For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1
Before I was married, I bought my wife a unique engagement ring (my sister Chelsea Baxley helped me pick it out). It was made up of two rings that came together to form one. There was a large stone in the middle with two smaller stones on either side. To me, it represented our marriage, with God at the center. In my mind, if we could just keep God at the center of our lives, and our marriage, then everything else would be okay. After several years of marriage, the pain of two miscarriages, and my own personal failures to live up to that standard that I set for myself, my thoughts have changed a little. I still believe that keeping Christ at the center of my marriage is vital, but I realize now that my definition of what I thought that meant was very skewed. You see, early in my Christian life I fell victim to a subtly deceptive teaching, a teaching that is as prevalent in the church today as it was when Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians. The modern form goes something like this: “Yes your salvation was a free gift when you first believed, but you had better get to work to keep it, or else maybe you just weren’t really saved in the first place.” My wife often says the “but” in a sentence undoes everything said before it. In this case I think she is right.
Maybe these teachers thought they were promoting holiness, maybe they were concerned that Christians weren’t taking discipleship seriously enough. Whether they were well-meaning or not, I don’t know. I can only speak to the effect that this pseudo-gospel had on my own life. Instead of teaching me to trust God and his promise, it set me on a path of constant navel gazing, always testing myself to see my growth and always finding myself falling short. As a result, my spiritual life became consumed with how I was doing on any given day. If I was performing well, I thought God was pleased with me. If I wasn’t, I was sure he was angry. Like a grey hound chasing a rabbit that was always just out of reach, I strove for a righteousness that I knew deep down that I didn’t have. Even “good works” like serving my spouse became self-interested means to measure my own progress rather than genuine acts of love for my closest neighbor. In the end this cycle only led to doubt and despair. It doesn’t for everyone. Some under this kind of teaching take the opposite path – rather than despair at their inability, they begin to tell themselves that they are actually doing pretty good, and they begin to measure themselves against the “sinners” around them based on their own supposed “righteousness.” These people are not free to serve their neighbor in love because they treat him contemptibly in judgement. It is no wonder Paul called attempts to justify ourselves by our own righteousness “slavery.”
Why is this? Isn’t it good to want to do what is right? Isn’t the Bible full of commands? So why so much law in the Bible? The law was given, Paul says, not to bring righteousness, but to expose unrighteousness (Romans 7:7). Attempts to establish our own righteousness through our own law keeping fall short because they are in fact, lies. The person trying to find righteousness in their own efforts is trusting in a myth that doesn’t exist. The truth is, “there is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10) and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24).
Attempts to establish our own righteousness fail because we reject the means that God has given to make us righteous, the blood of his Son. As Paul says in Galatians, “If righteousness could be gained by the law, then Christ died for nothing.” It’s like saying, thanks a lot for dying for me Jesus, but I got this. Paul goes on to say that those who try to establish their own righteousness by the law are “fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4). When we seek to earn our own righteousness before God, usually so we can boast about something, we cut ourselves off from the GIFT of righteousness that Christ came to give us. To labor under our own works is to labor for a wage that we are saying we deserve, rather than trusting in the gift of grace that we know we do not. We are either the pharisee or the tax collector. The pharisee boasts in his own good works does not see his need for grace because he has deluded himself into thinking that he has something to offer God. The tax collector on the other hand knows that he brings nothing to the table but his spiritual poverty and sin. It is the second man that God calls justified (Luke 18:14).
So, if you find yourself on the hamster wheel of your own efforts and despite all your striving you still can’t seem to get anything right, there is a good chance you have misplaced your trust, and the law is doing exactly what it was designed to do, showing you all the ways you fall short. If you find yourself in this unhappy situation, there is still hope for you and it is found at the same place it was when you first believed, at the cross of Christ. Christian, the hopelessness of your own efforts is the beginning of good news, because you do not stand in the myth of your own righteousness, you stand in the free, unmerited, undeserved grace of God, purchased for you by the blood of his Son. It means you don’t have to stay on that hamster wheel to nowhere. You can be honest with God about your sin, and you can approach Him with nothing but a plea for mercy and a trust in His promise, and like the tax collector, you can go home justified. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). And you can begin to serve Him, not out of fear of His disapproval, but out of gratitude that you (yes, even you) have been forgiven and adopted as His child.
And what does this mean for your marriage? It means you can begin to really love and serve your spouse. You have already been given all things in Christ, so you can quit worrying about yourself and actually begin to think about others. And it means that when your spouse inevitably fails you – and they will – you don’t have to demand satisfaction. You can forgive them, knowing how much you have been forgiven. And when you inevitably fail your spouse – and you will – you can repent (as often as you need to), and continue to fight against your own sin, knowing that God has already given you the victory in Christ’s victory for you.
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God,” (Romans 5:1-2). Notice where we do not stand: we do not stand in our works; we do not stand in our spiritual gifts; we do not stand in our personal sanctity; and we do not stand in our surrendered life. We stand in the free, undeserved grace of God purchased for us by the blood of his own Son, which is the fount and foundation of everything else.
After several years of marriage, and a whole lot of failure, my wife and I have learned that we don’t always keep Christ at the center, but the good news is that He keeps us. May God keep us always in His grace. Amen.
Written by: Caleb Newberry. Caleb lives in Jacksonville, FL with his wife Brittany. He loves serving at his church and hearing the good news of the Gospel.
