A Vision for Heaven on Earth: Is Jesus Enough?

A Vision for Heaven on Earth: Is Jesus Enough?

by Apr 24, 2017

A Vision for Heaven on Earth: Is Jesus Enough?

by Apr 24, 2017

I usually teach a short history lesson on Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation to my World History Class. If you’re familiar with the history of the Reformation, you may recall that JohannTetzel would parade around Germany, offering shortened time in purgatory through the sale of indulgences. In reality, he was simply collecting money to reconstruct the deteriorating St. Peter’s Basilica. Every time we learn about the Reformation, I’m amazed at how we, as humans, are tempted to trust in our own abilities to earn salvation. Just like many living before (and during, and after) the Reformation, I have the tendency to forget that I am desperately wicked and corrupt. We all need Jesus today, perhaps more than ever before.

I wanted to write a follow up to my first post about a vision for heaven on earth. In the first post I mentioned the Sermon on the Mount and the call that we, as citizens of heaven, have to live beyond earthly standards of morality—which is impossible without a proper understanding of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone.

There are those who think Paul’s message of justification by faith and Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God/heaven are two different messages. They say that the historical Jesus taught about the kingdom of God, and that when he failed to establish an earthly kingdom, his disciples and Paul made up the idea of justification by faith.

So did Jesus teach that we are saved by faith alone, in Christ alone, or did Jesus teach some sort of obedience-based righteousness?

The gospel authors intended to convey a message about the cross. As we read the different accounts of Jesus’ life in the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, respectively, we find the same message: Jesus alone can forgive sins by his death and resurrection. From the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, we read, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (1:21) In Matthew, we see Jesus as the true King who comes not to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. (Matt. 20:28) Who alone but Jesus has the power to forgive sins? (Matt. 9:5)

We must grasp the vital importance of these facts: That Jesus is the only one who ushers in the kingdom of God; that Jesus is all; that he is everything; and that we can only trust in him for our salvation. We cannot trust in our own deeds—even the deeds we do after we are justified. That is what the Sermon on the Mount teaches us, that we are to be “perfect” like our heavenly father (Matt. 5:48). It is what the Rich Young Ruler “lacked”, he lacked the one thing that would make him perfect—Jesus (Matt.19:16-20).

The Pharisees’ Righteousness is Not Enough!

Let’s look at Luke 18:9-14:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner! I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.

The Pharisee believed in God, and Israel, as a nation, believed that God’s grace picked them out of all the other nations. However, the Pharisee had a problem: He TRUSTED in his own ability to be made right before God. The Pharisee trusted in his own moral actions. This parable reveals that the Pharisee believed in God, he even fasted twice a week and gave tithes, but what he did wrong was he trusted in his own ability to make himself “justified.”

On the other hand, the tax collector did not dare trust in his personal morality, but trusted in God to justify him. I, like the Pharisee and the tax collector, am a sinner, and I need to frequently remind myself that I do not become right before God based on my performance, nor on my ability to clean myself up. I am desperately wicked and prone to sin, and I need to renew my mind with the gospel. We must not trust or place our hope in our ability to make ourselves right before God. Ever. We sin daily. We must trust in Jesus alone.

When we struggle with sin, we are often in a battle for our faith. Do we really trust that God is who He is when we choose sin over Him? The battle is for faith not actions or works. It is faith alone, in Jesus alone, that allows us to enter the kingdom of heaven—which is why Jesus told the self-righteous chief priests and elders of his time: “the tax collectors and the prostitutes go in the kingdom of God before you.” (Matt. 21:31)

William Wilberforce, the great politician who ended the slave trade in England, discovered that corruption in his country was the result of a misunderstanding of justification by faith alone. Wilberforce stated that “scripture calls submitting ourselves to the righteousness of God; or our proneness rather to justify ourselves in his sight, than in the language of imploring penitents to acknowledge ourselves guilty and helpless sinners.” The slave trade and related injustices flourished because people lacked trust in the cross of Christ. Nominal Christians were trusting in their own efforts to attain holiness. As a politician, Wilberforce somehow understood that true transformation can only happen through faith in Christ alone.

It is tempting to be like those in pre-Victorian England, who, as Wilberforce observed, did not consider that Christianity makes “ the fruits of holiness [are] the effects, not the cause, of our being justified and reconciled.” We must fight sin by redirecting faith in Jesus, not in our own effort. As we look every day to the cross, upon which Jesus died for our wretchedness and sins, let us remove all luke-warmness and indifference to our faith. Let us pursue and obey Jesus passionately̶—not as if we had an overbearing boss, but out of love and gratitude for his love and grace.

Summary and Implications:

  • We are justified by faith in Christ alone.
  • Jesus and Paul preached the same message: It is only through Jesus that we are justified.
  • We must trust in God, not in our moral actions, in order to stand before God.
  • The battle against sin is a battle for faith in who God is, and not based on our performance or abilities.
  • Obedience is the fruit, not the root, of our justification.

For us to obey Jesus, as well as bring a little of heaven on earth through the expansion of God’s reign, we must first experience the transformative power of Jesus’ love and forgiveness. Jesus alone frees us to obey and love others. Trust in Jesus alone to forgive you when you sin. Such trust is the only way to get over failures. I myself have failed so much. However, as I trust in Christ’s righteousness not my own, I begin to long to obey him and love him, because he first loved me and died for me. Let’s be citizens of heaven who trust in Christ alone; so we can look at others not with contempt like the Pharisee, but with love that springs from a cruel Roman cross on which God humbly died.

Quotations from William Wilberforce are from A practical view of the prevailing religious system of professed Christians in the higher and middle classes in this country, contrasted with real Christianity.