Gospel Plus?

By Not Known

Like the foolish Galations, some of us cannot accept the fact that we can gain salvation by just taking god at His word! Believing in Christ Jesus who died for our sins and rose again from the dead for our salvation just isn’t good enought! Surely it can’t be that simple – there must be a catch some where. There must be some illegible fine print to the contract. There must surely be something more we must do in order to earn our salvation. or is there?

Perhaps this may have to do with the fact that many of our forefathers had left China and India with just the chirt on their back and make it good in this land we now proudly call our own. Relying on handouts and not to earn our keep are just something we were taught never to do and will never do. We often feel that we must work hard and smart to deserve every cent to our name. And rightly so! For God’s scriptural principle remain crystal clear: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” (2 Thes 3: 10b)

So why is god seemingly making an exception to the rule when it comes to the Gospel?

The reason simply is we can NEVER be good enough for God, much if we had tried! Isaiah reminds us that “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isa 64: 6b). Whatever we do or try to do can never be good enough to be accepted by God because it is simply not good enough! It has not only to do with the insufficiency and inadequacy of the best that we can be or can offer to God, it hs also to do with the imperfect nature we are all born with. And we can never pelase God on our own terms!

We have commenly used the word “plus” to indicate the enhacement of a product but there can never be such a thing as a “Gospel plus”! For there is nothing we can add to or improve upon the Gospel which God has accomplished for us through the sacrifice of His perfectly sinless only begotten Son. We can never ever (and woe to us if we think we can) better what God has already done for us eternally in history.

So why some of us are still like the Galation Christians desiring and trying to rely on a “Gospel plus” when the Gospel by itself is sufficient, adequate and good enough for God? There is only one Gospel – that of our Lord Jesus Christ. So what are we doing about it with the life that God has given us?