Do You Have to Keep the Law to be Saved? (w/ Remnant Radio)

Assurance and the Danger of Collapsing Law and Gospel

But what's at stake here when it comes to robbing the believer of assurance? I kind of toss this over to Justin. When it comes to conflating the law and the gospel, the danger that we put believers in, and the constant panic and fear and burden that is upon their shoulders.

Because I think that when you realize the weight of what we're talking about, you'll care all the more about what we're doing here. Yeah, man. So when you collapse the law and the gospel, you just said it, what you end up doing is you take assurance away from the saints.

I'm going to give you some biblical examples. I think it's always good to try to make our points using passages of scripture. And the first way I might illustrate this is I'm going to paint pictures of what you often hear said in the evangelical church anyway, in our day.

Jesus, Eternal Life, and the Misuse of the Law

Take the ministry of Jesus and just his words while he's on earth. You'll notice that Jesus says a lot of things, obviously, in the course of years of ministry. But he says in some instances to certain audiences, when talking about eternal life, he will say, keep the law effectively.

You know, what do you need to do in order to have eternal life? Well, you need to obey the commandments. Then in other places with other audiences, when the topic of eternal life comes up, he'll say, believe in me.

And what is often done is that people will say, well, it's kind of both. You know, of course you need to have faith in Jesus because he's our savior, but you also need to keep the law adequately. If you can know that you can know that you can know that you will finally have eternal life.

And then what occurs for the tender consciences among us and the, I would say, the thoughtful, sane person as they're assessing their lives and they think about the standard of God's law, they're like, well, man, if I've got to obey this law, even to any extent and I need to keep it well enough so that I can know that I'm safe, I don't know that I can know that I'm safe.

I don't know that I can have assurance that on the last day I can stand before the Lord and that's going to go well for me. Or if you even think about Romans chapter 2, this is an example we've given before on our show.

Starting in like verse 6 and following, Paul is writing about the fact that God's a righteous judge. He's impartial. He will reward those who do good with eternal life and he will punish those who do evil with wrath and condemnation.

And then he goes on to say, it is not the hearers of the law who will be justified. It is the doers of the law. And so what serious, well-minded or well-intentioned, serious-minded Christians will do with that is they'll say, see this here is telling us that there is a standard of obedience that we must, we must do, we must adhere to if we are going to finally be saved.

Romans 1 Through 3 and Justification by Faith

And I think what we've done there is we've missed the point of Romans 1 through 3 where Paul is building an argument. He is stating that the gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God given to sinners by faith in Jesus Christ, because all human beings stand condemned in our sin.

And he does say, man, if you do good, God will reward you. The problem is nobody does good. It is true that if you seek God, you will be saved. The problem is no one seeks him. The problem is no one is righteous.

No, not one. And so this is why the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. And that is the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

I would refer the listener to just Romans 3, 19 through 22, because it's very plain there that the law shuts everybody's mouth. It holds us all accountable. None of us can speak a word as to how we've kept it.

And this is because by works of the law, no flesh will be justified since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to sinners and we receive it by faith.

And maybe a quick clarification for those out there if you're thinking, man, I need righteousness, right? I need to keep the law in order to live with God forever. I actually, I agree with you. But the way that you would ever be found righteous, a law keeper, is to receive the righteousness that Jesus achieved for you in your place.

So when Jesus says, keep the commandments or believe in me, you can either pit the two against each other or act like it's this sort of ambiguous both believe and keep the law or you can rightly understand biblically that one provides the other.

That faith in Jesus Christ provides righteousness under the law because Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes in him.

Rest in Christ and the Burden of the Law

If the gospel does not lead you to hope and rest, then you may not fully understand it yet, you know. Jesus says that, come to me all you are heavy laden. And what he's talking about is those who are under the burden of the law.

They see that they are unrighteous. They are trapped. And so he says you are weighed down like you can feel the weight of it and he promises them something that's very important. He says, I'm going to give you rest.

And that's how we define our podcast, you know, helping worried Christians find rest in Christ. And rest does not mean that it's absence from work or absence from labor and our faith find rest in Christ and that he is sufficient.

And there's nothing else for us to do. That's what it means to rest, that we can fully crawl up into the arms of our father and he will carry us faithfully across the line to the end and there's nothing left for us to do.

As it relates to our salvation, the way in which that we are cleansed and our righteousness, the way in which God sees us, that is all under the banner of the gospel. And so this is why Paul tells not unbelievers, but the believers like Corinthians, like the worst church in the planet, right?

I would never want to be the pastor of that church. Whoa. But what does he say? I want to come preach to you the gospel because they were now living their life in the flesh because they had forgotten the promises of the rest of Christ.

And so my encouragement to you is if your soul is anxious and you can't seem to find rest, it might be because the law has seeped in to your understanding of the gospel. And so it's healthy and good to remind yourself that there's nothing for you to do that Christ is sufficient to save and that your obedience should always be a reflection as 1 John 4 says, we love because he first loved us.

So obedience is always the result of what God has done to us. We don't obey so that God will do something for us.