Richard Burgess, 28.07.2025
You may have heard the phrase “Jesus plus nothing equals everything,” but does it?
The answer is, yes, it does. Anything else is not the gospel. Anything else tips us into faith and works, and if so, the question arises, how much faith/works: 80/20%, 60/40%, 50/50% etc..
Let’s be clear: we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Our salvation is based solely on the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ – his faithfulness; the fact that he has done everything necessary for our salvation – never, ever, in ourselves. Hallelujah!
Yet, some have concerns that this will lead to license. This is not helped by some grace teachers who seem to imply that it doesn’t matter if we curse/cuss occasionally or do things that are wrong/sinful. The sense in their teaching is we are free, don’t get hung up over it. Its all dealt with at the cross and covered. So, I’ve seen it suggested that Christians should just do it occassionly to prove the point.
It seems to me that this misses the gospel by a million miles.
I believe as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it, that we should preach the gospel in such a way that it causes people to think that they can carry on sinning and if it doesn’t, we are not preaching the gospel – that was how Paul preached the gospel.
But, the last thing Paul (or Lloyd-Jones) had on his mind was that Christians should carry on sinning. In fact he deals with in in Romans chapter 6 having expounded the nature of the gospel and that God “justifies the ungodly through faith in Christ” (Romans 4:5) – amazing words!
To summarise him:
Yes, God’s grace is big and free.
Yes, God’s grace brings salvation.
More still, God’s grace gifts you with a new life!
So:
Why would you want to carry on doing something that you have been saved from and which messes up life?
More still, when you came to Christ, when you put your faith in him, you died in your relationship to sin (not that temptation and the possibility to sin died). Now you are free to live out the new life you have in Christ. Now you can truly offer the instruments of your body to righteousness.
In view of such grace, why would you want to do otherwise – as the King James version puts it, “God forbid!” or more modern versions, “Certainly not!” In others words, “What an ugly thought!”
In doing so, notice, Paul does not re-present them with the law, but rather the life of the Spirit. In fact not only has the Christian died to sin, he or she has also died to the law as a principle of life as the law only brings death.
Romans 8 then, is the normal Christian life, not Romans 7.
New life leads to righteous acts, but not via the works of the law. So Paul exhorts us not to offer any part of our body to wrong, sinful, things, rather, offer them to God for righteousness. Because sin is not your master, for you are not under law but God’s grace (Romans 6:13,14).
Jesus, plus nothing, does indeed equal everything!
Praise God for the Gospel.
The Word 4 Life 