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By grace alone, through faith alone Eph 2: 1 – 10 Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 27 Jan, 2008 WE HAVE seen that the foundational document, the basic authority for the Christian, is the Bible. We know that the sole source of salvation is Jesus. But how do we get that salvation? The Biblical answer — the Reformation answer — is so radical that most people find it difficult, and even some who consider themselves orthodoxly Biblical virtually deny it. Yet no other answer makes sense. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. There is no other possible solution. In some ways it is so simple. What more need I say? It constantly surprises me that people find it so hard to understand. How can you separate grace and faith? They belong together, like a vast dam and a kitchen tap. Even if Warragamba were full to overflowing, there would be nothing in your hand basin without a tap at your end to turn on. The reservoir of God’s grace means nothing without the tap of faith at our end. God’s grace is full to overflowing. Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus God’s grace is poured out in Jesus. God gives far beyond our comprehension. When we deserved nothing, he gave everything. I was on death row, as good as dead already, dead in the trespasses and sins in which I once walked. But God loved the world and everyone in it so much that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. You can’t do much better than that. Christ died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. That is what grace is like. Paul often prayed for grace, mercy and peace for the believers he wrote to. We share a benediction at the end of our services, a prayer of blessing, May grace, mercy and peace from the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with us all now and forever more, AMEN Grace, mercy, peace. Above all, grace. Let’s talk about grace, because it isn’t really well–enough understood. They say
Say I owe a debt that I absolutely can’t pay. My life is in chaos. There is no hope for financial security ever again. My creditor is pressing for bankruptcy. I go to my creditor. I lay my cards on the table, I am bitterly sorry to have put him in such a bad position, and deeply afraid for myself. The creditor has pity. He says, “I could ruin you. But I can see how this is impacting on you. I will not press for bankruptcy.” That is mercy. He could take me down, but he chooses not to. Then he says, “You must have other debts. How much do you owe others?” I say, “A million.” He says, “Here you go, then.” He gets his cheque book, writes, and hands me a cheque for the full amount. That’s grace. By not insisting on punishment, he is merciful to me; by giving me what I in no way deserve, he is gracious to me. Suddenly all my trials are over. Suddenly, I am totally free. Free at last! That’s what grace is like. But beware of two common mistakes about grace. Beware of limited grace, and beware of cheap grace. Both are wrong. Beware of thinking that grace is OK to a point. Beware of fearing that grace undermines law. Don’t add law to grace. Adding law to grace weakens grace. No, it cripples it. It destroys grace. As Paul said, GAL 2:19 For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” If you replace grace with law, you set grace aside. Nothing could be plainer! Those who fear that lawlessness will break out if grace is upheld always want to add law to the equation. They say, “God has saved you through the grace of Jesus Christ, but you have to obey this extra command and perform that extra deed and keep these extra rules if you want to get all the way to heaven!” It might be not playing sport on Sunday, it might be going through a training course, it might be not drinking, smoking or swearing. All those things may well be good. That is not the point. The issue is that they don’t — they can’t — save us. This is what the Reformers meant when they said, “Sola gratia — grace alone!” Of course, good deeds are good. Of course, obeying the law is generally good. If you break the law, you are a lawbreaker. And the law burns lawbreakers. But salvation does not hang on those things. It depends on Christ alone. It depends on the Christ revealed in the Bible alone. It depends on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. You know that one of my favourite passages is in Colossians 1: 13 For he [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Here is the image. You and I were trapped, captives, tied to the mast of the devil’s ship, thrown into the deepest dungeon. We were there through our own foolishness. But God sent his son. Jesus led a raiding party and, in the definite will and foreknowledge of God, he has rescued us. God has brought us in that saving act out of captivity into the sunshine land, into the kingdom ruled by Jesus, God’s much–loved son. We have reached the land of corn and wine, We have entered the borders of that land. We are the subjects of its benefits. But we are not yet at Zion. We have not yet reached the New Jerusalem, still to come down from heaven. We have many dangers, toils and snares to come through before we reach our goal. There will be attacks, there will be battles. There will be conflicts and negotiations. But we have entered the land, and we are marching to Zion. But we are like prisoners, newly released. We were entombed in darkness because of our sin. We have learnt bad habits in that prison. We are scarcely fit and proper people for the land where holiness reigns supreme. But we are not in that land as any kind of reward for our virtue. Nor does our inheritance in that land depend on the quality of our goodness. We learn to live to please God, because he loves us. We learn to live to please him because we know that things will be better for us and for others if we do. We are not rewarded for our achievements but for our trust in Christ. However, if your life does not begin to change when you are brought from death to life, perhaps you have not truly made that transition. It is a life–changing event! Don’t begin in grace, and go on to law: to do that is to deny the Lord who bought you.
