The Path to Christlikeness

THE PATH TO CHRISTLIKENESS

Have you ever felt lost or confused while attempting to live in a Christ-honoring way? If you have, or if these times are confusing to you, then perhaps it is time to look at the roadmap God provided us. The seven feasts of Moses are like guideposts delineating the path to Christlikeness. In the two chapters that are copied below, we will look at our spiritual condition; why the Christian Path--based on our condition--is the only one that makes sense; and the first guidepost of our journey: Passover.
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INTRODUCTION: RESTLESSNESS

THE HUMAN CONDITION
There is an emptiness at the center of our souls and it will not let us rest until we fill it. It launches us on a lifelong quest for satiation and this pursuit expresses itself in many ways. Some people chase after fame, others struggle to amass power, or possessions and riches. These worldly paths can provide momentary satisfaction, but ultimately the hunger returns. The void in our souls demands more, always more, and we restlessly respond. But no matter how much we partake of the world’s empty calories, they fail to satisfy us.
Perhaps the worst symptom generated by this emptiness is the way it is so self-centering. We are like starving men and women whose thoughts can only focus on our empty bellies. Additionally, this self-centered nature desires glory. We want to finish first, occupy the top of the org chart, receive the awards, make more money and possess nicer things than our “neighbors.” We like to sit in an airplane’s first-class seats so we can watch the proles schlep by. But once we arrive at our intended destination, wherever it is, we discover the emptiness is still with us, sending us down yet another blind alley that ends in ravenous hunger.
We find this meaningless, worldly life in Ecclesiastes where its author, the Preacher, built gardens, parks, buildings and pools for his enjoyment. He accumulated flocks, herds, silver, gold and many concubines. He pursued wisdom and drank wine. He also boasted, “So I became great, and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem” (Ec 2:9). Yet he eventually realized that his self-centered, self-exalting life that enabled him to surpass everyone, “was vanity and a striving after wind” (Ec 2:11).
Some people are able to see how the world’s paths are dead ends, and this inspires them to follow a religion to find peace. Yet virtually every “spiritual” answer leads us astray. The only exception is the Way that is Christ. It is the only Path that fills the void inside of us, enabling us to rest.
This idea of spiritual exclusivity infuriates the modern mind which believes inclusivity should be one of the Ten Commandments. But once we compare the world’s religions to the Path, we can see why it is the only Way, for it is the only religion that treats our self-centering disease.

THE MAN-MADE PATHS

Other than Christianity, every religion is based on “scriptures” written by someone whose vision was warped by the self-centering nature we all share. The proof of this is found in the religions they created. “Self” is the answer in their religious systems. If you seek salvation, then your actions will save you. You are your own savior. It is a different type of self-exaltation from the world’s paths, but it is self-exaltation nonetheless.
Let’s take a brief look at the world’s three largest religions, apart from the largest faith, which is Christianity, and answer the question, “Are they paths wherein the individual is his own savior?”
For Buddha, the universal malady was suffering. He then developed a religious course of therapy to liberate us from suffering and it is called the Noble Eightfold Path. It involved: Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. On this path I am the one making the right effort, practicing right mindfulness and right concentration, etc.
In other words, salvation, or enlightenment, does not come from God, but from my actions. And in the earliest forms of Buddhism there was no mention of God. No God, only self… if ever there was a self-centering, self-exalting faith, then Buddhism is it.
In Hinduism, dharma, or right living, is considered to be the same thing as truth itself, and right living is the highest attainment of a human being. The idea of karma is one wherein our good or bad actions generate merits or demerits. Your fate is determined by how you live. You are the author of your destiny, the savior of your own soul.
In Islam one’s spiritual destiny is also determined by how you live and what you do. We read this from the website www.islamreligion.com:

"Islam teaches us that salvation is attainable through the worship of God alone. A person must believe in God and follow His commandments.
"…In addition to this Islam teaches us that human beings are born without sin and are naturally inclined to worship God alone (without any intermediaries). To retain this state of sinlessness humankind must only follow God’s commandments and strive to live a righteous life" [My note: Emphasis added].

