James 2:10
"For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."

Recently my wife, Wendy, was giving our one-month old daughter a dropper full of some medicine. While mom was dispensing the medicine, my two-year old son grabbed the medicine bottle and tried to play pharmacist by pouring milk from his sippy cup into the open bottle. Before Wendy could get the bottle away from him a drop or two of milk had escaped from the sippy cup and landed right in the medicine bottle. As Wendy looked discouragingly at the cloudy medicine, she realized the entire bottle had to be thrown away. Even though the bottle contained 99% medicine and less than 1% milk, it was still contaminated and unfit for use.

It has been nearly 2000 years since Jesus died and rose again to pay the penalty for sin and provide eternal salvation to all who will simply receive it. Yet efforts to gain heaven on the merits of one’s own righteous acts are still contaminating the pure message of grace. The pride of men and women is so strong that it will not allow them to believe that they can get something as valuable as forgiveness and eternal life for free. This is in spite of the fact that the Apostle Paul and the other early church leaders taught that the true gospel message was one of salvation by grace through faith as a free gift from God. Listen to what Paul said about the Jews in the first century: “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God" (Rom. 10:3).

What Paul was saying could not be clearer: The righteousness that God’s holiness demands is perfect righteousness. If mankind could gain eternal life by keeping the law, Christ's death was irrelevant. Plus, anyone who hopes to justify himself before God by keeping the law must be willing to keep all of it. Since this is impossible for fallen man, eternal salvation must come from some other source. There must be some other means by which we can gain perfect righteousness. There is. It's called GRACE.

At first this teaching may sound too good to be true. But that is what makes grace so amazing. You cannot earn it….it is free! That is the essence of grace. It is undeserved, unmerited favor. You can keep trying to earn heaven by your own righteous behavior if you want to. But just remember, righteousness gained by human effort is just cloudy medicine. James said, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all." In other words, no matter how much medicine is in the bottle, if you add even one ounce of human effort, it spoils the whole batch. When it comes to keeping the law, close does not count. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. But eternal salvation is not a game. If you want it, you must simply receive it. It is a gift. It cannot be earned.

J.B. Hixson, Th.M.
Associate Pastor
Grace Bible Church of Houston
jb@gbchouston.org
www.hixson.org