Can your good works add to your salvation?

No. In Galatians 3:1-14, the Apostle Paul asks the churches a sharp question: “Who has bewitched you?” In this study, Dr. Toby Holt explains why adding works to faith is not a small mistake, but a dangerous one.

The Galatians had started so well, trusting Jesus alone. But now they were being talked into adding rules, as if their own effort could finish what Jesus began. Paul reminds them that they received God’s Spirit by faith, not by works. He points back to Abraham, who was accepted by God simply because he believed. So the true children of Abraham are not those with the right background, but those who share his faith. Holt’s rule of thumb is simple: if you ever hear “faith,” and then a plus sign — whatever it is — run.

Questions this study answers:

1. What does it mean to be “bewitched”? Paul uses the word to describe how the Galatians had been talked out of clear truth, almost as if under a spell. They had traded a gospel of faith for a gospel of works without seeing the danger.

2. Why is a gospel of works so dangerous? Because it steals the glory from Jesus and gives it to us. If we add our own effort to His finished work, we are saying His sacrifice was not enough.

3. How were people in the Old Testament saved? The same way we are — by faith. They looked forward to the Savior God promised, while we look back to the work Christ has already finished.

“But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘the just shall live by faith.’” — Galatians 3:11 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This is Part 5 of the ten-part Galatians study. Find the whole series, along with verse-by-verse studies of other books of the Bible, at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.

[gentle music] In Galatians 3, the Apostle Paul had a question for the Galatians. He wanted to know who had bewitched them. In other words, Paul wanted to know who had misled them and had caused them to turn from a gospel of faith to a gospel of works.

A number of years ago, right after our son was born, my wife and I were sitting at a table with a pastor from another denomination. Specifically, he was from a denomination that's called the Church of Christ. Some of you may be familiar with it. Now, during the course of our conversation at this table, the topic of baptism came up. The topic of baptism. And at that point, my wife and I described the process by which our son was baptized. And as we did so, we noticed that this particular individual, he began to shake his head. And then with a patronizing look, even a condescending look, this man told us that our son's baptism had accomplished nothing. It accomplished nothing. Now, why would he say such a thing? Well, some of you are aware that Church of Christ is a denomination that has a somewhat controversial view of baptism. They believe that baptism is essential to salvation. If you are to be saved, if you are to be ushered into God's golden shores, it will be by virtue of faith plus having been baptized, and not only baptized, but baptized at a certain age and baptized by immersion. Anything less won't do. Anything less, and you are not of the kingdom. In short, the Church of Christ yokes baptism to salvation. Says that faith is a good starting point. Faith is essential, yes, but without a properly administered baptism, faith's not enough. Not enough to be saved. Now, what's wrong with that view?

How much time do we got?

With that said, if you go back about 2,000 years and if you substitute the word circumcision for baptism, if you go about 2,000 years and you substitute the word circumcision for baptism, you'd see that this is the exact same issue, the exact same argument that the Apostle Paul was dealing with, with the people of Galatia. See, as we said before, the Apostle Paul, he had come to the Galatians. He had preached and taught. He had shared the gospel. He'd led them in truth. He talked about faith alone as the means by which we're saved. Just like the thief on the cross was saved, is in heaven now on the basis of his faith, faith in the one who's crucified to the side of him. Just as we are saved through faith as the thief of the cross was, and the like, this is the singular means by which we are justified. This is the understanding that Paul had shared with those in Galatia, and yet the moment that he was gone, other people came in. They began to teach something different. They began to say, "Well, faith is good. Faith is good, but if a Gentile convert from Crete, from Athens, from Corinth, from anywhere else really wants to come into the kingdom and really wants to be an A+ Christian, then not only do they need to have that faith, which is a good start, but they also need to be circumcised, and ideally they'll also celebrate the feast days, and they'll bow before other aspects of the ceremonial law." They would take faith and say that's a good start and add something on top of it, add something in addition to it. Well, as we've said in the past few weeks, whether it's one work or a thousand works, the minute you start to do this, whether it's one thing or a thousand things that you do, it has the net effect of making salvation something that you've contributed to in such a significant way that it wouldn't be possible unless you did it, which has the net effect of giving you some of the credit for saving yourself and stealing some of the credit from Him. Paul heard that sort of view. He knew where it would lead. He knew the thousand things that people would add in. The floodgates would be open, whether it's circumcision, baptism, anything else. He knew that the minute that you do this, the

gospel would be undermined. Such a thing was stupid, it was deadly, and he calls people who would do it fools multiple times in the course of today's reading. Let's return now. Let's return to verses one through four of today's text. We're going to look at Galatians 3:1-4. We'll look at these verses, and then we'll just kind of work our way through the bounds. Okay, verse one. "O foolish Galatians."