It could not be clearer. You, who “strive to live a righteous life,” are the author of your own salvation in Islam.
If we have a dis-eased soul whose symptoms are being self-centered and prone to self-exaltation, then can you imagine the following prescription: Focus on the actions of the self (self-centered), for they will save you (self-exaltation). Wouldn’t this prescription feed the disease?

THE REVEALED RELIGION

The Path to Christlikeness, or the Christian faith, moves in the opposite direction of the other religions, because it opposes human nature. It is centered on God and others, and not self. In fact, self plays no role in our salvation on the Path. (More on that in the next chapter.) Therefore, the process of salvation in Christianity does not reinforce the self-centered, self-exalting nature of our souls.
No self-centered person could have created this other-centered faith. So, God revealed His Way to us through His Son, and His Spirit-anointed prophets and apostles. The Apostle Paul wrote about how the Christian faith he shared with us was not something he invented, or was taught; God revealed it to him:

"For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal 1:11-12).

Since God is love, and the Path is based on God’s other-centered nature and not our own, it has this unique feature: It can be extremely difficult to navigate. Our nature shouts, “Go left!” Meanwhile, the Path moves sharply right. Many great saints felt lost on the Path while they were making their greatest progress. As Martin Luther summarized:

"Samson, David, and many other excellent men, fell into grievous sins. Job and Jeremiah cursed the day of their birth. Elijah and Jonah became weary of life and prayed for death. Such offenses on the part of the saints, the Scriptures record for the comfort of those who are near despair. No person has ever sunk so low that he cannot rise again. On the other hand, no man’s standing is so secure that he may not fall."[1]

God designed a Path that is beyond our comprehension because His ways are not ours:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Is 55:8-9, emphasis added).

We are unable to understand God’s “ways,” or His thoughts, on our own. But the Spirit of God understands them, and Jesus promised us that the Holy Spirit would guide us “into all the truth” (Jn 16:13). Understanding God’s “ways” is vital to our journey if we are to walk on the Path in peace, confident in God’s love even as He leads us into dark, painful places, as He did with Job, Elijah, Jonah and others.
If the Path is a spiritual course of treatment that is designed to heal us—and it is—then to understand it better we need to understand our disease. The nature of our illness first appeared in a story known as the Fall of Adam and Eve.

THE FALL

Adam and Eve’s story begins with God creating them in His image. Since Christ “is the image of God” (Col 1:15), our ancient ancestors were originally Christlike in Paradise. To remain image bearers of God, Adam and Eve needed to obey one, simple command: Do not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For if you do, you will die.
At first, there was Adam, Eve and God in Paradise, but a fourth character entered the play. It was the “ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev 12:9). True to his deceptive character, the serpent lied to Eve by telling her she would not die if she ate the forbidden fruit. “The deceiver of the whole world” was making God out to be a liar! And then he added this tempting, self-exalting promise: She would “be like God” (Gen 3:5).
In a very limited sense, what Satan said was true. When Eve ate the forbidden fruit, she became God-like in that she shared God’s ability to know good and evil. But she became the exact opposite of God in every other way. For God is life, and she became spiritually dead. God is holy, and she became tainted with sin. The image of God is Christ but, once she ate this fruit, she began to reflect the image of the serpent; for like the serpent, she became a rebel against God’s will.
Eve’s faith was being tested in the Garden of Eden. Who would she believe, God or Satan? Whose desires would she choose to satisfy? Would it be God’s desire for her, or what was becoming her own desire to become like God through disobedience?
As the tendrils of Satan’s temptation began to enter and encircle Eve’s soul, she began to see the world around her in a new light. For example, she saw “that the tree was good for food,” (Gen 3:6). But in reality, it was the deadliest of poisons, and there was no antidote yet available.
Eve was seeing the opposite of reality. Her world was being turned upside-down. The forbidden tree, and its deadly fruit, was now “a delight to the eyes, and … was to be desired to make one wise” (Gen 3:6). You will be like God! You will be wise! She was infected by the self-centering, self-exalting poison of Satan’s temptation.
Eve was now spiritually blinded by her fledgling faith in Satan and his false promises. She acted on this bad faith and ate the fruit. Now she knew good and evil, and it revealed to her the enormity of her sin. She felt exposed, naked and ashamed, and could see how the serpent, not God, had deceived her.
Adam stood by Eve’s side as she violated God’s command. Then he joined Eve in her sin by also eating the forbidden fruit. For their sin, Adam and Eve fell from grace and were expelled from Paradise.

