Faith is useless if we can earn the favor of God.
For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect. (Romans 4:14)1
In other words, if we could obtain God’s promise by working for it, then it wouldn’t be given by promise! “Void” is the Greek word “kenoo”2 which means “to empty, to deprive of force, useless.” Our faith is made empty with no power – USELESS – if the favor of God can be bought with our sweat. “Of no effect” is the Greek word “katargeo,” and it means “to render idle, unemployed, inactivate, inoperative.”3 If we try to work to please God, our faith is inoperative and His promise will not work in our lives.
Most of us think that sin is what causes God’s promises of no effect in our lives, but that’s not the truth! The imputation of sin is a finished and done deal for all who are in Christ!
The more reliance we have in our behavior to qualify for God to bless us, the more we’ll find that our faith is useless! We can’t have it both ways. What is the purpose of faith if we can obtain the grace of God on our own? If we could earn it, God wouldn’t be able to give it to us because He promised. We’d just get what we paid for.
In that system, both our faith and God’s promise are deprived of power in our lives. Could it be that we aren’t seeing promises activated because we’re taking matters in our own hands to force promises to come to pass instead of living by faith?
(from page 143 of Unveiling Jesus)
Want more from Tricia Gunn? Check out excerpts from the Unveiling Jesus 20-part series!
Unveiling Jesus, by Tricia Gunn, is a verse by verse study of the pure gospel of grace. It’s an amazing journey of love, identity, and freedom in Christ.
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1Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.
2G2758 (kenoō), Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, website: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G2758&t=KJV, accessed 6-17-14
3G2673 (katargeō), Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, website: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G2673&t=KJV, accessed on 6-4-14″
