Good Enough? The Law and The Gospel

Good Enough?

The Law and the Gospel

Romans 1.16, 17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

The Gospel is all about being good enough.

The critical question anyone must face who is concerned about salvation is, “Am I good enough to be saved?” The view that salvation is a matter of being good enough is widespread. It is also true. For, in the end, only those who are good enough will gain the prize of eternal life. But good enough for what? As compared to what? In order to be saved we must have some standards by which to measure ourselves. Everyone can find at least one or two ways in which he is superior to everyone else he knows, but if that’s not the issue in salvation, it won’t do him much good. The Biblical view, of course, is that only those who are completely without sin and who have lived according to the righteous requirements of the all-holy God will be received into His presence, forgiven and glorified, forever. Thus the Good News about the Gospel is really not all that good – at least, not at first. For the Scriptures declare, and human experience confirms, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; therefore, none of us is good enough to attain that status of everlasting bliss for which all men secretly long. Nevertheless, we still need to know what the standard of “good enough” is, and here is where the Law of God comes into the Gospel, as we shall see for the rest of this week.

What does it mean to “fall short of the glory of God”? What is the glory of God? What do they look like who “fall short” of that?

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.