THE FALL’S EFFECTS

Theologians have noted the self-centering effects of the Fall and sin. Jonathan Edwards described the impact of the Fall as follows:

"The ruin that the fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in his losing the nobler and more benevolent principles of his nature, and falling wholly under the power and government of self-love.
"…Sin, like some powerful astringent, contracted his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was forsaken, and fellow creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself and became totally governed by narrow and selfish principles and feelings. Self-love became absolute master of his soul, and the more noble and spiritual principles of his being took wing and flew away."[2]

Martin “Luther described the man in sin as incurvatus in se (bent inward upon himself) whereas the man in Christ looks away from himself toward God and his neighbor in love.”[3]
The picture taking shape is of a human race wherein everyone is the spiritual equivalent of a black hole, a star that collapses inward upon itself and creates such a powerful gravitational pull that nothing can escape it, not even light. We were created to radiate light one day, but after the Fall our misshapen souls could not even let light escape. Men and women, the images of God, became images of complete spiritual ruin.
The focus of a fallen soul, no matter how hard we try to make it otherwise, is our self. Even our attempts to love others, serve others, do unto others, is colored by a soul that always calculates, consciously or subconsciously, how the effort will enrich himself. This corrupts all that we do, including the creation of religions. Therefore, the man-made religions are self-centric when it comes to matters of salvation, but in the one “revealed” religion, salvation is based on what our Savior-God does.

A PATH UNLIKE ANY OTHER

Now that we are acquainted with how our souls are deformed by sin, it is easier to understand the Path and how it is different from every other. God’s Path leads us in the opposite direction of our natural tendencies, because our natural tendencies lead us away from God. Our desire to be like God leads us to seek the sunlit mountain tops of glory. But the Path to Christlikeness will humble us, and sometimes lead us into the valley of the shadow of death where the sun’s rays cannot reach.
We believe we must contribute to our salvation through various actions like prayer, fasting, good works, confession, meditation, pursuing wisdom, and building up knowledge. But the Path to Christlikeness tells us we are spiritually dead (Eph 2:5), just like our fallen forebears, Adam and Eve, and dead people cannot save themselves.
We believe if we live good lives, then we will be saved—the essence of the Hindu and Islamic faiths. But God tells us our righteous works “are like a polluted garment” (Is 64:6). For if our nature is soiled, then every “garment” we cover ourselves with becomes soiled.
We desire to be first, but the Path declares the first will be last, and the last will be first. We want to rule, but the Path tells us the greatest among us will be servants and slaves.
Note the constant inversion taking place on the Path. To make our upside-down world right-side-up, God must reverse the reversal. Sin stood us on our heads. Satan’s influence warped our vision to the point where we now see the opposite of what is real. So, God reverses this inversion by lifting us up and putting us back on our feet. He then gives us His Word to believe in and follow. It is to be our guide on the Path: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119:105).
To see how God’s reversal of Satan’s inversion takes place, we return to the Garden of Eden. Eve sinned when she ate the forbidden fruit, and her sinful action was the result of bad faith. She did not believe God; she believed Satan.
To save fallen humanity, God devised a Path wherein faith—a saving belief in God’s words, or His gospel—enables us to return to His presence and Paradise. Adam and Eve did not believe God’s words in the Garden, but we can reverse the effects of the Fall by believing the good news. Instead of believing what our eyes see, we are to believe the Word of God.
The first message from Jesus’ lips, in the Gospel according to Mark was, “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15).” A fruit of conversion is repentance. Once saved our mind and purpose changes, and this is the definition of repentance. We are now moving in a different direction. Repentance is the essence of the divine inversion. We were going left, now we are going right. Our minds were centered on ourselves, and now our focus is shifting to God and others.
Faith is the foundation of a Christian’s life and our ability to live a God-honoring life is in direct relation to the depth of our faith in Him. To develop a deeper faith, God continually tests it throughout our lives. This has always been so for the children of God, both those who looked forward to the coming of Christ and those who’ve lived after His ascension into the heavens.

