Most followers of Christ want to be good Christians, and they wonder what they need to do to be the best Christians they can be. Normally, they come to understand that they need to regularly attend the public meetings of their church fellowship (worship services, prayer meetings, Sunday School, cell groups) and to set aside time every day to read their Bible and pray. Generally, they also seek to be active in some ministry of their fellowship. They come to realize that certain things are expected as to how they live their lives, and they do those things. They become sensitive to the need to forgive those who hurt them and to be quick to confess their own sins. They try to be kind to others and to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated (Luke 6:31).[1] And they try to be good, hard and honest workers at their place of employment.[2] They strive in all aspects of their lives to please God and to earn His commendation (Matthew 25:21): “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

 

There was a group of Christians like this that is mentioned in the book of Revelation (Revelation 2) [Jesus speaking]:

 

1  “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands:

2  I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.

3  You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

 

The church in that passage lived like believers do today who want to be good Christians. They were hard-working, full of good deeds, theologically correct, persevering when the going got tough, never growing weary in doing good (Galatians 6:9).[3] But somehow they didn’t get a commendation. In fact, Jesus didn’t appear to be satisfied at all (Revelation 2:):

 

4  “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.

5  Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

 

Why was Jesus not satisfied with the believers in Ephesus? It had something to do with them forsaking their first love, but what does that mean? Jesus Himself had said, while He was on earth (John 14:15): “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” The Ephesians seemed to be doing very well at keeping Jesus’ commands. So what was the problem?

 

Man’s problem is always and only sin. So let’s go back to where sin began in order to have a look at exactly what that first sin was because that will help us to find our answer (Genesis 1:26-27, 2:8-9, 15-17, 3:1-6, 22-24):

 

1:26  Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

. . . . .

2: 8  Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

9  And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

. . . . .

15  The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

16  And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;

17  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

. . . . .

3:1  Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2  The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,

3  but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4  “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.

5  “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6  When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

. . . . .

22  And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

23  So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

24  After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

 

God gave Adam and Eve a rich place in which to live. Fruit trees grew everywhere, and they could eat from any they wanted. In the middle of the garden there were two unique trees - the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve could eat from the tree of life, but God warned them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As we know, Adam and Eve did eat from the forbidden tree, and that was the first sin. But was the first sin just an act of disobedience to God’s “no”? Or was there something deeper and more sinister at work?

 

Many believers think that Adam and Eve at first knew good but they didn’t know evil. In eating from the forbidden tree, they came to know both, and that brought evil into our world. But notice that the tree from which they ate wasn’t the tree of the knowledge of evil. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

 

Besides, God admits in Genesis 3:22 that He knows good and evil. And he made man and woman in His own image. Why, then, as His image bearers, would they not also know good and evil? If they had absolutely no idea of good and evil, right and wrong, how would they know that God’s way is always the right way and that to choose against this in the test God set for them in the middle of the garden was to choose wrong? Not to mention that they had to know what death was in order for God’s warning that they would die if they ate from the forbidden tree to have any meaning for them at all. Adam and Eve may not have known the full extent of what evil can be, but they certainly had at least a basic understanding of evil and its result - death (Romans 6:23).[4]

 

So, if Adam and Eve had at least a basic knowledge of good and evil without eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, why did they go ahead and eat? What did they hope to gain? Let’s look again at what the devil told them in order to tempt them to eat (Genesis 2:5): “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The heart of the temptation was “you will be like God”.

 

Adam and Eve walked and talked with God in the garden. They were intimate with Him in a way none of us born into a sinful world has ever been. This is another way of saying that they had life. And not just any life - eternal life, the life of God Himself because “this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (1 John 17:3). When they chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they chose against life, against intimacy with God. They chose to know good and evil apart from God - on their own, living their lives “as God”, being their own God. That was the heart of the sin - the complete and utter rejection of relationship with God. This is the essence of sin. Salvation is its opposite - restoration of an intimate relationship with God, or reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5):

 

17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

18  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

19  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

20  We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

 

Now, let’s go back to the Ephesian church (Revelation 2):

 

1  “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands:

2  I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.

3  You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

4  Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.

5  Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

 

Can you see the error in this group of people? They thought that doing all the right things was what the Christian life was all about, but Jesus said “no”. The Christian life was all about enjoying a love relationship with Him. Doing the right things is not life. Jesus said: “I am . . . the life” (John 14:6). Living life as if it’s all about Jesus plus nothing is what it’s all about. “[F]rom him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:35). This is the first love, where nothing else matters but Jesus.

 

But the New Testament tells us that Christians are prone to forsaking their first love and reverting back to living out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, trying hard to be good Christians, making lists of what God expects of them and then keeping those lists. Pray, worship, give, do good. These are all wonderful things, but they are not life.

 

As the New Testament explores this problem, it doesn’t use the words “knowledge of good and evil”. It uses a different word for the same thing - law. In fact, it speaks of God’s law. No law could be better than that one for telling us what’s right and what’s wrong, right? Yet here’s what the New Testament has to say about even God’s law.

