Strait Is the Gate

Someone supporting a ‘take it by faith’ Gospel asked me a few weeks ago if I believed that the blood of Christ was great enough to cover the cost of all of my past, present, and future sins. He was upholding the common Christian mindset that we remain sinners after being “saved by grace,” so the question was an effort to put me in a place where I could not refute the supposed grace that he was trying to convey. But his effort to intimidate me backfired on him when I answered, “No, I believe the blood of Christ is greater than that. I believe that the true blood of the risen Christ is great enough to take sin literally out of our lives, and keep it out.” If we are truly ‘in Christ,’ the Bible says we are a ‘new creature,’ and that “old things [the old man, or sin] have passed away, and all things become new” (II Cor. 5:17). The scripture also says that the blood of Christ is able to do much more than the sacrifices of the old testament, which never took away sin; and that the blood of Christ is able to purify our hearts from sin (Heb. 9:13,14; Heb. 10:4; Acts 15:8,9). And the scriptures say that if we truly have the hope of the resurrection of the dead in us, that we not only have the capacity to make ourselves pure even as Jesus is pure, but that we MUST do so (I Jn. 3:1-3). In fact the apostle Paul plainly stated that if we are really under grace, then we cannot continue in sin because we should be dead to sin (Rom. 6:1,2). The same apostle told us the following in no uncertain terms: “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Tit. 2:11,12).

Funny how these modern Christian traditions and doctrines fall so flat when they are met by a continuity of scriptural evidence that plainly demonstrates the truth that is so contrary to them. All of this stuff about ‘eternal security’ and “sinners saved by grace,” and all other such things; are loosely based on a few scriptures that have been pulled out of context and isolated, so as to create an appearance of an easy path to salvation. Seems someone forgot the scriptural commandment that says we should “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philip. 2:12). And everyone who is willing for someone else to know for them what they truly need to know for themselves, is perfectly willing to receive these flesh-pleasing doctrines, and just coast right on along with a comfortable feeling of false assurance. But my friend, as I told this misguided individual, if we have sin in our lives when we leave this world we will not be in the first resurrection, and thus we certainly will not be saved (I Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21; Heb. 12:14; Rev. 20:6). Furthermore, no amount of false assurance based on these comfortable modern traditions will be able to save us from the wrath of God that will be poured out upon all who have not “obeyed the [true] gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:” (II Thess. 1:8). The gate of modern Christian tradition is surely wide enough for everyone to go through without any particular effort at all [comfortably]. But the gate of holiness that leads to eternal life is very strait, and one must put all of his priority and desire into finding it if he expects to make it through that gate (Prov. 2:4:3-5; Rom. 8:13; Heb. 4:1,11; Mat. 7:12-14). Amen.