Thought For Today: “Nothing Else Needed”

The Judaizers, legalistic Jewish believers, threw a curveball when they told the Gentile believers in Antioch that they needed to add circumcision to their belief in Jesus for salvation.

When the first church council in Jerusalem heard what had happened and that the Gentiles were coming to faith in Jesus, they sent word that this was not the case and that nothing else was needed.

Even the essentials they listed, namely abstinence from sexual immorality, foods sacrificed to idols, and eating blood, weren’t necessary for salvation; they were simply good for them.

“If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.” (Acts 15:29b)

Therefore, Paul could write, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Nothing else needs to be added to God’s grace. In fact, nothing else can be added to God’s grace. That is probably why John Newton could sing about God’s amazing grace.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.”