Salvation - A Gift, Not A Debt

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Picture yourself in need of a car.  You have very little money to your name, certainly not enough to buy a car, even an old junk of one, and you have no credit.  Then one day a friend hands you the keys to a car, a very nice, luxury car, one that you could never in your wildest dreams afford.  Your friend tells you that this is a gift.  It’s been paid for, the title paid for, all taxes, license plates, everything paid for.  It is yours.  Your friend did this because they love and care about you.  They knew you had this need, and they, alone, could meet that need for you.  It’s a wonderful gift.

How would that friend feel, if after you had received the nice car, you started making payments for it?  The payments were small, as that was all you could afford, but you made them nonetheless.  Maybe you go to their house and mow the lawn, wash their windows, or some other task.  You feel you have to earn the gift.  If you are working for it, than it is not a gift.  That is the whole definition of gift - something given freely, with no strings attached.

There is something that we desperately need, but have no way of obtaining for ourselves, and that is salvation from sin.  Knowing that we had no way to obtain that for ourselves, God paid the price for us, with the Blood of His Son, Jesus.

In this passage we read about Abraham, the Father of Faith.  What does that mean, Father of Faith?  He accepted what God said, believed God at His Word.  He accepted God’s gift of salvation, and a right relationship with Him by grace through faith.  Abraham accepted this gift freely.  He did not work for it or try to earn it.  In this way he was the Father of Faith.

The Jewish people, as Abraham’s physical descendants, were very proud of him.  Over the centuries, though, they had strayed away from salvation by faith alone, and stopped following Abraham’s example.  By the time of Jesus, they had developed into a salvation by works belief system.  They tried to assiduously keep the Old Testament Law, and many man-made additions and twists to the Law, as well, all in order to work their way into heaven.

Paul, here in this passage in Romans, is telling the Jewish-Christian readers that one cannot work their way into heaven by following the Mosaic Law.  Salvation is a gift from God.  If we could work our way into heaven, it would be a debt that God owed us, not the gift it is, bought with the price of Christ’s Blood.  Most of the Gentile, or non-Jewish, believers did not feel compelled to keep the Old Testament Law, and Paul points out that this is the faith of Abraham, trusting in God alone to save them.  Not works, but faith.

Today, not too many people try to keep every single Old Testament regulation from Leviticus or Deuteronomy.  But do we still try to work our way into heaven?  Do we try to add some works to our faith, and believe it is our faith plus something else that will get us through heaven’s gates?  Is it Jesus plus church attendance.  Jesus plus how much I put in the offering plate.  Jesus plus a certain amount of time spent reading the Bible or praying.  And here’s a big one - do we believe it is Jesus plus baptism.  All of these things are good, and we really should be doing them, but none of them can earn our way into heaven.  Only faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, believing He paid the price for our sins on the cross of Calvary.  Obedience in those other things is important, but none of them save us.  As Paul points out in Romans, if they did save us, then God would have to owe us a spot in heaven, and He doesn’t.  It is a gift of God that we can’t earn, can’t pay back.  Only accept and believe.