Is This Teaching Salvation by Works?

Any teaching on holiness will be accused of adding works to grace. Professor Gary Maxey takes the charge seriously and answers it directly.

What he denies

In his book on the Highway of Holiness, Professor Maxey says plainly that holiness is not produced by self-discipline, by a regimen of spiritual activities or by keeping rules. Self-discipline is good, but no amount of self-denial will produce a single ounce of righteousness. Asceticism and legalism, he writes, are not scriptural paths to holiness.

He also says we do not enter the Highway by trying. The way in is pardon and purity, both from the cross. We are pardoned by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8).

What he affirms

Professor Maxey believes grace and human response work together. He uses the word synergy, which means working together. God does not force us to become his children or to walk in obedience. Grace is his hand reaching down, and we must reach out to receive it.

He compares it to a farmer. God provides sun, rain and life in the seed. The farmer must still plant. A sinner who expects to be saved without repenting is like a farmer who expects a harvest without planting.

The key phrase

He says the purifying work begins with God, and our response is humility. Ultimately it is received by faith. We do not earn the cleansing. We stop resisting it and ask.

Where the real work-based religion hides

Professor Maxey names the opposite danger too. The teaching that nothing is needed from us, that we are covered whatever we do, also leaves people unchanged. Both errors, he suggests, share one idea: that the believer cannot actually be made holy.

A test question

When you pray for cleansing, whom are you trusting, your own record or Christ's cross? If the answer is your record, you have drifted. If the answer is the cross, you are on the Highway. Say that out loud to God today.

Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey.