Growing up as a child, I repeatedly heard the same story as an analogy attempting to explain the atonement/grace of Jesus Christ. Although it has been a couple decades, the story goes something like this.
A young son desperately wants to earn enough money to buy a bicycle. He goes to his father, who tells him to save up his money and do extra work around the house. Over the next several weeks and months, the young boy chips in a lot around the house, works very hard, and saves every penny he earns. After saving and working hard for a long period of time, his father takes in two the store so he can go look at a bike. He arrives in the store, sees the price tag on the bike, and immediately his heart melts and he becomes very discouraged. The father, realizing that his son doesn’t have the money, questions, “well son, how much do you have?” The son then pulls out some wadded-up bills and a handful of coins and lays them on the counter; a few dollars at most, a far cry from the bike which was going to cost well over $100. The father then hugs his son, takes the few dollars that he earned, and the father graciously pays for the bike.
Indeed, this goes along with the LDS teaching, that we are “saved by grace, after all we can do.” 2 Nephi 25:23. Even though we can’t really contribute much, we still have to contribute something, even if it is just a handful of wadded-up bills and coins.
However, there are several concerns about this analogy, only the first of which was apparent to me as a child. The first concern is that the father instructed the child on how to earn enough money. However, the child was reliant on the father, at least largely, to be that source. In other words, was it really the child’s fault that his father only gave him a nickel when he chipped in and worked extra hard around the house? The father in this example, perhaps, was a cheapskate for months and then got to act as a hero at the end of the story, despite his being the source of the money all along.
However, there is even a greater concern we’re looking at here.
What about the other children of the father? What if the first really wasn’t helping out that much, and yet the father’s daughter had worked extremely hard for not just a few months but for over a year and had actually saved up enough to purchase two-thirds of the bike? How is she going to feel when her father gets her the same bike he bought for her lazy brother?
Do you see the issue?
When we contribute anything, literally anything at all, it creates an air of competition and comparison. “Johnny only earned three cents when I earned twelve dollars, and we both got the same bike, that’s not fair.”
It also creates the question of “how much is enough?” Will we ever really know if we’ve done enough to merit God’s mercy? What if we came up two cents, or just one lie, shorter than necessary… are we doomed?
So rather than coming up with clever analogies, why don’t we look to the actual words of Jesus Christ when we’re trying to address this dilemma?
The Bible gives us a parable of Jesus, quite similar to the LDS analogy above, but from Christ himself. In the parable of the Worker’s in the Vineyard. In Matthew 20:1-16 we read as follows (ESV):
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”
Are you telling me I worked for twelve hours and got paid the same as the lazy jerk who worked for an hour?
Do you see how allowing a fallen human being any contribution to their salvation will never be “fair?”
So wait Chris, you’re telling me I don’t have to do any work to be saved, but then you show me a parable about workers, working, in a vineyard?
Yes, I thought of that irony as well. However, if this is what you’re thinking, then you’re missing the point of the parable. Who had control over the wages? Who determined how much each worker got paid? Who decided that the ones who had slacked off all day before coming to work still got paid? The master. Every worker was totally and completely reliant on the master, who has the freedom to handle his property as he best sees fit. Your labor and toiling all day will not get you any further in your salvation than the one who showed up at the last hour. The master holds the keys to the kingdom; it’s his property.
When it comes to our salvation, it’s a story about the Master, not what we’ve done or can do.
Indeed, this is why the Bible says that we were “dead in trespasses and sins.” As Paul states:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7 (ESV)
How much can someone who is dead contribute to anything? If you asked that dead person to hand you something, how do you think that’s going to work out? Yet, that is exactly what we were before Christ: dead as a corpse, but it was Christ who “made us alive.”
He did all of the work. All of it. Literally, all of it.
And if you really think about it, this is the only way it’s fair, for everyone. Regardless of circumstance or opportunity, regardless of how much we’ve strayed, regardless of anything we’ve done, all we need to do is turn and accept the gift of grace that is right there. It’s freely available to everyone. Will there be good works associated with our salvation? Of course, but as a fruit of your salvation, not a means to earn it
Jonathan Edwards said that “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” Indeed, the Bible teaches us that “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Isaiah 64:6 (NIV)
So, as a human, I feel a hesitancy here, and I’m sure you do too. “You’re telling me I don’t have to do anything for my salvation?” It feels fake. It feels too good to be true. I must do something, right?
Well, again, let’s see what Jesus says.
In John we read, after Jesus had performed his miraculous multiplying of the fishes and loaves, the people were asking him what works they should be doing. We read the following:
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” John 6:27-29 (ESV)
Boom. Mic drop.
That is your work. Believe.
And the more I thought about this, the more I realized this was the ongoing theme of Jesus. When he healed the blind, did they contribute anything to their healing? When he made the deaf hear, did they have to memorize some verses first or go through some ritual? No, he did everything. Even the woman who had the discharge for years, who snuck up behind Jesus, touching his cloak was healed. When Jesus met with the Samaritan woman at the well, what’s the prescription he gave for how to be saved? Just ask and he will give living water. See John 4:7-10.
And so, what does that mean for us?
Total reliance on Jesus for our salvation. Stop trying to earn it and trust in him as your Lord and Savior. Stop following any prophet, pastor, or leader who tells you anything that contradicts the teachings of the Christ. You don’t need a recommend or a ritual to save you.
His grace, given through faith, is what saves. That’s it.
End of story.
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