Westlawn Baptist Church, Madison
Throughout my ministry I’ve asked people what they believe is essential for a person to get to heaven. Two threads run through the answers I’ve received, the first being that one must be a good and moral person and the second that one must accomplish humanitarian works. People have pointed to significant examples of others whom they considered moral and admirable and in whose footsteps they’ve aspired to follow. Others have made allusions to people who had accomplished great works for the sake of humanity — as measured by earthly standards — such as Mother Teresa or Gandhi.
The Bible tells us that neither answer is correct.
First of all, Ephesians 2:1 makes it clear that not only can no one perform a good act, but that in fact we are all dead in sin. Our moral codes and works are not pleasing to God because they are representative of a world that serves Satan, not Him (2:2). Verse 3 further delineates that sin makes people an object deserving of God’s wrath. So people ask, “What hope do we have to escape the wrath of God?” The only answer to that question is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who can redeem sinful people and create in them new life. Even when we were dead in sin and disobedient to His will God’s love for us, His creation, made sinful people alive again. How was this accomplished? Verse 5 makes it clear: God made us alive through Jesus Christ.
It is not through our striving to live a moral life or the doing of good deeds but only through Jesus that we become children of God. It is through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that people are made alive (2:6). God, through the writer of Ephesians, defines the work of Jesus as grace. We are saved by grace through faith and we know that faith is a gift from God. We cannot boast therefore (2:8–9) about any good thing that is a product of grace because grace is made possible exclusively through Jesus Christ.
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