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Can we earn our salvation?
Several years ago, I applied for a job at a public library. I had been volunteering there for some time, and I had been asked to apply for a minimum wage position with basically the same responsibilities as I had already been carrying out. Accordingly, I filled in the application, completed the interview, and had a mandatory drug screening. The man who would be my supervisor offered me the job and sent my information downtown. All I lacked was official approval.
Unfortunately, the day my paperwork arrived downtown was the same day the administration announced a hiring freeze due to budget concerns. When I arrived for my volunteer duties that evening, the supervisor explained that he had been on the phone all day with Human Resources, trying to get my hiring approved. In his eyes, he had already hired me and the freeze shouldn’t affect my hiring; from their standpoint, the hiring wasn’t official until they made it official, which they couldn’t do because of the hiring freeze.
After many phone calls, my supervisor won out, and I had a job. I hadn’t done anything to “earn” that job. I hadn’t asked him to work so hard on my behalf. Whether I got the job or not didn’t matter a great deal to me as I was already doing the work that I wanted to do. However, having seen how hard he fought to secure my position made me determined to be the best employee I could possibly be so that when he looked at my work he would think, “I am glad I was able to add her to the library.”
I remembered that story when I read 1 Corinthians 15:9-10. “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
Paul is saying a lot here in these two sentences. At first, he may sound like he’s bragging a little, “I labored more abundantly than they all.” But what Paul is saying is that he had no right to be doing what he was doing-unlike the other apostles, he hadn’t been a part of Christ’s earthly ministry. In fact, he had originally been on the complete opposite side-a zealous Pharisee (Philippians 3:5). Paul (as Saul) had persecuted the church and killed Christ’s followersuntil Christ Himself stepped into Paul’s life.
Paul here recognizes and states that it is by God’s grace alone that he is doing what he is doing-he isn’t a super-apostle. He wasn’t a disciple of Christ during His ministry. Despite being “blameless” in keeping the Pharisaiclaw (Philippians 3:4-6), Paul knew that God would have had every reason to write him off-he had persecuted and worked against the truth. The blood of believers had been on his hands, so to speak. And so here, Paul points to the gift of God’s grace-a reprieve he could never have earned, a gift he would not even have known to ask for.
What is his response to that gift? Paul writes, “His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all...” Paul’s recognition of the awesome gift of grace that God had given him was determination to make a good return on God’s gift to him. He saw God’s grace as an investment, one on which God may rightly expect a return (think of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30). He had labored more abundantly than the other apostles because he saw the enormity of the gift that God had given him. This is reminiscent of Christ’s teaching in Luke 7:40-43. “And Jesus answered and said to him, 'Simon, I have something to say to you.’ So he said, 'Teacher, say it.’ 'There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered and said, 'I suppose the one whom he forgave more.’ And He said to him, 'You have rightly judged.’”
Paul worked incredibly hard not because he thought he was better than everyone else, but because he knew the enormity of his past sin and what had been forgiven. And he didn’t labor under his own steam alone. As he points out in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”He hadn’t earned his position by his works; and the works he did through determination to respond to God’s gift weren’t done by him alone, but through that same grace. It was God’s grace that saved him, and Paul’s response to that was to turn and throw himself into following God’s will.
In Micah 6:6, the prophet asks , “With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God?” In verse 8, he answers himself, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?”
King David also echoed this idea when he wrote in Psalm 40:6-10, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, 'Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.’”
David knew that what God desires is our wholehearted love of Him and His ways. John wrote in 1 John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”And just like Paul, when we recognize God’s gift of grace to us and determine to work so that the gift will not have been made in vain, it is His grace that allows us to understand and to follow His commandments-to demonstrate our love and appreciation for the gift He has given us. Well did the author of Ecclesiastes (in Eccl 12:13) write, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.”
For more information on God’s plan, request the free Bible study aid booklet: What is Your Destiny?
©1995-2022 United Church of God, an International AssociationRelated Information:
Other Articles by Katherine Rowland
Origin of article "God's Investment"
Keywords: salvation grace obedience
Salvation, means to: