A Little Dog Poop Ruins the Entire Glass of Salvation's Living Water

I was re-reading an excellent apologetics book called "More Than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell this week.  This book played an important role of my conversion to faith in Jesus back in the 1984.  (Highly recommend it if you are looking to strengthen your ability to always be able to give an articulate, compelling reason for the hope in your heart.)

Something new, at least for me, jumped out at me this morning as I read the chapter about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus to the Apostle Paul.  It had to do with WHY he hated Christianity so much before his conversion.  As the son of a Pharisee and one who had studied the Jewish law under the premiere Rabbis of the day, Paul himself had grown into a man who relied totally upon the Old Testament law for his sense of self-righteousness.  Biblical Christianity obliterated his belief system and attacked the very foundation upon which he had built his perception of how he thought he had attained right-standing with the Lord.  That's why he so passionately, vehemently, and violently opposed it.  (Understanding this makes his epistle to the Galatians all the more miraculous as a testimony to the radical transformation he had undergone following his encounter with the living Christ on the Damascus road.)

As I may have shared before on this board (can't remember for sure), not too long ago the Lord gave me a picture of how I believe He views the gospel of grace and its relationship to works.  In this picture, genuine biblical salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone is represented as a glass of pristine, pure, life-giving water.  Good works, on the other hand, when being viewed specifically in the context of being a basis for salvation, is depicted by dog poop (aka filthy menstrual rags in Isaiah).

Just as none of us would ever consider drinking a glass of water with "only a little dog poop" in it, so it is that the Lord would never accept a salvation outside of grace with "only a few good works" tacked on to it.  This is no small thing.

Think of all the ways that sinful man attempts to pollute the purity of salvation by grace by adding laws to it.  You must speak in tongues.  You must be baptized and fully immersed in water.  You must worship on Saturday.  And on and on it goes.  And when people do this, they metaphorically add dog poop to the glass of salvation's pure water, thereby destroying its life-giving, soul-saving property.  Whether folks realize it or not, by adding poop to the water, they are proclaiming that the work of Christ on the cross was somehow insufficient and needs our good works to finish the job.  In truth, His work on the cross was and is both fully and exclusively sufficient.

To drink from a cup that does not maintain the purity of the water is to drink from a cup that is inherently incapable of imparting life-giving, soul-saving grace.  I shutter to think how many people who knew ABOUT the grace of God but polluted it with various quantities of dog poop will one day tragically realize that to do so had inevitable eternal consequences that will leave one separated from God forever.

And the moral of the post is...a little dog poop ruins the purity of the entire glass of salvation's living water.

(I recognize that I am likely "preaching to the proverbial choir" with this post, but I sense perhaps a "lurker" reading this may be challenged by the Holy Spirit to reconsider their understanding of the gospel of grace while there is yet still time.)