Word of Salvation – Vol. 25 No. 14 – January 1979

 

Nothing But Christ Will Do For Me

 

Sermon by Rev. B. Gillard, B.A., B.D. on Philippians 3:2

Scripture reading: Philippians 3:1-16

 

1. Introduction

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Most of us have had the experience of going to a strange house and before going through the gate reading a little sign which says, 'beware of the dog', and then having second thoughts about going any further. It could be that if you go through that gate a big Alsatian will come rushing around the corner and tear the seat out of your trousers before you can get back over the fence.

I remember when I was a young boy my mother would often send me down to the local shop to buy a few things she needed, and in one house along the way there lived a savage dog, and if that dog happened to be in the front of the house when you passed by, it would invariably go for you. So, as you can imagine, I always passed by that house in fear and trembling, and most of the time I crossed the road and went by on the other side.

Well, the apostle Paul brings us a warning today in our text. A warning that confronts us with a far greater peril to our spiritual well-being than that dog presents to the seat of our trousers. So great a danger is it that the apostle repeats it three times. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision. Beware, beware, beware. It's like the red light flashing to indicate the oncoming danger.

Well, we should sit up this morning/evening and take notice of this warning and ask ourselves, 'What's it all about?'

2. What's it all about?

What is it that we are to beware of? Well, the answer can be put this way. We are to beware of any form of teaching or practice which teaches salvation by works as apposed to salvation through by grace through faith alone.

The particular form of false teaching that the apostle Paul is combating here is that of Pharisaic Judaism, and we find one of the clearest statements of this heresy over in Acts chapter 15 verse 1, where we read: "And some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, 'unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved'.”

This heresy was the occasion of the first great synod of the church, and the teaching of the Judaisers was rejected. However, the teachers of this heresy did not give up. They continued to itinerate around the churches and to teach their doctrine.

Thus we should also learn that the purity of the faith cannot be maintained by the Acts of Synods alone, but only through eternal vigilance and contending daily for the faith once delivered to the Saints.

But now we need to ask ourselves today, how is it that the apostle Paul found it necessary to write a warning such as this to professing Christians? Surely they were not in danger of turning away from salvation through faith to salvation through works, were they?

We will fail to understand the subtlety of this danger unless we realise that what the apostle Paul is combating is not something as black and white as a denial of salvation through faith for salvation through works. But rather, an attempt to bring these two things together.

We may be very convinced that a person cannot be saved by good works alone, nor by external religious observances. But we may fall into the trap of believing that the combination of these things together is the thing that saves us or has saving merit.

The Judaisers who came down from Jerusalem were not preaching that faith in Christ was not (also) important for salvation. No, they were quite prepared to accept that. What they insisted upon was that faith alone was not enough. You had to add to faith the ceremony of circumcision, and this implied that you had to observe the ceremonial law of Moses as well. Unless you did these things as well, you could not be saved. It was the combination of these things that they were insisting upon as being necessary for salvation. And that is what the apostle Paul was fighting against.

Now, if we were to translate all of this into modern language, we would have to say something like this: faith in Christ is necessary to salvation, but in addition to that you must be baptised and you must go to church, and you must do this and you must do that, and if you don't do these things, then you cannot be saved.

The error that the apostle Paul is combating is that addition to faith in Christ, whatever the addition may be.

For one person it may be the performance of good works. For another it may be church attendance. It may be one of a dozen things, or a combination of things. However, if they are added to faith alone as the only instrument of laying hold of salvation in Christ, then the apostle would say it is a heresy of the worst possible kind. To add anything at all to faith is to mutilate the gospel.

3. What the Apostle says about People who do this

Now the apostle has some very strong things to say to anyone who adds to, or detracts from, faith alone as the sole instrument of laying hold of Christ and salvation.

a. Dogs

First of all, he calls them dogs. Beware of the dogs, he says. The Jews looked upon the gentiles as dogs. It was a term of reproach used to describe anyone who was unclean and outside the true covenant of God. But now, the apostle reverses the tables. It is no longer the gentiles who are unclean and outside the covenant people of God, but rather all who teach that salvation is to be attained by adding anything to faith in Christ and His finished work upon the cross.

