Hint: Offering to buy our salvation from God is an insult to Christ’s cross.

Hypothetical: Suppose the president of the United States decided to create an award for some “Ordinary Citizen of the Year,” and somehow, you were chosen for it.

So, they prepared an elaborate, expensive celebration, and on the appointed day, they picked you up in a limo, flew you in Air Force One to the White House and put on the dinner of your life.

Members of the Cabinet, congressional bigshots and various celebrities were also in attendance. 

After the speeches were over and your award was given, everyone began filing out, and when it came time for you to leave back on Air Force One, you reached in your pocket for whatever loose change you had and pressed it into the president’s hand saying, “Here, Mr. President, this is to help pay for the expense of this shindig.”

How do you suppose your offer of financial support would be received?

Insulting, Huh? Tens of millions of dollars were spent, and you thought your two cents would make a difference.

Billions Insult God Every Day

Yet this is what we do to God every time we think our “works” will count after He paid with the life of His Son Jesus for our sins.

We do it by thinking that when we die, we can go before God and press our two cents worth of “living a good life, going to church, being nice, etc.” into His hand to help pay to get us into Heaven. Think about this, from 1 Peter 1:18-20 …

“… knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”

The price of your redemption was blood. But not just any blood — the blood of God’s own perfect, sinless Son.

Do you think if God knew of a way that enabled man to reach Heaven without having to be dragged through the heart-rending spectacle of the cross, that He would have eagerly taken it?

The Apostle Paul spelled it out this way in Galatians 2:20-21 …

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law (another way of saying, works), then Christ died needlessly.”

Do you have children? If so, which one of them would you voluntarily offer up to death in order to save some total stranger? God did. His only Son.

In Galatians 2:15-16, we are advised to ditch your religious squirrel cage and rest

“… knowing that a person is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law; since by works of the Law no flesh will be justified.”

To attempt to justify yourself before God based on anything YOU have done is the definition of a fool’s mission.

There is a rest for the people of God when they give up all self-effort and rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ FOR them, and not a minute before. See Hebrews 4:1-2.

It really is finished, as noted in John 19:30:

“Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

Jesus said a mouthful when He declared from the cross “It is finished.” He was essentially saying, (paraphrasing),” Here is my one, only, and final offer to redeem your soul — finished this day, never to be added to, or subtracted from, by man’s self-efforts. Take it or leave it. No religious ceremonies, penances, confessions, tithing, being “good,” etc. will help your case — in fact it will hurt it.”

How About You?

Theologian L.S. Chafer wrote:

“This one word ‘believe’ represents all a sinner can do and all a sinner must do to be saved. It is believing the record God has given of His Son. In this record, it is stated that He has entered into all the needs of our lost condition and is alive from the dead to be a living Savior to all who put their trust in Him. It is quite possible for any intelligent person to know whether he has placed such confidence in the Savior. Saving faith is a matter of personal consciousness. ‘I know whom I have believed.’

“To have deposited one’s eternal welfare in the hands of another is a decision of the mind so definite that it can hardly be confused with anything else. On the deposit of oneself into His saving grace depends one’s eternal destiny. To add or subtract anything from this sole condition of salvation is most perilous.”

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