He'll use the word fool more than once in today's passage. "O you fools, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" Who did this? Who bewitched you that you should believe this? "Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to hear from you." So he asks them a question. He wants to hear a response. He says, "This only do I want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law," by something you did, "or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, do you think you are now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain?" You know, the first four weeks of our study, we said this, we said that the Galatians, again, these were a people in a region. It wasn't just one church. It was a number of churches in a region that we might call southern Turkey. Paul had been to this region. He'd ministered to these people in roughly 50 AD. And while he had ministered to them, he had told them the truth. This is Paul we're talking about. He's Paul the Apostle. And to be an apostle, you had to have learned from Jesus. This is one of the distinctions. You had an authority that came with being an apostle that was granted to you by none less than Jesus. So the Galatians had had Paul the Apostle teach them. Paul the Apostle had taught them, and he had shared the gospel with them, and he shared it with them with better clarity than any of us has probably ever heard from any other man. He shared with them with clarity what the gospel was. And yet, when it came time for Paul to leave, when Elvis left the building, so to speak, when it came time for Paul to leave, what happened? Well, we know what happened because it happened in Galatia, and it happened elsewhere. When Paul left, other men came in. When Paul left, it left a vacuum that other men had no trouble filling.They came in and taught on his heels, but what they said was not what he said. What they said was, "Yes, yes, faith in Christ, that's good and that's important, that's essential. But..." And this is where the trouble began. "But faith, faith alone, that's not the way this works. Faith plus, in their case, circumcision." We said before that they were really attempting to make you a Jew before they made you a Christian. They're attempting to take the Old Testament law, apply it, tattoo it to people from Corinth and Crete and Antioch and other pagan nations. They're saying, "Look, you've got to accept and adopt the Old Testament practices like circumcision, things we've been doing for centuries. You got to do it too. And then there's the feast days and other things that you should really get with as well. And if you do that on top of faith, then you're good." They came in and they added something on top of faith. Paul had set them free. [chuckles] He said, "Look, this is the means. Jesus did all the work. You don't have to do the work. What you have to do is believe in Him who did it." He had set them free through the gospel, but other men, it's like they brought in shackles.

Attempted to shackle these individuals in Galatia and elsewhere once again to the law. So you're not as free as you think you are, but there's other things you better do. If you do those, then you're fine. Then God loves you. Then you're over the hump. You're over the edge. Much like the Church of Christ pastor told my wife and I, "You really want your kid to be saved? You really love your kid? Faith isn't going to be enough. He also needs to be baptized when he's an adult believer through immersion. If not, scripture says he's outside looking in."

What that individual did is the same thing that those in Galatia were doing. They were bewitching good people.

Adding something on top

of faith as a means to salvation. Now, when Paul uses the word bewitched, that's interesting. It's interesting because of this. It suggests

that the belief system, the doctrinal drift, the false things they began to believe, it's not because they were just kind of confused. It's not like they had a Bible study and they misinterpreted a word or a phrase or something from the Bible and just kind of inadvertently ended up in the wrong place. No, that's not what he says.

He says, "Dear heavens, who bewitched you? Who came in and deliberately, intentionally, with the malice aforethought, who came in and bewitched you and prompted you to believe something that isn't true? I told you one thing. Who in the world has bewitched you to believe something else? Who did it? Who did it?" It's what he asks here, and this suggests, again, that

they had been hoodwinked

by false teachers and false prophets. And to those who had been hoodwinked, Paul says, "Look, I got one question. I told you you're saved by faith." They say, the Judaizers say, "Faith plus circumcision or whatever else they want to fill in the blanks with." I said one thing, they said another thing. Well, I have just one question for you.

One question, he says in verse two. He says, "This only do I want to learn from you.

Did you receive the Spirit

because of something you did

or because of something you believed? Which is it?" It's not both. If God's saving work began through His Spirit, how can it be added to or augmented by something that we do? Well, it can't. It's a trick question. Let's look at verses five through nine now to see how he builds on this.

