A FREE GIFT VISITED

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. ---Rom. 3:24

I have been watching with both interest and amazement a confrontation between Arnold Hardin, a preacher in Dallas, and some of his fellow ministers who read his church bulletin. All involved belong to what some call the Antis, but in my history of the Movement I call them the “Conservative Churches of Christ.” And I do not put them down!

The onset is over brother Hardin’s insistence that salvation is by faith apart from works of law --- any law, even “the law of Christ,” if there is such a thing. One of his constant references is Rom. 3:28: “We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.” He also refers to Philip. 3:9: “Not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” He thus writes of imputed righteousness, showing that we have no righteousness of our own, but only the righteousness of Christ which God grants to us through grace only on the basis of our faith, apart from works.

Would you believe that a man would find disfavor with gospel preachers for writing such obvious truths as these? As incredible as it is, they contend man is saved by works, which they identify as obeying God’s commands, such as baptism. So, they say, salvation is not wholly a matter of God’s grace, but also of man’s initiative. Since man has to do something in response to God’s grace (which Arnold does not deny), what he does is thus a work by which he is saved. Moreover, righteousness is not imputed, but it is the result of man cooperating with the requirements of the gospel. And so “the imputation of righteousness” has become an issue among these brethren, and brother Hardin is caricatured in their press as some special kind of heretic. As I read all this I can hardly believe my eyes. Gospel preachers, not humanists, are making such an issue!

I look for causes in this sort of tragedy. What have we done to our people that they have been deluded into supposing that God’s grace needs to be scotched by our good works, and that we are saved by “works of righteousness” even when the apostle clearly shows that we are not --- not even by works of righteousness! If this were indeed the way of it, then our Lord’s death was in vain. This is precisely the way Paul puts it: “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose” (Gal. 2:21).

I am persuaded that the culprit is our doctrine of baptism, for many of our people suppose that baptism is a work of righteousness whereby we are saved. We are saved by being baptized! While we may relate this to God’s grace, we nonetheless see baptism as a procuring act: we procure salvation by being baptized --- this being made possible of course by God’s grace! That is about the way we cut it, at best. This is why a lot of our folk, especially some preachers, get upset with the likes of Arnold Hardin when he notes what is obviously gospel truth: that we are saved by grace, wholly by grace. The immediate reaction is, what does this do to baptism? We are therefore left with a “works gospel,” even when giving lip service to grace.

Has such a tragedy befallen us that we do not even know what the gospel is? Baptism can be no part of the gospel, for gospel is good news while baptism is a command and an act. Baptism may be a means of responding to the good news, but not the news itself. The good news is summarized in the text with which we began: we are justified (made right with God) by his grace as a gift through Jesus Christ. The prefatory words enhance the magnanimity of the blessed news, for we all have sinned and are consequently far from God. But He saves us as an act of mercy through Jesus. Glory be! There is nothing that I can do to earn it or to buy it or to procure it or to deserve it. Any righteousness that I may have is like the mop used to clean out the commode (modern version!). I cannot procure even the shadow of His righteousness, even if I am baptized a thousand times or die that many deaths. If it were so, I would not need Christ. He is not a lawgiver, but a savior, a sin-bearer.

We are saved by his grace as a gift. Can we not see it? Is it not something like Nixon’s pardon? Poor man, everybody was down on him because of his blatant sins against the very people that trusted him with their highest office. The rascal, he should have rotted in prison. That is what he deserved. Then the President pardoned him. I find you not guilty, the nation said through its President, even when he really was. A free gift! True, Nixon had to accept the pardon. He had to sign something and send it in. Was what he did a “work” that procured the pardon? Only a fool would suggest such, and yet that is what we have done with baptism, making it a procuring act rather than a confirming act.

The big difference in the Nixon illustration is that even a President cannot issue a pardon from sin, not even by shelling out all the gold in Fort Knox. If we are made righteous, it must be imputed to us by one who is able to be “a propitiation for sins.” But we are just as guilty as Nixon, and there is not one thing we can do about it on our own. It is a free gift. Now when we accept the gift by being baptized (this being the ordinance He has given as a sign of the acceptance) does this make baptism a “work of righteousness” whereby we procure what God has to offer?

If this is not what baptism for the remission of sins means, then we are guilty of compromising the gospel. We are saved by grace through faith as a free gift (period)! That is the gospel! God has ordained an act whereby we can know, when we obey the act, that we have the remission of our sins, just as we can know that we have passed from Texas into Oklahoma when we see the sign. Baptism is thus a sign of what God has done because of our faith in Christ. It is a necessary sign, but still a sign, or a “figure” as it is stated in I Pet. 3:21.

This must be our understanding of baptism for the remission of sins, lest we nullify the gospel and have a religion based on works. That would be bad news, for there is no way for us to put it together, not even good folk like us!

The difficulty brother Hardin is having has its bright side, for it means that some have “seen the grace of God,” like Barnabas did (Acts 11 :23) and that others are being led to reexamine their position. It is part of the changing scene among Churches of Christ. So we should all take heart, including brother Hardin, and count our blessings. --- the Editor