ELIJAH’S FAITH IN GOD

Just as there are people who are considered “most likely to succeed,” there are also prophets who are “most unlikely to fail a faith test.” Elijah was such a prophet. His faith was fortified by witnessing the power of God on several occasions. A dramatic example of this was when he challenged the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah, to put their god to a test. Would their god be able to consume a burnt offering?
Elijah believed his God would pass this test, for he told them “…and the God who answers by fire, he is God” (1 Ki 18:24).
Their god did nothing, and Elijah, one prophet against 850 false prophets, mocked them and their god. (His haughty, sarcastic tone may have been the symptom of a pride infection. More on this in a moment.) He then called upon the LORD and fire came down from heaven to consume his burnt offering. After this dramatic display of God’s power, he ordered the Israelites to capture and kill every one of these false prophets. These evil shepherds who led the Israelites down false paths had to be removed, and they were.
To confront so many men required great courage and faith. The spiritual position of Elijah, the mighty man of God, was certainly secure at this point in his walk with God. Or was it? I am reminded of Martin Luther’s words, quoted above, “On the other hand, no man’s standing is so secure that he may not fall.” And those words applied to Elijah. He collapsed under the crushing weight of his prophetic burden.

ENTERING THE SUNLESS VALLEY

King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, who had these false prophets dine at her table, pronounced a death sentence on Elijah. Elijah had ordered the deaths of her spiritual advisors and friends, and she ordered his death in return. Elijah responded by fleeing into the wilderness and praying to God to take his life.
It was a stunning abdication of his prophetic responsibilities. What happened to his faith in God? It was being tested and Elijah was failing this test. He appeared lost and confused on God’s perplexing Path.
Was Elijah’s turning away from his prophetic calling permanent? Was his fall from grace irreversible?
No. This moment of weakness did not disqualify Elijah from receiving the Lord’s blessing. His failing the faith-test, of trusting God as his life was being threatened, did not result in him being banished from the presence of God. Quite the opposite. A short time later, while transferring his ministry to Elisha, he was swept up into the heavens on a chariot of fire to be with the Lord forever. Later on, Elijah and Moses, would meet with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration in glorified bodies. Few people in history have ever been as honored as Elijah.
So, how do these spiritual honors make sense? Is our failure to live up to our faith what is truly blessed?

GRACE REQUIRES A HUMBLE HEART

Though the Bible does not explicitly tell us this, Elijah’s pride, as he was being used mightily by God, must have grown to a spiritually dangerous level. It is human for this to happen, and it happened to the Apostle Paul.
Paul was caught up to paradise and received revelations from God that were so profound he was not allowed to share them. The experience overwhelmed his senses. He did not know if he was in his body or out of it during these revelations. Such favor, even though it was from the hand of God, might make Paul prideful. But Christ had a plan to protect Paul from this spiritually-incapacitating sin.
Paul wrote, “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Cor 12:7, emphasis added).
Paul’s fallen nature, like our own, was inclined toward pride. Pride commits two sins simultaneously. It exalts self and it looks down on others. It makes us deaf to the Word of God. When the proud heart hears, “the first shall be last,” it laughs at such nonsense.
To treat our self-exalting sin-nature, God “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pt 5:5). The reason why the last shall be first, is because God extends His spiritual blessings and power—His grace—to those who have been humbled, or made last. This humbling can take place in the lives of individuals like Elijah, but also in the collective lives of nations, and to the citizens of the entire world, as the Covid-19 pandemic revealed.

