Spiritually Bankrupt

I'm trying to grasp what the New Perspective on Paul actually teaches. I'm light years away from understanding it, but all this time spent in Pauline thought has me thinking about faith and works, and how the two are manifested in my life.

Romans 3:23-24, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."
We've all heard the first part, but its v. 24 that I find important: All are justified by God's grace as a gift.


A part of me wants to read that and say, "So do what you want! God's grace is more than enough for you. It covers a multitude of sins. Works don't matter!"

That viewpoint is reaffirmed by Romans 4:5, "And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness."

So there we have it. Go, sin boldly, as Cathleen Falsani would have you believe.

But there is one problem: Romans 4:4 comes before 4:5.

"Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due."

Gifts don't work like that. If you give me a scarf, and I start knitting for you, you don't tell me that my knitting is like payment for my scarf.

Bankruptcy works like that. Bankruptcy says, "Pay what you can. It won't be enough, but I will take all of your striving and apply it to your account. In the end, I'll still handle the total balance, because you do not have enough. But do what you can."

Plenty of people don't. Plenty of people declare bankruptcy, and do not think twice about reducing their glamourous lives. Plenty of people abuse the system and serve themselves through the system.

Imagine, if instead of the government, your father was paying your balance. Your father graciously gave you all that you need and did not ask that you pay it back, but knowing you were unable, offered it freely as a gift.

Would you try, at least a little, to do better next time?

We are spiritually bankrupt. Our heavenly Father knows that our debt is more than we can handle. He does not ask that we work our way out of it. However, what we do is not something that gets us bonus points, it simply goes towards what is due. We work, not so we can boast in being better than the next guy, but so that we can show we honor our Father. So that we can declare to God that we believe in his rules. That we live by his faith. That we desire to be his.

Are we saved by works?  No, of course not. But we work because we are saved.