"Therefore, he who supplied the Spirit to you and worked miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, by baptism or circumcision or any number of things, feast days, being nice to your grandma? Does he do that, does he justify you by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Does he do this by the works of law or by the hearing of faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness."

You see what he's doing here? It's very important and you might miss it. The Judaizers were those who were emphasizing what Abraham and Moses and Elijah, what they were doing in times past and setting them up as a precedent to be followed. Well, Paul was a Jew of the Jews, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He could quote the Old Testament too. He could point to the old covenant, and he asked them a trying question. He says, "To you Judaizers, know this. Just as Abraham believed God, it was accounted to him for righteousness." Abraham believed, and that was enough.

Abraham believed, and that faith was accounted to him for righteousness. He was saved on the basis of that faith. Verse seven, "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are then sons of Abraham."

Only those who share Abraham's faith are Abraham's sons. "And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you, all the nations shall be blessed.' So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham." Abraham believed. Titus, who came from Crete, he believed too, and he's saved just as much as Abraham. Not because he got circumcised like Abraham did or did something else to pattern his life after Abraham. The singular thing that Titus had in common with Abraham was not their ethnicity, not where they grew up, not where they come from, not circumcision, but they shared the same faith.

Titus, Paul, Abraham, Moses, shared the same faith, and that's why you'll find all four of them in the kingdom. That's why you'll find anyone in the kingdom. Because of their faith. Let me ask you a question. We get that when we're talking about the New Testament.When talking about the New Testament, we sort of get that. We get that it's about faith. We're saved through our belief and our faith and our profession. We sort of get that, especially in our Reformed Presbyterian context. We get that. So here's the question. What about people in the Old Testament?

If you're saved and I'm saved in a New Testament economy, but by faith in Jesus Christ, how were people saved in the Old Testament before Christ was born, so to speak? Before the manger scene and the cross and the tomb and the like. How were people saved? If you and I are saved by faith in the New Testament, looking back at Jesus, what is the means by which people in the Old Testament were saved?

By faith. By faith. Same thing. By faith, Abraham believed. By faith Abraham believed and it was accounted for him as righteousness. Whether you are Abraham or Moses or Paul or Titus or you or me, it is the exact same means. It does not matter if it's the Old Testament or the New Testament. We're saved in the exact same way. The only difference such as it is, is this. That you and I, we look back at the finished work of Jesus Christ. We look back at the completed work of Jesus Christ. We look back at what he did. However, the people in the Old Testament, they looked forward. They looked forward to the promise. God had long promised Jesus would come long before he ever did. If you go back to Genesis 3:15, the very start of the Bible, God promised the seed. He promised there'd come one who would come and crush Satan under his foot. And then throughout the law and the prophets and the Psalms and all these books, there was repeated promises about what he would do and when he would come and the like. And Jesus Christ came and fulfilled every last one of them. The point is, in the Old Testament, you are saved by believing those promises. God tells Abraham, "Abraham, this is how it's going to work. Through you, all the nations are going to be blessed." He talks about a land that's going to be given to him and his people, and there's this sense, there's this talk of a Messiah, of a progeny, of one who would come in his line. One that David was promised would sit on the throne of Judah, so to speak. The Old Testament's filled with references to the person and work of Jesus Christ. And in the Old Testament, you were saved by believing those promises. You were saved by faith, the same way that you and I are. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Full stop. Added nothing. Not faith plus the fact that he had been circumcised, plus the fact that he was nice and he didn't kick his dog, plus the fact he kept this law and that law, plus the fact he kept his house clean. No. Abraham was saved by faith. Full stop. The same is true for you and I. The same is true in Galatia. People didn't understand that, and some people didn't like it, and yet it was true. Now let me ask you another question that comes from verses five through nine. Verse seven said, "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham." I tell you, if you're following along here at home or what have you, underline that. That is one of the most important passages in the entirety of Galatians, and a lot of times we just skip right past it. But it's critical and it's important. Let me ask you a question. If I was to ask you, all right, you know Abraham. Abraham was the first Hebrew, the first of the Jews. He's the patriarch of this great nation that followed him. If I was to ask you, who were his sons? Who are the sons of Abraham? You might go, well, the sons of Abraham are the Jewish people, are the Hebrews who followed. And in a sense, in a limited sense, you'd be right. But

