Reading Romans 3 a little while ago, I was confronted with the mystery of grace, of righteousness received by faith. In a sense it almost seems too easy, and if one misunderstands it, one might think there is very little we need to do in order to be saved. I wonder sometimes if some of St Paul’s letters would have turned out a little differently if he were not embroiled in controversies about the Law, which perhaps prevented him from a more irenic reflection on the revelation of God because of the urgent need of a polemic on grace vs. “works of the law” (i.e., circumcision and other specifically Jewish practices not required of believers in Christ; see 3:28-29). But we trust that the Scriptures are as God would have them, and we take it from there.
The righteousness of God is communicated to those who believe in Jesus Christ. Since we all have sinned, says the Apostle, and hence have no right to this righteousness, we “are justified by his grace as a gift… to be received by faith.” So we receive this gift by God’s graciousness and our faith, but why then does Paul soon warn those who have thus been justified not to sin lest they perish? If we have received righteousness, aren’t we home free? Some would say so, but Scripture doesn’t agree.
I’d like to beg your indulgence as I indulge in another computer analogy, since, as you know, I’ve had to be dealing a lot with them in recent weeks and so the terminology is on my mind. All analogies are imperfect, but some can still help us with our understanding. Most people are fairly conversant on basic computer terms, so here goes.
Let’s say my computer is sick unto death with some sort of system failure (this represents my soul, me, a sinner). It can’t restore itself and so needs outside help. I discover that there is a program available online that is designed to remedy the precise problem that is ailing my computer—and on top of that, it is a free download! (This is grace as free gift.) So I’m all excited about this and at least am able to get online before my computer utterly perishes. Putting my faith in the one who promises that this program will indeed fix what ails my computer, I download the file. Great, the saving program is now mine (justification by faith)! See, it’s right there on my computer desktop!
Why, then, does my comput
er still have the same problem? Why isn’t it fixed? It’s because the free download (the gift of grace) has to be installed if it is to be effective. I have to play my part by opening it up and going through the installation process, and following whatever instructions are given by the Manufacturer so that it will actually work as promised and heal the fatal system illness. Even though the program is mine and has been freely given to me, if I don’t follow the instructions for actually applying the remedy, the computer is still as good as dead. Faith without works, says the Bible, is dead (James 2:26)
St Paul says the same thing in a slightly different way when he gives us the most concise summary I’ve ever seen of what Christianity is: “faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). Faith is a gift, like the grace of justification, but it doesn’t work except through love, that is, through putting it into practice in the way we live our lives in relation to God and our neighbor.
If this were not so, then St Paul would not have to tell people, who had already been justified by faith, that there were still things that could keep them out of Heaven. About these he said, “I warn you… that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21; see also 1Cor. 6:9-10). Such people have downloaded the file which is designed to fix the corrupted computer, but they haven’t installed it; they haven’t followed the user’s guide for applying the fix!
St Paul says similar things (though somehow he never thought of a computer analogy, despite the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—or perhaps because of it!) in Romans 6-8. He’s writing to people who have already been justified by faith and who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. He still has to urge them not to sin, not to yield to temptations; he has to remind them that sin can still lead to eternal death, but the gift they have received is meant to lead them to eternal life. There is still a war going on, and choices still have to be made. “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (8:6).
It’s always important to take things in the proper context, and to see the writings of a particular biblical author (and even of Scripture as such) as a unity, so that certain teachings aren’t overemphasized at the expense of others.
So, yes, grace is a free and unearned gift, justification comes from the mercy and generosity of God and is received by faith, and the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. But the gift will achieve its intended result only if we do the will of the Father, if our faith works through love, if we avoid what is evil and cling to what is good.
Download righteousness, then, for it’s free and will save your system from the scrap heap. But don’t forget to install it, and be sure to follow the instructions. Then your faith working through love will keep everything running smoothly until the time comes for the Ultimate Upgrade into the Kingdom of Heaven—where you will never hear another computer analogy again!
