One of the Apostle Paul’s most striking statements is his accusation against the Christians of Galatia for abandoning the gospel: “I am astonished that they pass so quickly from the one who called them to Christ’s grace for another gospel,” Paul said. declared so categorically that the Galatians failed in the crucial test of discerning the authentic gospel from their forgeries.
His words could not be clearer:
- But even if we or an angel of heaven proclaim another gospel in addition to what I have already told you.
- Be anathema.
- So as we have already told you.
- Now I repeat to you.
- If someone tells you a gospel different from the one you have.
- Already received.
- Is it anathema? [Galatians 1.
- 8-9].
This warning from the Apostle Paul, expressed in his language of surprise and sorrow, is addressed not only to the Church of Galatia, but to the entire congregation of all ages. and in our own churches we must listen desperately and pay attention to this alert. In our time, we face false gospels, no less subversive and seductive than those found and adopted by the Galatians.
In our own context, one of the most false and seductive gospels is moralism. This false gospel can take many forms and can result from various political and cultural impulses. However, the basic structure of moralism comes down to this: the belief that the gospel can be reduced to behavioral improvements.
Unfortunately, this false gospel is particularly appealing to those who think they are evangelical motivated by a biblical impulse; many believers and their churches succumb to the logic of moralism and reduce the gospel to a message of moral improvement. to the lost the message that what God wants and demands of them is to improve their lives.
In a sense, we were born to be moralistic, created in the image of God, we receive the moral capacity of consciousness, from our earliest days, our conscience declares to us the knowledge of our guilt, our faults and our bad behaviors. other words, our consciousness communicates our state of sin.
Add to that the fact that the process of parenting and early childhood education has tended to instill moralism since our early years. Very quickly, we discovered that our parents are concerned about our behavior. Children who are well-behaving are rewarded with parents’ approval, while bad behavior results in punishment from parents. This message is reinforced by other authorities in the lives of young people and permeates culture in general.
Writing about his own childhood in rural Georgia, novelist Ferrol Sams described the deep-seated tradition of being “properly educated. “As he explained, a child receiving a proper education pleases his parents and other adults by adhering to moral conventions and social etiquette. A properly educated young man becomes an adult who obeys the law, respects others, satisfies religious expectations, and moves away from scandals. The central question is clear: this is what parents expect, what culture says, and what many churches celebrate. But our communities are full of people who have been “properly educated” but who go to hell.
The seduction of moralism is the essence of his power. It seduces us very easily to believe that in fact we can get all the approval we need for our behavior. It is clear that to participate in this seduction one must negotiate a morality. defining acceptable behaviors with countless deficiencies. Most moralists do not pretend to be free from sin, but simply away from scandals.
Moralists can be classified as liberal and conservative. In each case, a specific set of moral concerns encompasses moral expectation. In general, it is often true that liberals focus on a set of moral expectations related to social ethics, while conservatives tend to focus on Personal Ethics. The essence of moralism is evident in both: the belief that we can achieve justice through appropriate behavior.
The theological theology of moralism is that many Christians and churches have difficulty resisting it. The danger is that the church communicates through direct and indirect means that what God expects of fallen humanity is a moral improvement. In doing so, the church subverts the gospel and communicates a false gospel to a fallen world.
The Church of Christ has no choice but to teach the Word of God, and the Bible faithfully reveals God’s law and a complete moral code. Christians understand that God revealed himself through creation in such a way that he endowed all mankind with the restrictive power of the law. He also spoke to us in his Word and gave us specific commandments and complete moral instruction. The faithful Church of the Lord Jesus Christ must defend the righteousness of these commandments and the grace given to us in the knowledge of good and evil. We also have a responsibility to bear witness to this knowledge of good and evil to our neighbors. The restrictive power of the law is essential to the human community and civilization.
Just as parents correctly teach their children to obey moral instruction, the Church also has a responsibility to teach its members God’s moral commandments and to bear witness to society of what God has declared to be right and good for human children and creatures.
But these impulses, though some are necessary, are not the gospel; Indeed, one of the most insidious false gospels is a moralism that promises God’s favor and the satisfaction of God’s righteousness for sinners, if they simply behave and commit to improve morally.
The moralistic impulse in the church reduces the Bible to a book of codes for human behavior and replaces moral instruction with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many evangelical pulpits preach moralistic messages instead of preaching the gospel.
The corrective of moralism comes directly from the Apostle Paul when he insists that “man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ”. Salvation reaches those who are justified by faith in Christ, not by works. Law; because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified?[Galatians 2. 16].
We sin against Christ and forge the gospel when we suggest to sinners that what God demands of them is a moral improvement according to the law. Moralism makes sense to sinners, because it only prolongs what they have taught us since childhood. But moralism isn’t. The gospel, and it will not save. The only gospel that saves is the gospel of Christ. As Paul reminded the Galatians, “But when the fulness of times came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, to receive the adoption of children?[Galatians 4. 4-5].
We are justified only by faith, saved by grace and redeemed from our sins only by Christ. Moralism produces sinners who behave (potentially) better. The Gospel of Christ transforms sinners into adopted sons and daughters of God.
The Church should never avoid, accommodate, revise, or conceal God’s law; in fact, it is the law that shows us our sin and highlights our inadequacy and total lack of justice. The law cannot transmit life, but, as Paul insists, “Did the law serve as a guardian, to take us to Christ, that by faith we may be justified?[Gal 3. 24].
The mortal danger of moralism has been a constant temptation for the Church and an ever-convenient substitute for the gospel. Clearly, millions of our neighbors believe that moralism is our message. Nothing less than the boldest preaching of the gospel will be enough to correct this. impress and lead sinners to salvation in Christ.
Hell will be populated in large part by those who have been “properly educated. “The citizens of heaven will be those who, by the grace and mercy of God, will only be there because of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Moralism is not the gospel.