In the same way, don’t fall into the cheap grace trap. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. Principal Morling, the famous and well–loved Principal of the NSW Baptist Theological College, used to say that there are more Baptists than Catholics in psychiatric hospitals, and more Catholics than Baptists in prison. I’m not sure that that is true, or that what he implied necessarily holds. But what he was saying is that Baptists are not good at confession and receiving God’s grace: we are too independent–minded. On the other hand, he alleged that Catholics are more inclined to expect forgiveness and then return to their sin. I think the truth is more complex. People who have religion but don’t know Christ are inclined either to be obsessed with keeping laws and rules or to assume that they are forgiven, so they can do as they like. And both are abuses of grace. We have dealt with the first, but we need to deal with the second. Many people assume that, when Christ died for us, he substituted for each of us, and that was all. He died: I can walk away free. And, if I am free, I am free to do as I like. There is another side to it: identification. If he died for me, I am dead in him. If he died for me, I belong to him. If he died for me, the only fitting response is for me to live for him. Jesus said, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. It is always a two way thing. The merchant who found the pearl of great price had to sell everything he had to gain it. The labourer who dug up treasure in a paddock had to mortgage himself to the hilt to buy the paddock. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. Never lose track of that truth. In fact, these two truths about grace will rescue us all from a very basic mistake. It is not a matter of what denomination you belong to. It is a matter of how you respond to the truth of the gospel of grace. Catholic, Protestant and anything else — all who know that you can add nothing to grace, and all — Protestant, Catholic and anything else — who know that grace is costly are safe. They won’t think that they are under an obligation to prove themselves and they won’t think that they can sin and it means nothing. Between those two errors lies the great truth of the Gospel. Christ died for the ungodly — there’s your unconditional acceptance — yes, he died for the ungodly to bring us to God, which is all about the price of grace. To come to God means to be willing to pay the price.
But I said at the beginning that a reservoir of grace means little without the tap of faith to let that grace pour into our lives. In Ephesians we read, By grace are you saved through faith — and that is not of yourselves, it is God’s gift — not through works, lest anyone should boast. God’s absolutely unearned gift of forgiveness and acceptance is what saves us. But it reaches us through faith. It is faith which lays hold of that grace. Imagine if you had greatly hurt a friend. Imagine that you came and confessed all, apologising abjectly to your wounded friend. Your friend sighs. “I was so badly hurt, but I can see you are repentant, and I will forgive you and take you back as my friend.” And you say, “Oh, no! That’s no good at all. I have to do something to earn your forgiveness! Tell me what I have to do!” Your friend says, “Don’t be ridiculous! All I want is your friendship once more.” Yet you answer, “Well, if you won’t tell me what to do, I will go and find something anyway. I will climb a high mountain. I will pray for a week. I will wear sackcloth. I will even help old ladies across the street against the lights.” At the very best, your friend will think you are mad; at the worst, your friend will take it that you have rejected his offer of grace and chosen to go your own way, chosen to do your own thing, far, far from any friendship. Isn’t that what you would think in your friend’s place? Yet it’s what we do to God. What can you pay to make him love you? How can you possibly recompense him for his great salvation through the death of his son? There is only one possible route, and that is to trust. There are three basic choices in any person to person interaction. In the first place, you can see it as essentially economic, that is, you do something and the other person does something in return, you pay, they give. Most people approach God this way. But what can you give to the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills and the wealth in every mine? What can a rebellious sinner give to the absolutely holy God? We have nothing to base an economic transaction on. The second option, which is a logical consequence of the first is that you can view it as unresolvable. That means you can do nothing and nothing the other person does can make a difference. That is futile, but, if we truly have no wealth, no work we can give, what is left? Here is what is left. You can view the transaction as relational. This means that each of you gives something of yourself to the other. And that is exactly what God has set up for us. He gave his most precious gift. He gave his one and only Son. He had nothing more to give. In Jesus, God experienced rejection, separation, death. When the Bible says, God commends his love to us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, the image is of God placing his very best before us and pleading that we recognise its value and respond to it. His very best is that Christ died for us, while we were still sinners. In the face of such total giving, what can we give in response? What is the relationally fitting response? Only to trust God’s goodness and love enough to give ourselves, body and soul, in return. That’s what true faith is like. The Catholic leaders who met at Trent to respond to the Reformation pointed out that what we often mean by faith is totally inadequate. Mere assent to a few truths about Jesus means nothing. They were close to the Bible’s teaching when they said that true, saving faith is the kind of faith which makes us faithful people. In other words, the faith that saves is a faith which responds to Christ in self–giving to him. That is the response to grace, and that is what will save us. Sadly, they then went on to subtly add works back in to the picture. They never quite got it. God has poured out his grace in Jesus Christ. There is nothing you or I can add: he has done it all. There is only one possible effective response, and that is faith, simple trust, trust enough to follow wherever Jesus leads. Jesus calls to you and me today: “Follow me!” Will you answer his grace with your faith? |
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© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.) |
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