GOSPEL LIGHT #780

 The "Give Your Life to Christ" Theology

In the book of Romans starting from chapter 1 all the way to chapter 5:21, where Paul talks about justification, he never talks about giving our lives to Christ.

In the gospel of John, the NT gospel "tract", John never employed the idea of giving our life to Christ for salvation. On the contrary, he says "as many as received Him." Over and over again, he conditions salvation on believing or trusting in Christ. Trusting in Him is receiving His claims.

The giving of our life to Christ is not a fitting response to the gospel message. The gospel message is "Christ died for our sins and was raised again." Either you trust in it or not. These are your only options.

If you give your life to Christ He will only crucify it in Himself on the cross. It can only produce filthy rags. It's the resurrected life that He wants not your pre-cross life.

What we need first and foremost is the atonement and payment for our sins. Our lives could never do it. Atonement is only in His blood. Trust in it.

It's not our surrender, the giving of our lives to Him - that saves. It is His surrender, His giving of His life, that saves.

We never give ourselves to Him perfectly. When we sin, we are practically taking it back. Even if we give our lives to Him perfectly from this point on, we already fell short yesterday and all the yesterdays before that. If you want to be saved through that route -- He wants perfection.

Giving our life to Him is sanctification not justification.

Giving our life to Him is practically salvation by works. If the giving of our lives is the condition of salvation then why did Christ die on the cross? Why did He give His life when we only have to give our own? In the Old Testament, the sacrificial system vividly showed that atonement required a substitute. The sinner had to bring an animal offering; offering oneself would never do. What this symbolically revealed is how a sinner is saved: through the death of a substitute, not by offering oneself. Your own self cannot atone for your sins -don’t try to give it; it needs a substitute.

You can give your self to God but if you don't get inside the Ark, the Flood would devour you.

You can give your self to God but if you don't look at the bronze serpent, you will die.

The only response that made sense when Abraham was promised by God in Genesis 15 was faith. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Giving himself to God at this point would not make sense. Don't give your life. Receive eternal life.