THE PATH DURING PLAGUE YEARS

God’s refining fire grows hotter during plague years, like the ones we experienced during the Covid pandemic. This time of stomach-churning turbulence tested our faith. People were stressed, exhausted and wanted to check out. Several people, who are believers in Christ, told me, “I can’t take it anymore.” They’d reached the point of capitulation. The certainty and peace of mind they sought was overwhelmed by the chaos and confusion of a world gone mad.
What happened to them? Where was their rest in Christ?
As we anxiously look at the upheaval shaking the world, and feel a suffocating fear slowly spreading over us, we can never rest. We are living by sight, not faith, and our fear is an expression of our disbelief. We need to believe God’s words. The Word of God tells us, “Trust not what you see. Trust the Word of God that tells you, ‘God is in control.’ ”
We are back in Eden, where the serpent’s strategy was to get Adam and Eve to doubt God’s words. When our forebears doubted God, and believed what the serpent told them, they were exiled from Paradise. Today it is the sowers of chaos who are trying to shake our faith. Though we might occasionally hold Adam and Eve in contempt for their sin that led to the Fall, we commit their sin when we fail to believe God’s words.
Our faith needs to be strengthened to meet the spiritual needs of this hour. And as we stumble, fall, cry, scream at God, and even wallow in self-pity, many of us will fail to see how God is accomplishing His purpose in our lives. He is humbling us and turning us away from independence and toward God-dependence.
If we are to maintain our belief in God’s love, and completely trust Him during times of extreme faith-testing, then we need to understand the nature of the Path. For as we suffer under God’s discipline—sometimes for years—it is easy to forget that He is operating on our hearts for our good.
God will strip away everything—if need be—from the children He loves until they understand that He is their portion and nothing more is needed. Another way of expressing this thought is, “If you have Jesus, you have everything.” It sounds simplistic, almost childlike, but it is true.

A COURSE IN DISCIPLESHIP

To help us navigate this perplexing Path let us deepen our understanding of its times of anointing and times of testing. The seven feasts of Moses are like signposts that delineate the Path’s many disorienting tests and periods of fruitfulness. They form our curriculum in the discipleship-training program of Jesus. The feasts have much to teach us about God’s ways, and when we feel lost upon the Path, they can help reorient us and reinforce our trust in God our Savior.
“Moed” is the Hebrew word for “appointed feast,” and it can also be translated as “appointed time.” Each feast represents an appointed time in our lives during which we learn new lessons, and ultimately graduate to higher levels of spiritual maturity. So, think of these feasts, that appear in the table below, as steps toward becoming more Christlike.

THE STAGES ORDER FESTIVAL MONTH DAY(S)

Stage One 1 Passover 1 14
Stage One 2 Unleavened Bread 1 15-21
Stage One 3 Firstfruits 1 16

Stage Two 4 Pentecost, Weeks 3 6

Stage Three 5 Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah 7 1
Stage Three 6 Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur 7 10
Stage Three 7 Booths, Ingathering, Tabernacles 7 15-22

The first feast, Passover, marks the beginning of the Path that then continues with the remaining six feasts. We will study each of them in the chapters that follow and explore their rich, spiritual significance that we often overlook when reading the Bible.
This Path to Christlikeness is designed to treat our restless condition and restore the image of God that we were created in. We now start the most significant journey of our lives as we leave the spiritual re-birth canal and emerge as born-again children of God.

