Justified by Faith for Love's Sake

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16 ESV)

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:20-21 ESV)

We make a decision every morning when we wake up.  It is a choice between two kinds of living and thinking.  One option is to believe that hard work, diligence and seeking to do our best will cause God to love us.   The other option, affirmed by Paul, is to live in light of the cross of Jesus.  It is a grace filled life that enters into whatever a day’s work may bring with the assurance of God’s love.  This is the only option for living in the freedom that came as a gift through the death of Jesus Christ.  How many of us chose the former?   We are bent on the need to perform and somehow we get deluded into thinking there is something we can do to get God to love us more. 

The Gospel breaks through this illusion of work’s value and brings us the promise that the starting point is a grace we do not deserve and lays the foundation for living and working in ways more productive, more rewarding and freeing than under the servitude of our sinful attempts at doing our best.   The life we now live “is by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”   Grace motivates us to be good, not “for goodness sake” as the popular Christmas song puts it, but for love’s sake. 

The puritan Thomas Watson describes this goodness without the gospel this way, “Morality is insufficient for salvation. Though the life is moralized, the lust may be unmortified. The heart may be full of pride and atheism. Under the fair leaves of a tree, there may be a worm... If morality were sufficient to salvation, Christ need not have died. The moral man has a fair lamp—but it lacks the oil of grace."