I remember when I was young, my mother had a dream that I was going to become a debater. My college years made me more of a debtor than debater, but college also taught me how to express my thoughts in convincing arguments. I might not always have the best arguments but my endurance in an argument can often outlast an opponent, giving me the upper hand in winning an argument. It’s like I have an inner need to win arguments.
This inner need to win arguments has become a drain on me from time to time. From the Gay vs. Chick-Fil-A debates to other discourses throughout avenues like work and Facebook, I’ve started to realize that I can easily get drawn into a knock-down battle about issues that either do not matter in the grand scheme or do not have an easy answer. I have a set of values that I stand by and I don’t like to see them threatened by other world-views or thought processes.
As I was reading through a book that I recently received, I was stopped in my tracks when I saw myself on the wrong side of a table that compared religion to gospel. In part two of Center Church, Timothy Keller discusses three ways to respond to God: irreligion, religion, and gospel. Irreligion is described as avoiding God altogether whereas religion is avoids God through self-righteousness. Gospel, on the other hand, is a matter God giving us righteousness through Jesus Christ.
In my life I’ve proclaimed gospel as my category of responding to God, but many of my actions tend to show religion instead. There were some parts of the table where I lined up with the gospel response, but others leaned more towards religion. The part of the table that hit me hardest pointed out that an inner need to win arguments coincides with an underlying notion that understandings are perfectly correct and anyone who thinks differently than me is somehow inferior. The gospel side of the argument is that salvation is through Christ alone. He died for His enemies, including me. There is no inner need to win arguments because my salvation is from Him alone, and does not depend on whether or not others agree with my line of thinking.
I’ve known this all along, but my life has not reflected it. I go to battle on issues like my life depends on it rather than living my life as someone who had been sanctified by Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice on my behalf. Does arguing with other Christians about what is right and wrong make me a more worthy of salvation? Does it make them any less worthy? All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. Being right about the shortcomings of another does not make me any more perfect. Only the sacrifice of Jesus Christ brings perfection.
Another note from the Keller book looks at the Israelites in captivity and when they received the law from God through Moses. God’s act of freeing His people was not dependent on their obedience to His law. He instead gave them freedom first and then the law. In the same way, we are freed from sin through the blood of our Savior so that we can then be obedient to Him. I was not freed by the Blood of the Lamb in order to preach obedience and righteousness. I was freed so that I can obey.
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