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Jesus Plus Anything Equals Nothing

By Dr. Rick Davis

Published: October 10, 2008

What do you add to a positive to make it a negative, or a neutral? What do you add to the supreme, above and beyond positive, to make it a neutral/negative?

One complaint against religion is it is agenda-loaded. This can be most unsettling, when agendas change, when new conquerors co-opt the faith. This can most often happen with the elements of faith we least likely understand to the depth where we might actually be able to explain them; the Trinity, Providence, and the Humanity-Deity of Jesus the Christ.

Here is the ultimate problem: People, myself included, want us to become something with which they are comfortable in order to be classed as Christian in the way they/we/want people to be Christian. Short-haired, well dressed, sans baseball caps, no tattoos, Republicans, hemlines right, correctly voting, heterosexual; have we gotten to your taboo yet?

This is not limited by generation, for we are all sin-stained wretches with all the damage that implies. We are like fish as much as sheep and any fisherman will tell you fish are structure oriented; they gravitate to stuff in the water, eschewing the open areas largely.

What to do?

Read Christian history like it is happening today. The Judaizers are the worship war guys. They are trying to add something to Jesus and say, "Jesus plus this equals salvation." No. To add anything to Jesus and make that equal salvation is to denigrate the efficacy of the Christ. Don't go there.

A counsel must be held and those who count must come. Denominations will not settle this matter. Local champions will have to insist on the salvific quality of the Christ. No creed but Christ to point us to salvation.

Take joy at the conversion of even one. Point to the salvation of the many not as hysterical mass reaction but to the present, powerful work of the Holy Spirit of God.

Accept personal testimony when it is of the most humble nature. Peter says, "You know God chose me to tell Gentiles about Jesus. Why now add to them what we could not do?" A braggart is a braggart. No one wanted the mission to the Gentiles less than Peter it seems. It was not a matter of prestige to him, or of status. He said, in effect, "God made me do this. Why are you adding stuff to the mission or people could never live up to either?"

Jesus saves. Jesus is the predicted, prophesied, foretold, preexistent One. He is all God is and all man is intended to be.

It is Jesus who saves.

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