Paul is saying something much more significant here. He's saying, look, the sons of Abraham are not only the people who happen to come from his gene pool. The sons of Abraham are not only those who by ethnicity can trace their family tree to Abraham. He says, more significantly, more importantly, more crucially, the true sons of Abraham are those who share the faith of Abraham. When I look out at this room,

I don't know that I see anyone who can trace their ethnicity, so to speak, to Abraham per se. I don't know if that's true of anyone in the room, but I know this. I know this, that as I look out into this room, I see a great many sons and daughters of Abraham. Because as Paul said here, the significance is that we're sons of Abraham if we share the faith of Abraham. Not everyone who shared the ethnicity of Abraham is in the kingdom of God right now. The Pharisees were a brood of vipers. They would appeal to their father Abraham, and Jesus flatly told them, "You don't even know who Abraham is. If you knew Abraham, you'd know who I am." He, Jesus, and Paul, other writers of the New Testament, they based their understanding of what it is to be a son of Abraham based on whether you have the faith of Abraham. Now, Paul would say this in other places. This isn't like one throwaway line here that we're just kind of extracting that from. He said it elsewhere. In Romans 2, he says the exact same thing. He says this. He says, "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly." He is not a Jew who is one simply on the basis of having the same ethnicity or being of the same gene pool as Abraham. "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly," who's one inwardly, "and whose circumcision is that of the heart."

This is a distinction of such critical importance and one that the Judaizers did not want to accept. They were trying to make you a Jew in order to become a Christian. And Paul says, no, the true Jew is the individual who believes. The one who believes inwardly. The one who has the faith of Abraham is of the heritage, the lineage, the descendancy of Abraham. Let's look at verses 10 through 12 now. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." For as many of those as who deliberately put shackles upon themselves and said to themselves, "I need to do these things in order to be saved," he says, "For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For as written, 'Curse is everyone who does not continue in the things which are written in the book of the law to do them.' But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident"For the just shall live by faith.

Let me ask you a question. I'm going to change tracks for a moment. Have you ever heard of the word relic? The word relic. Well, the word relic, when we think of it, well, that usually applies to something old. If you have something old in the house, something dusty, you could call such thing a relic simply because it's old and antiquated. Well, with that said, in religious circles, the word relic means something more, something different. You see, a relic in a Roman Catholic setting is this. It's an object of biblical antiquity. It's something from scripture, something or fragment of a thing that you can read about in the pages of the book. For example,

a corner of Jesus' robe or a thorn from the crown of thorns. I used the example of Peter's wisdom teeth in the first service. Something old that was from, especially if it was from an apostle or Jesus or the like, something from the biblical narrative that we can lay hold of now and even touch now. In Roman Catholic circles, you would call such a thing a relic. Now, with that said, there are different classes of relics. There's a first-class relic, there's a second-class relic, there's even a third-class relic. Now, a first-class relic is what you would guess. If you actually had Peter's wisdom teeth or something like that, that would be a first-class relic. It's the actual thing. So what do you think a second-class relic is? Well, a second-class relic is something that touched the first-class relic. If you had a corner of Peter's robe, Paul's robe, Christ's robe, or what have you, if you had a splinter off the true cross, what have you, you could call that a first-class relic. But then if you had a pencil in your hand and you touched the first-class relic, the pencil becomes, guess what? A second-class relic. Why? Because it had touched this important thing of significance. Now the pencil has significance. Now others will look to touch the pencil because they perceive there might be some blessing that comes from touching the pencil. Well, what if the pencil then touches, say, an apple? Well, what happens then? Well, then you have a third-class relic. Then you have a relic that touched another relic that touched another relic. And the idea here, if you go to Europe or you go to Israel, you'll find that there are shrines in all manner of places that'll sell you third-class relics that touched a second-class relic that touched a first-class relic and the like. There's all manner of these different things that exist, and the idea is that those who seek them out, that those who touch them, that those who venerate them, those who get in the presence of these things, that there's some temporal spiritual blessing that they receive from having done so. That you make a pilgrimage to go put your hand on a wall where some apparition of Mary once appeared years ago, supposedly, and that by touching that wall, you're better off as a result. That there's some blessing that flows from that. So the principle here in Roman Catholic terms is that faith, yes, faith is good. Faith is good. But if you have an opportunity to add to that faith by doing something like going and touching a relic or making a pilgrimage to a place or paying an indulgence of the like, then that is better. That's faith plus. Faith plus something beyond that. Now, in the Reformation, you remember Martin Luther. Martin Luther, the more he studied these things, the more offended he got by them because he realized that he had felt enslaved, shackled by laws that he couldn't keep, compelled to go do things that he couldn't do all of them, and he felt that he was continually falling short. Martin Luther, for all that he did, remember, we've talked about him before, Martin Luther was like the greatest monk in the monastery. He would scrub every pot, shine every bit of the floor. He would do all these things. He'd go to the confessional, and then two minutes later, he'd run back to the confessional. He did everything, and he once declared that if a monk could be saved by monkery, by doing monastic things, that he was that monk, that he would be the man because of all the things he did. He did all that stuff. He kept all those laws. He added all manner of things on top of what he perceived his faith to be, and none of it felt sufficient for him, and none of it gave him a sense of security that he desperately longed to have. He always felt that he fell short. Now, in time, as you know, Martin Luther had an encounter with scripture, an encounter with scripture that changed his outlook, I guess the best way. Changed his theology, that's for sure. And in time, he began to hate all the practices that he had done in the past, not because some of them were wrong. It can be helpful to fast and the like. Not because they were all intrinsically wrong, although some were, like indulgences, but mostly because he had been told that those things added something to his faith. He began to loathe these things. And as he watched the people in his community chasing after relics, paying indulgences, saying the rosary, running in and out of the confessional booth, climbing a million stairs on their bloody kneecaps to try to make God happy,

