About the only thing I like about math is that you can always count on there being only one right answer. 2+2 = 4, not 5, not 3, not 10. That works well for me, a mostly black-and-white kind of person.
Have you ever thought about salvation in mathematical terms? what + what = salvation?
It's simple right? Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us
God's grace + NOTHING = Salvation
But we humans are really good at second-guessing, aren't we? Sometimes, from a human perspective, that equation just doesn't seem equal on both sides. So, in our hearts, or minds we start to rearrange things - no, we start to add in things that we think will help balance this equation a little better.
How about this one (maybe it'll make you chuckle a bit):
God's grace + homeschooling = salvation
Ever thought a certain lifestyle was essential to your Christianity. Kill that now. It's a lie.
Or how about:
God's grace + my holiness = salvation
or
God's grace + conservatism = salvation
or
God's grace + my family's history/position = salvation
Some of my favorites are:
God's grace + my denominational affiliation = salvation
and
God's grace + my orthodoxy = salvation
It's O, so easy for our hearts and minds to complicate the simplicity of God's immeasurable grace. It's nothing new, either. Paul wrote a whole letter to yell at Galatian Christians who were trying to live by this equation:
God's grace + upholding the law = salvation
He yells, "What!? Have you so quickly abandoned what you were taught for another gospel!?... O, Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" (Galatians 1:6 and 3:1, paraphrased)
I am so much like those Galatians some days. How often I must chase away those lies that how I live effects my salvation. How often I must repent, not just of my actions, but of my entire attitude and heart, realizing that what I have done is only caused by the false equation I'd been believing.
The Word of God tells us, that it's only when
God's grace + NOTHING = Salvation
rings true, that there is ever any purpose for Christ's crucifixion. "If righteousness were through the law, the Christ died for no purpose." (Gal 2:21)
So, we call ourselves by His name, but live as if His death had no purpose? O, foolish Christians! Let us not forget Him who called us in the grace of Christ!
Cute, but wait there is more...
ReplyDeleteE.g., try this....
For even more serious Salvation mathematics (aka, BethEl math), first draw a real number line horizontally from left to right, starting at 0 and ending at infinity.
Then bend that real number line counter-clockwise ninety degrees at 1, such that that real number line is horizontally going from 0 to 1 and then going vertically from 1 to infinity. Then put on your math observation glasses: If you come horizontally through increasing proper fractions towards 1 from the the left you come to 1 as a place of wholeness. If you vertically come down through smaller and smaller magnitudes to 1, you come to 1 as the place of oneness. If you put the two together you also then have 1 as the place of the union of wholeness and oneness. The Wholly One, of course, BE-ing that which is always and all ways both whole and One, yes-)
Where then is God'at Tri-Une Nature also to be found? Of course, in your heart. But per that Salvation Mathematics of yours which is blessedly now blossoming within you, you are surely being readied to also work with your head. See the mathematics department of Liberty University for more about that. They are now, or hopefully one day soon, will be a resource to you when you are sufficiently motivated. Max pax.