Don’t Top It Off, the Gospel is Already Full

We are jutified by grace through faith, not works. Martin Luther said the church stands or falls on this doctrine. A Luther scholar once told me he said that about a few other doctrines too. Classic Marty. But still—this one matters.

Justification is how we’re made right with God. Yes, it can also mean how you align your text in a Word doc. This is not about that. Biblically, it’s a courtroom word where the Judge bangs the gavel and says, “Not guilty.” Case closed.

Christians believe that verdict comes by grace through faith. It’s a gift, not a paycheck. You don’t clock in for it.

So how can we keep from muddling that up?

First, don’t pre-fill the gospel. 

The gospel is the good news of Jesus—his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. He stood in our place so we could stand in his. We “pre-fill” the gospel when we add fine print before someone can receive it.

“Trust Jesus… but first, fix your life.”

“Believe… but after you clean up.”

“Come as you are… once you’re less ‘as you are.’”

In the New Testament, some leaders insisted on circumcision before following Jesus. Imagine that altar call: “Come receive Jesus! But first, there’s a medical tent to the right.”

Yes, faith is required (Romans 10:9). That’s the requirement. The moment we stack extras on top—behavior upgrades, moral resumes, spiritual performance reviews—we’ve tampered with grace.

Did you leave stuff behind when you followed Jesus? Of course.

Did you still have blind spots? Yep.

Did you pre-repent of every sin you’d ever commit for the next 40 years? Not a chance.

That’s not how justification works. The gospel meets people in the mess. It doesn’t demand they mop up first.

Second, don’t post-fill the gospel. 

We also muddle it up on the back end when we add fine print about what you have to do to prove you follow Jesus.

You can tell what someone believes about salvation by how they finish this sentence: “You know you’re really a Christian when…”

Be careful.

If the answer subtly becomes, “…when you handle trials perfectly,” or “…when you’re never bitter,” people hear this: Earn it.

I recently heard a sermon that basically said if you don’t respond to suffering the right way, maybe Jesus will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” That’ll put your assurance on life support.

Is the idea of spiritual fruit real? Yes.

Can someone fake faith? Sure.

But remember: the heroes in Hebrews 11 weren’t spiritual Avengers. They were messy believers with a big God. The chapter isn’t about perfect faith—it’s about a faithful God. If Hebrews 11 is any indicator of the kind of flawed followers God can use, then there’s hope for all of us.

How much messing up before you prove you’re not really a follower of Jesus? Maybe if you deny him? Maybe that will prove it. Or, what if you deny him three times? Yeah, you get it. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t make you any better than Peter, and being like Peter doesn’t make you any less a follower of Jesus.

The emphasis of justification is Christ’s grip on us—not our flawless grip on him.

The undilluted gospel.

Sometimes we dilute things in church life too. Baptism becomes more about what it’s not than what it is. The Lord’s Supper gets turned into a group anxiety exercise.

Jesus originally gave the meal to disciples he knew would fail him within hours. He told them before he passed the cup of his blood, and broke the bread of his body. These guys were about to scatter like scared middle schoolers in a dodgeball game. And yet he gave them his meal and promised to eat it with them again one day in his kingdom.

Maybe that’s a more biblical example of how to tell if you’re a follower of Jesus. Yet I’ve never head a preacher say, “You want to know that you know that you know if you’re a real disciple? If you run away when things get hard.” And yet it’s right there in the text, isn’t it?

Preaching radical grace somehow can feel a bit lavish, even irresponsible. Maybe that’s because preachers can have a hard time swallowing their own pride and admitting they’re not as good as people might think, and that they need grace as much as everyone else. Nothing refuses grace more than pride. And yet the true gospel kindly dispels it, leaving us with nothing to boast. Not a single thing. Just grace. Just Jesus.

Imagine the gospel as primo coffee filling a stylish mug to the very rim. Imagine what we add to it, before or after the coffee is poured, as bitter poisen. Whether added at the beginning or end, the result is the same: it not only dillutes, it ruins entirely.

Time after time, Scripture shows that our perfect obedience can never be the source of our assurance. We have to look outside of ourselves to the finished work of Jesus. We have to look to the gospel.

A wise man once described the gospel as the very power of God (Romans 1:16). It doesn’t need our upgrades, add-ons, or spiritual accessories.

Let the gospel do the gospel-ing. It’s full. It’s powerful. It doesn’t need your fine print.