Faith and Works

In The Moral Teaching of Christ we saw that each of the four Gospels presents Christ as teaching — clearly, repeatedly, and without apology — that God opposes all sin and shows favor only to those who obey his commands. And we saw that Paul echoes that same point with equal clarity and force. Yet we also saw something else: both Christ and Paul say, just as plainly, that God welcomes into his favor as heirs of eternal life all who believe the good news Christ announces. Put side by side, those statements can sound like a contradiction — and that tension is what we need to face now.

Because the New Testament teaches both truths so strongly, we cannot accept any “solution” that weakens either one. The first claim is demanded by the supreme authority of the moral law, which will not tolerate any violation of its rights. The second is just as necessary, because only full pardon can meet the deep need of guilty and helpless humanity. So we now look for the underlying harmony between the claims of justice and the message of mercy.

Universal Sin and Moral Ruin

In our last post on "Righteousness and Law", we saw that people across cultures share a deep sense of personal sin and a fearful awareness of punishment beyond death. Alongside this is another powerful experience: the feeling of being morally trapped. We sense what is right, we even approve of it — but something within us holds us back. It is like a chain we cannot break. When we look honestly at ourselves, we find this inner condemnation and bondage clearly present in our own hearts. And when we look outward, we see the same reality vividly reflected throughout human literature.

This same understanding of the human moral condition appears clearly in the letters of Paul. In Romans, Paul pauses his explanation of the Gospel to give a careful description of humanity’s condition apart from it — both Gentiles and Jews alike. In Romans 1:18–32, he explains that God made Himself known to the Gentiles through creation, so that they would have no excuse for their sin. Their moral collapse, he says, shows God’s righteous anger against them for turning away from that revelation and embracing idolatry instead.

The Foundational Principles of Paul's Gospel

When we look for freedom — from the consequences of past sin and from the moral struggles that still bind us — we are led beyond the ethical teachings of Christ we have already briefly examined. We now turn to another set of ideas found in Christ’s message and in the New Testament. These ideas are closely connected to moral teaching, yet clearly distinct from it. They are also strikingly unique within the broader history of religious thought, belonging in a special way to Christ and to those who followed Him.

Because we have no writings directly from Jesus Himself, the most reliable way to understand His teaching is to look at the letters written by the earliest Christian leaders. Among these, we can say with confidence which letters come from the hand of the most prominent early preacher of the Gospel. These writings place us face to face with a remarkable Christian who lived in the same generation as Christ. By studying them, we can attempt to reconstruct Paul’s understanding of both the Gospel and of Christ Himself.