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This column represents the thoughts and opinions of The Rev. Carl Roth. This is not the opinion of the Elgin Courier.
“Earned. Never Given.” Those words caught my eye as I was driving down the road some years back. Pictured on the side of an eighteen- wheeler was a United States Marine Corps sword and the words, “Earned. Never Given.” It turns out that hundreds of truckers and trucking companies freely gave the sides of their trucks as advertising space for the Marines. On one side of the truck there are Marines in formation holding rifles; on the other side, the sword.
The message of the advertisement is unmistakable: the Marine Corps sword is “Earned. Never Given.” Marines earn their swords through self-discipline and perseverance. The Marines are the only branch of the military that issues swords, so Marine swords are distinctive and are worn with pride, and they symbolize that fine motto: “Earned. Never Given.”
And that motto is also a great message to instill in ourselves and our children. Christians are not to have an entitlement mentality, but rather we are to use our lives productively, we are to work hard. Solomon teaches in Ecclesiastes, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). St. Paul wrote, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). So if we are physically and mentally able, we are to earn our keep in this world through our labors, and then we are to use the fruits of our labors to benefit those who really can’t earn their daily bread but truly do need help.
But when we gather in God’s presence for worship, it is not to earn anything but to be given-to; we gather to be given gifts from Christ and His Word; so our theme is, “Given. Never Earned.” When it comes to our lives before God, everything is “Given. Never Earned.” St. Paul once asked, “What do you have that you did not receive [from God]?” (1 Corinthians 4:7) The answer, of course, is nothing; everything we have has been given to us by God the Creator, not earned. Later on St. Paul would spell this out clearly by saying, “All things are from God” (1 Corinthians 11:12). The only thing we have that God hasn’t given us is our sin, and it might be helpful to think about sin not as a “thing” but as a lack — sin is the lack of righteousness and creates an eternal debt we owe to God.
By our sin we had earned eternal death, but God decided to give us everlasting life as a free gift. God did not turn His back on the sinful creation when by all rights He could have, but He took the necessary step to redeem it: He made His Son become sin and bear the punishment for that sin in our place, for the salvation of the world. As St. Paul wrote, “God made Christ who participated in no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Or again, St. Paul: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatians 3:13).
That is how much God loves us: that He would take our sin into Himself and endure a shameful death on the cross to save us from eternal death. So when the devil accuses you of your sins and you recognize that you have earned everlasting punishment, then look to the accursed Man dying on the cross, and there see the death of your sin and the death of death itself, and believe: He did this for you. Confess, “He did that for me.”
And the place where you can always be certain that forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation is yours is in your Baptism, as Jesus says in John 3 that we are born again of God into His Kingdom by water and the Spirit. In Baptism God takes what Jesus did on the cross and applies it to you, giving you new birth as children of God. And Baptism is “Given. Never Earned.”
St. John wrote, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1). And so we are. Rejoice, dear children of God, your salvation is certain because your sins have been washed away by the blood of Jesus and the righteousness He earned for you by His perfect life is credited to you; your eternal salvation is “Given. Never Earned.” Amen.