The dogs referred to by the apostle Paul are not the nice little pets that some people keep in their houses, but they were vicious scavengers who lived off the garbage and even dead bodies. If you came into contact with such an animal and were bitten by it, then you would run the risk of being infected with some disease. Well, the apostle Paul says that's just the way we should view anyone who dares to add to the gospel, or to salvation through faith alone. We should avoid them like a disease-carrying dog. Something to ponder in these days of Ecumenical Christianity.

b. Evil Workers!

Such people, the apostle Paul goes on to say, are zealous to promote their cause and their doctrine. You only have to think of the cults today to know how true that is, and often they put us to shame in their efforts to win converts. Like the Pharisees in our Lord's day, they will cross land and sea to make one convert, but the trouble is, when they have him, he is twice the child of hell that he was before.

Yes, they are workers, all right, says Paul, but they are not workers for the good but evil workers promoting another gospel. A gospel which is no gospel at all, because mixing faith and works together in the wrong way effectively destroys the gospel altogether and produces an evil work, namely, the damnation of the soul. This is what the apostle goes on to speak about in the third term he used, ‘the false circumcision’. The word should read, beware of the concision, and the word really means mutilators.

Contrary to the claims of the Judaisers, circumcision would not complete one's salvation. It would only mutilate and destroy the salvation they already had, because Christ, and Christ alone, would cease to be the only object of trust and confidence. Consequently their trust and confidence for salvation would be turned away from Him and placed in one's self and other things that we now feel we must do in order to be saved.

If you submit to that kind of thing, the apostle Paul said, when writing to the Galatians, then Christ will profit you absolutely nothing. The moment you add one single thing to faith as necessary for salvation, then you have to go on and add the whole law (Galatians 5:2-3).

4. The Application

So then, beloved, beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision. Beware of anyone or anything, even your own conscience if it tells you that you need anything other than a firm faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and what He has done for us when He died and suffered in our place on the accursed tree and rose again from the dead for our justification, in order that we might be saved.

You don't need anything else in order to be saved but that.

You don't have to be baptised to be saved.

You don't have to do good works to be saved.

You don't even have to come to church to be saved.

You don't have to be a good mother or a good father to be saved.

You don't have to be a good husband or a good wife to be saved.

You don't have to be a good son or a good daughter to be saved.

No, there is only one thing you need to be saved, and one thing only, and that is to see that you cannot add a single thing to what the Lord Jesus Christ has already done, and all you need is a real, living faith and trust in Him.

But now, of course, when we do really have that living faith and trust in Him, then all these things I have mentioned will follow on.

We will want to do good works, and we will want to be a good husband and a good wife, a good mother and father and son and daughter, and so on. Not so that we can save ourselves by these things, but rather, because we have already been saved through Him, and we do these things now out of the gratitude of our hearts to Him, and because we now love Him in a way that we never did before.

As a matter of fact, if we are truly believing and trusting in Christ alone for salvation, then we will not be able to help doing these things because we can only truly believe if we have first been born again by His Spirit from above. And that means our lives have already been changed and we will no longer want to be quite like we were before. If we don't feel something like that, beloved, then it's because we haven't yet really come to understand the gospel and trust in Christ alone.

Well, that's the warning that the apostle Paul has for us today. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision.

And now, let us ask you, in conclusion, beloved, are there any dogs in your life? Are there any evil workers? Are there mutilators at work? What are you trusting in for salvation? Have you added anything to faith and trust in Christ alone? Are you relying on your church attendance? Your baptism? Being a good mother or father? A good husband or wife? A good son or daughter? A good neighbour? Are you mixing anything at all with faith in the finished work of Christ for us as the only basis upon which we can be accepted by God and saved from our sins?

If you are, then you are mutilating yourself. And Christ will profit you nothing. We must strip everything else away and see Christ and only Him, and until we have done that, we still have not yet come to understand God's way of saving sinners.

The Hymn writer certainly caught the thrust of what the apostle Paul was saying when he wrote the following words:

What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
For my cleansing, this I see... Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
For my pardon, this I plea... Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow,
No other fount I know, Nothing but the blood of Jesus!

Beware of the dogs, and the evil workers, beloved; beware of the mutilators. Beware of anything that clamours for a place alongside of that which our beloved Saviour has done for us in His finished and completed work upon Calvary's cross. Trust in Him and Him alone, and His blessed peace and assurance will surely fill your soul. And you, too, will be moved like the apostle Paul to glory and boast in Him, and more and more you will make Him to be your all in all.

AMEN.