All things being equal, you’d rather be a winner, that’s just common sense. Nobody picks a losing side unless it’s for moral reasons. But dying a martyr for a losing cause, however worthy, is less productive and less glamorous than being a secret resistance fighter and working in secret. Especially since, in that scenario, one could reasonably expect to survive.

“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

Galatians 2:19-21

The point is, nobody wants to die for nothing. So when Paul rebuked Peter, he said that law was superceded by grace, it had to have been. Otherwise, Christ died for nothing! He couldn’t have said it any more strongly. So if Jesus died for the cause of saving us, how are we living? Does he now live in us, or are we loaning our life to Jesus when it suits us?

Don’t try to justify yourself through obedience to the law. Live by grace, and make sure Christ didn’t die for nothing.

Ethan Kirl