NOTES

[1] Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians. Transl. Theodore Graebner, (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1538), p. 36.

[2] Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits; or Christian Love as Manifested in the Heart and Life (NY: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1856), pp. 226-227, 227-228.

[3] Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, Volume One: God, Authority and Salvation (Peabody, MA: Prince Press, 1978), p. 92.

STAGE ONE: FAITH

CHAPTER ONE: THE FEAST OF PASSOVER

THE STORY OF PASSOVER

Passover is the story about the Israelite’s first-born children who were saved from death by the blood of a lamb. It is our story too, for Passover is an illustration of how we are saved, or spiritually reborn. For those unfamiliar with its story, I will briefly recount some of the highlights.
      God visited ten plagues on the Egyptian people to get Pharaoh to release the Israelites from their enslavement. The final plague targeted and killed every first-born child in Egypt, including Pharaoh’s eldest son and heir. The only first-born children who survived were those who dwelt in homes that had the blood of a defect-free sheep, or goat, marking its lintel and two doorposts. Then, when the “destroyer,” an angel of death, saw this blood, he would pass over the people who dwelt safely inside. It did not matter if these people were saintly or wicked. The only thing that mattered was the presence of the right type of blood.
Once again, we are back in the Garden of Eden. God commanded the Israelites to do one thing, and if they failed to do it death would be the result. But the children of God obeyed this simple command, unlike Adam and Eve, and their first-born children escaped death. As we will see, there are two types of people in this world: Those who are facing eternal death, and those who are protected by the blood of a Lamb.

“OUR PASSOVER LAMB”

Prior to salvation, we are like the first-born in Egypt living in homes not marked by the blood of a lamb. But we are saved from this death sentence by believing the good news about God the Son, Jesus, and one way this “faith” has been defined is a “faith in his blood” (Rom 3:25). It is the saving belief that Christ is our Lord who saved us from sin and death by dying for us, and paying the debt our sin incurred.
This sin-debt for us is the same as it was for Adam and Eve: Death. Whoever has sinned (and all have sinned) is under a sentence of death. Were it not for the crucifixion we would be condemned to die in our sins, and be alienated from God forever.
Jesus, our Lord and Savior, is the “defect-free,” or sinless, “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). And He takes away our sin by dying in our place. He is “our Passover lamb” (1 Cor 5:7), and His blood marks our dwelling forever.
We see this blood-salvation connection when the Bible states, “we have now been justified by his blood” (Rom 5:9). To be justified is to be saved. When we are justified, we are declared “not guilty” and “righteous” at the same time. The justified are judged to be in a right relationship with God, because their sin is washed away by the blood of the Lamb. After salvation we will sin, but the death penalty will always be averted by the invisible presence of His blood.
Passover is like a portal one goes through to move from death to life, and from the world’s path to the Path to Christlikeness. On one side of the portal is the restless striving for the ephemeral, while on the other side is the embrace of the eternal that eventually bestows upon us the perfect peace of God.

GRACE AND FREEDOM

When you’ve lived your entire life as a slave, the transition to freedom can be difficult. For some, like the Israelites who were freed from bondage in Egypt, it was impossible. They not only grumbled against God about the privations of the wilderness, they actually sought to return to Egypt and slavery:

“Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt” (Num 14:3-4).