 

The law is a harsh taskmaster. The standard is perfection. Blow it on even one point, and you’re as guilty as if you’d broken every last law God ever made:

 

James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”

 

That’s a pretty depressing standard, isn’t it? Who can claim to be perfect? But that’s just the point. The purpose of God’s law never was to give us a way to live. The purpose of God’s law always was to so completely discourage us from any idea that we can live good enough lives for God that we are driven to seek mercy and grace. In other words, the law is intended to drive us to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court because, if we do that, we find that Christ has done everything needed so we can have forgiveness and a restored relationship with God:

 

Galatians 3:24 “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.”

 

Romans 10:4 “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”

 

Hebrews 7:18-19 “The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect) …”

 

Galatians 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”

 

Ephesians 2:14a “… by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.”

 

On the other side of the cross, where we are forgiven and accepted by God, the law has no further purpose. In the Kingdom of God, the motivation for what we do is something completely different from trying to do right and to avoid wrong:

 

Romans 6:14b “… you are not under law, but under grace.”

 

Romans 7:6 “But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”

 

Galatians 5:18 “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”

 

This scares some people who believe that, without guidance like rules and laws, we will all run amok and sin like crazy. If there is no law and no punishment, what’s to stop that from happening? The Bible is clear that this doesn’t happen with a true believer because a true believer is dead to sin. And the true believer is dead to sin precisely because there is no more law.

 

Romans 7:8b “For apart from law, sin is dead.”

 

Hebrews 10:1 “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming - not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.”

 

Hebrews 10:8-10 “First he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them’ (although the law required them to be made). Then he [Jesus] said, ‘Here I am, I have come to do your will.’ He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

 

The book of Romans says it this way:

 

5:19  For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

20  The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,

21  so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

6:1  What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

2  By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

3  Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

4  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

5  If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

6  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin -

7  because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

 

Remember, though, that Christians don’t live without any guidelines whatsoever. They live “in the new way of the Spirit” (Romans 7:6), being “led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18). Meaning, if a Christian hopes to be a “good Christian”, the one requirement is to cling to that first love - cling for all they’re worth to the relationship with God that He has given them in Christ. Christ pictures that for us as being branches on a vine; all we need to do is to remain in the vine (John 15:4).[5] To lose that connection with the vine is to die. Pictured another way, Jesus is the tree of life, and we are branches of that tree. All that is required is to stay closely joined.

 

We have a tendency, though, to revert back to law-keeping. We all know that we first are saved by putting our faith in Jesus, but then some of us start to believe things like: if we work hard in the church fellowship, we are better than the pew-warmers; if we regularly attend prayer meetings, we are better Christians than the people who only come to the worship services; if we tithe, we are not robbing God like some people we know. But God has some serious words of warning for those of us who think He is pleased by what we do:

 

Galatians 3:10 “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’”

 

Galatians 5:4 “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”

 

Matthew 7:22-23 [Jesus speaking] “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

 

The minute we become rule-keepers, no matter how good we are at it, we no longer enjoy grace, and we become alienated from Christ. We are branches that aren’t remaining and are deprived of the life we need. Galatians 1:6 calls this mix of grace and law (saved by grace through faith but made holy by what I do) “a different gospel” and goes on to say that it is “really no gospel at all” (Galatians 1:7). This “different gospel” is so far from being “good news” - which is what the word “gospel” means - that Galatians 1:9 says: “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” God takes very seriously His children trying hard to be good law-keepers and, as with Jesus and the Ephesian church, He is not at all pleased by it, but grieved. Paul said it this way to the Galatian church (Galatians 3):

 

1  You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

2  I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?

3  Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

 

Nothing that we as believers do or don’t do can add anything to what Christ has already done for us. When Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30),[6] He meant that it was truly finished. Nothing we do or don’t do can make us any more holy or worthy than we already are just by being in Christ. Romans 8 says (all past tense; the job is fully done):

 

29  For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

30  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

 

Hebrews 10:10b says it this way: “[W]e have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”.

 

We can’t even claim as our motivation for our love of works that, after all Christ did for us, we just want to give a little bit back to Him because God says that is impossible (Psalm 116:12): “How can I repay the LORD for all his goodness to me?”

 

Law-keeping is nothing more than us trying to earn some credit for our personal holiness, but everything that is good in us is a gift from God (James 1:17): “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Even the faith we put in Him, according to Ephesians 2, is a gift:

 

8  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -

9  not by works, so that no one can boast.

 

We don’t even love God on our own. We love Him with the love with which He first loved us (1 John 4:19): “We love because he first loved us.” Everything about our life in Christ is “from him and through him and to him . . . To him be the glory forever!” (Romans 11:36).

 

Therefore, we have only one thing to do - stay close to Christ. Everything else flows out of that. Put another way, if we were to ask, what can I do to please God, we have no better answer than Jesus’ to the question “What must we do to do the works God requires?” (John 6:28). His answer (John 6:29): “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”