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Edward Fudge
A friend asked me for the title of a book I referred to in a study a long time ago. I couldn’t remember it, so I was Googling the subject, hoping it might pop up. Instead I was surprised and blessed to stumble onto an unconnected statement written by my friend Edward Fudge.
Edward, whose loving spirit and insightful writing blessed so many of us, has been in heaven for several years now, but his words live on. Words like the ones I ran across today in my own files, words he wrote about a decade ago in his daily graceEmail blog:
“Regeneration involves our trusting, not our trying. We cannot achieve it; we can only receive it.
“Like the Israelites in the wilderness who were bitten by deadly snakes, we are poisoned by sin. God provided a remedy for the Israelites by having Moses lift a brass snake high on a pole. Whoever looked in faith at that snake lived.
“In the same way, God provided us a Savior. Jesus was lifted up on a cross, and whoever believes on the Son of God has eternal life (John 3:14-16). Regeneration is a God-sized job that requires revolutionary power.”
In the religious equation, the bottom line is that none of us can be good enough to deserve heaven. James was right when he wrote that “faith without works is dead” (1:17 KJV), but his description of active, living faith was not intended as a refutation of the New Testament’s consistent teaching that we humans cannot earn heaven. We can’t save ourselves.
The apostle Paul said it most plainly. “By grace you have been saved through faith,” he taught, “and this not of yourselves (not because of anything you do). It is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). Then, evidently realizing how hard it is for many serious believers to accept this truth, he stressed again in this same scripture that salvation is never the result of works, no matter how
admirable and incredible they may be.
All of us who wear the name of Christ need to be growing in our knowledge of him, and we need to be busy imitating his love for others. But even the best of us will never be smart enough, right enough, good enough to deserve heaven. Our only way to get there is to trust in his goodness, not ours.
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