Though freed from Egypt they were still slaves, because they trusted in the provision of Pharaoh more than the provision of God. Faith in God is what liberates us, and a lack of faith enslaves us. After the Israelites saw God’s mighty works liberate them, they were still unable to believe that God could secure the Promised Land for them. For when twelve men came back from the Promised Land, after spying it out for forty days, ten of them doubted they could take the land from the giants who dwelled therein. Their faith in the power of giants exceeded their faith in Almighty God. At every step in the wilderness, the Israelites revealed their bad faith.
God turned their forty days of spying into forty years of wandering in the wilderness until everyone, twenty years or older, died in this waste land. Caleb and Joshua, the two spies who trusted God’s ability to give them the Promised Land, were the only exceptions. A new generation needed to be raised up, one capable of looking to God and trusting that His power was more than enough to make good on His promises.
Faith in God—specifically faith in Jesus, or God the Son—leads to freedom. Until we trust God, we are not free. We are slaves of the enemy of faith: Fear. We are paralyzed by the uncertainty of tomorrow and awed by the giants in our way. This cowardice toward God’s enemies keeps us from effectively serving Him.
Courage is a by-product of faith in God, because when you believe God is with you, then who could possibly stand against you? And even if God’s will is for you to lose your battle, according to the judgment of the world, your faith knows your sacrifice will be turned into a victory by God.
An illustration of a “defeat” in the world’s eyes, but a victory in the eyes of God, is the martyrdom of the saints. In centuries past, they were offered a Christ-denying life or a faithful-to-the-end death. Their faith enabled them to conquer their fear of death and testify that Jesus is Lord. God anointed their sacrifice and made it spiritually powerful enough to open the eyes of many who were enslaved by Satan and his world system. Their blood was instrumental in overthrowing the Roman Empire. More on that in a moment.

SALVATION BY GRACE ALONE THROUGH FAITH ALONE

If Eve was blinded by just the temptation to sin—she saw “that the tree was good for food” before she ate the fruit—then how much more blinding is sin itself? Our fallen state makes the Way that is Christ impenetrably dark, and it is impossible for us to see and understand God’s truth until we are born again.
Prior to being saved, I read the Bible often and I remembered many of its verses, but I understood none of it. The idea of being saved by simply trusting in Jesus, and accepting Him as my Lord and Savior, made no sense to me. Self-salvation was the only path that seemed reasonable to my fallen, rational mind. Martin Luther knew this roadblock to faith all too well. He wrote:

"The heart of man finds it difficult to believe that so great a treasure as the Holy Ghost is gotten by the mere hearing of faith. The hearer likes to reason like this: Forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death, the gift of the Holy Ghost, everlasting life are grand things. If you want to obtain these priceless benefits, you must engage in correspondingly great efforts. And the devil says, 'Amen.' "[1]

What removed the blindfold from my eyes was the presentation of the gospel found in a slender paperback entitled, Sit, Walk, Stand. It was written by Watchman Nee, a Chinese Christian who was imprisoned for his faith after Mao Zedong and the communists came to power. Nee believed the cure for a person’s “sin-sick soul” had nothing to do with what we did, and everything to do with what Christ did. He wrote:

"We constantly speak of being “saved through faith,” but what do we mean by it? We mean this, that we are saved by reposing in the Lord Jesus. We did nothing whatever to save ourselves; we simply laid upon him the burden of our sin-sick souls. We began our Christian life by depending not upon our own doing but upon what he had done. Until a man does this, he is no Christian; for to say: “I can do nothing to save myself; but by his grace God has done everything for me in Christ,” is to take the first step in the life of faith. The Christian life from start to finish is based upon this utter dependence upon the Lord Jesus."[2]

The mystery of faith was being unveiled to my sin-blinded eyes. What revolutionized my thinking was the Holy Spirit’s anointing, enabling me to see how I could never save myself. The lie in the Garden, that I could make myself God-like through my own efforts, was exposed as a fraud by the Holy Spirit. What I did, or will do, cannot save. Only Jesus can save.
      The light of the gospel poured into my soul and suddenly the Bible’s message of salvation made perfect sense. God made the Path to salvation one that would not feed our boastful, self-loving pride. It is the only religious Path to salvation, the only therapeutic-spiritual course of treatment, that does not feed our disease.

“SO THAT NO ONE MAY BOAST”

Paul tells us that the “unmerited favor” of God—the definition of grace—is what saves us, and we receive this gift of “saving grace” through the gift of faith. We tend to focus on the all-important topics of grace and faith in the following verse about salvation, but the phrase that ends this verse shows us how the Path to Christlikeness does not allow us to take credit for any part of our salvation:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph 2:8-9; emphasis added).