he saw them, he had pity on them because he saw in them himself and the journey that he had gone through.

Where was Luther from? Anyone know what country?

Germany.

Germany. Well, in Germany, there was a town. It's called Aachen. Aachen, Germany. Now, Aachen, Germany was home to a relic, a first-class relic, theoretically. And the relic, the thing that Aachen had that people would travel distances to go and to see and to venerate and the like, the thing that Aachen, Germany had was this. It had Joseph's pants. Joseph's pants. Now, let me ask you, do you remember all those great gospel stories about Joseph's pants? Do you remember Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, how they talked at length about Joseph's pants? Do you remember all those verses? Neither do I. They're not in the book. Who cares about Joseph's pants? Well, the people in Germany cared, and people from elsewhere in Europe who traveled there cared. Why? Because Rome told them they should do so. Put some value on going and seeing, venerating Joseph's pantsA value upon it that was a sign that was greater than prayer and worship and all the other good and holy things. And so Luther, he saw people do this. He saw people he loved doing this, and he was just so frustrated by this. He saw them taking their faith and diminishing that. Yeah, I've got faith, I've got faith, I've got faith, and then just trying to do all these sorts of things on top of that. So he said this. He made this quote or made this statement. He said, "In Aachen," Germany. "In Aachen are Joseph's pants. Go there and squander your money. Buy indulgences and purchase the Pope's second-hand junk."

You can imagine what Luther thought about Joseph's pants. To Luther, that pursuit, these sorts of things, it was crazy. It was insane. It was as if the people who would journey to go stand in the room of Joseph's pants, it was as if they were bewitched. That's borrowing a term Paul used, and yet it's the same thing. Paul, like Luther, was just astonished, shell-shocked at the length people would go to take a wonderful, simple gospel and say, "Ah, none of that." Or at least, "That's just a building block on which we'll add other things." To Luther, Paul, others, this was silly. People who believe such a thing or who endorse such a thing, they were being bewitched. It's much like the man who I told you at the outset of today's sermon. It's much like the man who looked my wife in the eye and said this, that unless your son is baptized and according to a certain means at a certain time in his life, he cannot be saved. He's trying to bewitch us to believe something that isn't so, and something that if we believed it would be like a dagger in our hearts.

