If you approach God expecting reward as a wage—as if your works put Him in your debt—you are not on the path to reward, but to punishment. This is not a minor miscalculation; it is a fundamental error that places you under the system of Law, where nothing you offer can meet the standard. The Law does not exist to reward your efforts, but to expose your inability and drive you to see your need. When rewards are presented as payment for work, fear is the only honest result, and rightly so. The Law’s purpose is to confront you with your lack, not to assure you of your sufficiency.
The Law Reveals, Not Rewards
The Law system is not a ladder to climb, but a mirror to reveal. When you attempt to earn God’s favor, you are forced to reckon with the reality that your best efforts fall short. The outcome is not confidence, but fear—a fear that is entirely appropriate under this system. God uses this fear as a tool, not to torment, but to awaken you to your true condition: you are utterly unable to meet the demands of righteousness by your own effort.
- Works as a wage of debt: a dead-end, not a path to reward.
- The Law: exposes, convicts, and produces fear—not assurance.
- Human effort: reveals impossibility, not progress.
- Fear: the inevitable result of seeking to earn from God.
- Grace: the only means by which the impossible becomes possible.
The Rich Young Ruler: A Case Study in Self-Deception
The Gospels lay this out with piercing clarity in the account of the rich young ruler. He comes to Jesus, asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”—the question of someone seeking to justify himself by works. Jesus points him to the commandments: “Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother.” The young man, blinded by self-confidence, replies, “All these I have kept from my youth.”
But Jesus exposes the fatal flaw: “Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” At this, the man walks away sorrowful, his heart laid bare by the Law. His supposed law-keeping could not overcome the covetousness within. The Law did its work: it revealed, it convicted, it left him empty-handed.
“Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me."
Luke 18:20-22
Jesus then delivers the verdict: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” The disciples, stunned, ask, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus’ answer is uncompromising: “With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Luke 18:27).
What Is Lost If You Cling to the Wage System?
If you insist on seeking reward as a wage, you forfeit the very thing God intends to give: grace. You lose the assurance of sonship, the inheritance that comes by promise, and the rest that comes from a cleansed conscience. You remain trapped in fear, always uncertain, always striving, never arriving. The Law will only ever show you your need; it will never supply what you lack. To remain under this system is to reject the finished work of Christ and to make void the promise. This is not a secondary issue—it is salvific. To collapse grace into wage is to collapse justification itself.
Grace: God’s Power Where You Have None
Grace is not God lowering the bar or overlooking your failure. Grace is God doing for you what is impossible for you to do. Salvation and reward are not debts God owes to workers, but gifts He gives to those who trust Him. The Law exposes your inability; grace supplies God’s ability. The only way to receive is to abandon the wage system and cast yourself on His mercy.
The Gospel does not offer you a contract for services rendered. It offers you an inheritance, secured by Christ, received by faith. When you stop trying to make God your debtor, you are finally free to receive what only He can give. This is where true discipleship begins—not in your sufficiency, but in His.
Read more: Rewards and Service in Grace
