Promise, not Performance
June 5th, 2009 by J.W.M.
“This brings us back to the point Paul has been trying to make all through this letter, the point recovering Pharisees keep needing to hear: God deals with us according to his promise, and not according to our performance… remember how promises work. It is impossible to earn a promise. The only way to receive a promise is to trust in it… there is nothing I can do to fulfill the promise. The only thing I can do is to trust him to keep his promise… But I cannot fulfill his promise to me on his behalf. So it is with the promises of God’s covenant. Only God can fulfill them. Therefore, when he promises us salvation, it follows that we cannot earn it for ourselves… This brings us to a very practical conclusion: God deals with us according to his promises, not according to our works. And so, writes John Stott, ‘every sinner who trusts in Christ crucified for salvation, quite apart from any merit or good works, receives the blessing of eternal life and thus inherits the promise of God made to Abraham.’… Salvation in Christ does not rest on a law that we inevitably break; it rests on a promise that God cannot break… The Christian life is not a quid pro quo, so that if I do what God wants, then God will do what I want. God simply does not operate this way. Instead, my relationship with God is based entirely on believing his gracious promise… We simply believe that God will make good on his promise to save us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then, of course, we act on our faith, living like the true heirs of God that we have become through his covenant in Christ… This is the grace of God, that he does not deal with us on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of his promise.”
(Philip Graham Ryken, Galatians, 127-129)
