, but as a response to grace.

Conclusion

The believers in Antioch rejoiced and were encouraged by the letter. And then the guys who brought the letter poured even more grace in and encouraged them more. And the church was preserved from the ravaging effects of legalism, and set free to enjoy grace, free and undeserved.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is grace, plus nothing. Jesus’ last words on the cross weren’t “earn this!” It was, “it is finished!” He did it all on the cross, and our faith is pure and simple in Him and what he did. Grace, pure and free. Grace, so undeserved. Grace, plus nothing.

Questions to ask

1. Are you relating to God on the basis of His grace, or on the basis of your works? Are you aware of lists that you have added to Christ’s work on the cross?

2. Do you feel a weight of unworthiness to come to God? Do you struggle with condemnation? If you do, there’s a measure of legalism. Some part of you thinks you should be worthy, and that is the poison of legalism. When we understand grace, we know we’re unworthy of it, and we rejoice! We could never be worthy in ourselves – that’s the point. As we sing and then close in prayer – if that’s you

3. Do you struggle with being critical and judgmental of other Christians?

The good news is that legalism is a sin for which Jesus died too. If you are convicted of a measure of legalism, repent of it to God and ask Him for His free and full forgiveness – and rejoice in the grace of Jesus Christ, given freely.