Every other spiritual path requires a measure of self-salvation. They lead you to salvation, or enlightenment, through prayer, meditation, or some action—in Paul’s terminology, through “works.” Since you have a hand in your own salvation on these false paths, you’ve earned the right to be proud of your great achievement. But on the Way that is Christ, salvation is a gift of God. It is not the result of our will; it is the result of God’s will:

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (Jn 1:12-13, emphasis added).

The desire to exalt oneself through one’s own efforts was inspired by Satan, and resulted in the Fall. On the Path to Christlikeness, we play no role in our salvation.

WHERE SELF-SALVATION LEADS

Martin Luther understood, in the depths of his soul, how our own efforts cannot save us. As a conscience-stricken monk, he spent all of his energies trying to save himself by fulfilling the law through his own strength. He describes where this path leads:

"I tried hard to live up to every law as best I could. I punished myself with fasting, watching, praying and other exercises more than all those who today hate me and persecute me. I was so much in earnest that I imposed upon my body more than it could stand.
…Yet under the cloak of my outward respectability I continually mistrusted, doubted, feared, hated and blasphemed God. My righteousness was a filthy puddle. Satan loves such saints. They are his darlings, for they quickly destroy their body and soul by depriving them of the blessings of God’s generous gifts."[3]

Instead of rest and peace, Luther’s vain striving produced restlessness, doubt and fear. He tried to achieve salvation by living according to the Law, as he understood it, and he found that human effort could not achieve this end.
Adam is the exemplar of the futility of works. God told him, “…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you…” (Gn 3:17-18). Instead of fruit, Adam’s toil would produce thorns and thistles, a weed with sharp spines. His sin condemned him to live a fruitless life of toil under the sun, and then die. The Book of Ecclesiastes is his biography, and the epitaph of every fallen person is one of its opening lines, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ec 1:2).

ASK YOURSELF…

When I was a Christian in name only, a real Christian asked me a question that I found difficult to answer, “When were you saved?” I offered him a word-salad that was not an answer, and the question kept echoing in my empty heart and mind.
      Because it is an important question to answer on this side of the grave, I will now ask you, “When were you saved?”
      If you say, “I don’t know the exact moment, but I believe in Jesus. I accepted Him as my Lord and Savior over ten years ago,” I would reply, “Excellent! Praise God! For you know what the state of your soul rests on, namely, a saving faith in Jesus.”
      Friends, you might not have experienced anything that communicated to your emotions or intellect that the Holy Spirit indwelt you when you came to a saving faith. Feelings and thoughts of confirmation are not required. What is required is faith, and the confession of this faith.
      So, if you feel drawn to Jesus, and are uncertain of your salvation, then now is the time to say, “Lord Jesus, I believe in You. You are the good news. You died for me because You love me and I believe this to be true, for this gospel is found in the Word of God. You paid my debt on the cross. I am a child of God, now and forever, because of You, not because of me, and for that I give You thanks and praise. Amen.”
      If you were not a member before this moment, and you prayed this prayer from the heart, then I welcome you to the Body of Christ, and the adventure that lies ahead. It is a journey that will frequently be confusing, because God will turn your life upside-down and inside-out. But we have signposts, along the Path, to help guide us, and we will continue to explore their meaning.
The Feast of Passover marks the beginning of the Path to Christlikeness, but in order for us to become Christlike we need to destroy our old nature. This painful process begins in the wilderness which is represented by the second signpost on the Path, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It is our next destination, and it introduces a change in our diet. We will discover what’s on the menu in the next chapter.

NOTES

[1] Luther, Commentary on Galatians, p. 60

[2] Watchman Nee, Sit, Walk, Stand (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1977), p. 15. Emphasis added.

[3] Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, pp 24. 25.