In Paul's day, the Judaizers were aiming a dagger at the heart of the gospel. In Luther's day, Rome did that. Whether you're the Judaizers, the Church of Christ, the Roman Catholics, still others, many attempt to insert their own views, laws, or traditions on top of the gospel. And it's as if they've never read Galatians or any other books of the Bible. Man alive, I don't know how you can be an intellectually honest Roman Catholic and ever reconcile those views with Galatians. You can't. The amount of times Paul says we're justified by faith alone, faith alone, faith alone, not faith plus, it's the whole book. We'll be dealing with this five more weeks. He repeated the thing ad nauseam because the people didn't get it. He says, "No one," in verse 11, "No one is justified by the law in the sight of God." He says, "No one is justified by the law in the sight of God. This is evident. The just shall live by faith." He's saying how you get saved, it can't be any clearer. He's saying it can't be any clearer. It's evident. However, I'll tell you this. The people, the churches, the groups, the cults that want to squeeze sinners for their money

or groups who want to define who gets saved based on their terms,

they're never content

with the statement, the just live by faith.

If you ever hear in your religious walk, any time in the days ahead, wherever God should take you, if you ever hear faith, and then there's a plus sign, whatever it is, run.

Run, because that is not of scripture. And Paul said in chapter one, he says, "If any man, even if I myself, if another apostle, if an angel from heaven comes down and teaches you anything other than this gospel in which you have been taught, let such a one be anathema. Let such a one be accursed," he says.

Faith plus nothing is a means of salvation. Let's look at our final verses, verses 13 and 14. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'" The cross is made of a tree. "That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."

If there was a class-- We're going to have a new members class next month, and it's going to be exciting. If there was a class, however, that you just titled Christianity 101. Christianity 101. One of the first lessons

they would teach is this. That God has given us laws, and you and I have broken the laws that He has given. We would start first with the problem. Christianity 101. You start with man's problem. People will never understand or appreciate why they need to be saved if they don't understand there's something they need to be saved from. You say we have a problem. We've broken the law of someone big, someone bigger than ourselves, and this one has told us that the consequences for breaking his law is death. The wages of sin, singular, is death. That should be petrifying to you and I. We've sinned more times than we could count. The wages of sin is death. This again, this is Christianity 101. It's not the most popular part of Christianity. It's not the sexy part that people try to sell in other places, in other brick buildings with crosses out front, but it's true. The wages of sin is death. This is our problem. However, Christianity 101, along with saying that, in conjunction with saying that, also says this. That although we have a problem, although we've broken the law, that God, out of his love for us, has provided the means through his own Son by which the curse of the law is paid in full. He says you've sinned, I've sinned. We've all sinned. But out of his love for us, God sent his own Son, the perfect Lamb of God, to stand in the law place that the wrath of God might come down on him and not on us. The gospel is a recognition of the problem, and it's a rejoicement over the solution, that God has provided his own Son for us. And that's what we see here in verse 13. Christ has redeemed us, purchased us back from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. He who knew no sin became sin for us. For it's written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree."That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. To those who teach that salvation comes as a means of any equation of works, any amount of works, whether it's one or a thousand, scripture says this, "You're right insofar as that work does matter, but it's not your work." You are saved by works, but those works were not done by you. They were done by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He lived the life that you should've lived. He kept all the laws that you didn't keep. He did all the things that you didn't do. And because of that, he's the perfect substitute for you if he was willing, which he was. We are saved by works, but it's not ours. It's not ours. And you see, this is so important to the biblical narrative because if you believe something different. If you say, "Well, his work was good. His work did 99% of the effort, but I added this one thing," or these two things or these hundred things, whatever they are, you know what that has the net effect of doing? It has the net effect of robbing from God and robbing from Christ his glory. Why? Because it says in some way, whether it's small or great, I accomplished my own salvation. Jesus made it possible for me to save myself by the things that I did. [imitates buzzer] That's not the gospel message. And to believe such a thing, it's not only not the gospel message, it's antithetical to the gospel message. And that's why Paul says that this

issue, this is the hill on which he was willing to die.

In our day and age, people will die over masks.

They'll scarcely die over matters of justification.

Paul reserved his greatest rebukes, his strongest words for this very issue.

In closing, Paul also said this. He says, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Full stop.

If you confess with your mouth, if you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died on your behalf, that he took the punishment that your sins are due, if you believe in this, if you trust in it, if you trust in his work on Calvary, his atoning sacrifice, his substitution, you trust in that, then you are saved. This morning, it's imperative not only that we believe that, but we teach it and profess it into a world that believes it's saved through works. It's imperative that we share the true gospel, the saving gospel, the true light in a world of darkness. This morning, if you trust in that, if you trust in Christ's atoning work and not your own, this morning, if you confess with your mouth, you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died on your behalf, then you are saved. And nobody

can ever take that from you. Let's pray.