Grace
How Faith Is Created in Your Soul
Ever wonder how you got the faith necessary to believe Christ is the Son of God?
Some people would tell you that God’s grace assists a believer to exercise his faith…
A faith that’s native to his being.
That’s the so-called semi-Pelagian view.
And on this view, everything depends decisively on a person’s response.
But this was not the view of Augustine, Luther, Calvin or Edwards. Nor is it the teaching of the New Testament.
The New Testament tells us that we are spiritually dead and blind rebels and unless the Holy Spirit raises us from spiritual death, God’s offer of grace would be like giving water to a dead man.
Dead men don’t drink water.
Neither do dead men respond to offers of grace. At least not until they are raised from the dead.
This view is spelled out in Paul’s letters. For instance, Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”
What is NOT our doing? Paul is clear: the origination of our faith.
The Killer Blow to Semi-Pelagianism
Yes, it becomes our faith. We exercise that faith. Nobody else does it for us. But we can’t exercise what we don’t have, so God, through salvation, gives us faith to accept his grace.
Paul’s simple statement is a deathblow to all forms of semi-Pelagianism. It affirms that the faith by which you are justified…by which you are united in Christ…and that is the instrumental cause of your justification…did not originate in some activity or decision of your will.
It did not come from unregenerate flesh. It came from God. Decisively.
God made a promise to save every person who responds to the gospel with faith:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
Fortunately for us that response doesn’t depend on our self-absorbed, wretched will.
No. It depends on God. That way our faith is eternally stable and secure. Our preservation is a promise that can’t be broken.
In all things–from creation to redemption to glorification–he remains the sovereign, provident and all-powerful God.
And that is a God worthy of our adoration.
God’s Grace: The Essential Meaning
**Part of The Nature of God: A Quick and Dirty Guide series.**
In a nutshell, grace is God’s desire to be good to his unruly children–children who don’t deserve squat.
That means, grace involves mercy over misery. Favor over futility. Access over alienation. Reconciliation over rejection.
In a minute we’re going to explore the presumption, promise, purpose, predestination, prosecution, preservation, passion and our response to God’s grace…
But first, a little history.
Brief History of God’s Grace
The history of God’s grace begins with Abraham’s election–a national blessing that extended to all the families on the earth.
After Abraham’s election, the nation of Israel then ushered in Moses. Moses received the law of God.
With the law in place, those who broke the law deserved punishment, even if it was God’s chosen people. We need this because grace without law is meaningless and what I say below won’t make any sense.
One of the ways God’s grace worked in the Old Testament was through animal sacrifices. Animal sacrifices satisfied God’s wrath towards those who broke the law.
Therefore, in the New Testament, Jesus’ death–another type of sacrifice–satisfied God’s wrath towards those who broke the law.
Now, justification through grace is by faith in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Justification makes us children of God. In other words, repentant sinners are adopted into the church.
So, to make a long story short, Abraham and the nation of Israel were simply the mechanism to God’s long-range goal.
Presumption of God’s Grace
There are four crucial truths in which the doctrine of God’s grace takes for granted.
1. Man is totally depraved.
2. God is not true to himself if he does not punish sin.
3. It is beyond our power to mend our relationship with God.
4. God is not obliged to love us or help us.
Only when you see that your destiny depends on whether or not God resolves to save you from your sins can you begin to grasp the biblical view of grace.
Promise of God’s Grace
What does God’s grace promise? Grace promises salvation and eternal life.
Grace brings justification by faith through grace: God can declare us just and include us in his eternal purpose. We become adopted, children of God.
Salvation finds fulfillment by grace and not race, so Abraham’s physical and spiritual descendants could experience God’s grace.
Purpose of God’s Grace
On the macro level, this is what all the work of grace aims at: an ever deeper and closer knowledge of God. A thick relationship.
On the micro level, grace narrates the truly dramatic transition from condemned criminal awaiting a terrible sentence to that of an heir awaiting a fabulous inheritance.
Bottom line, the purpose of God’s grace is to reconcile a rebellious people.
Predestination of God’s Grace
Salvation is no accident. In the book of Ephesians Paul says:
He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.
And since it is executed by sovereign power, nothing can thwart it.
Prosecution of God’s Grace
God wants to overwhelm you. He wants to create in you a sense of inadequacy.
That’s why we aren’t shield from the turbulence and terror of life. We are exposed to the world, the devil and the flesh. And we are cold-cocked by our own temperament.
God wants you to feel your way through life, rugged and roughshod, so that you shed your own self-confidence and rely on him. And him only.
Preservation of God’s Grace
First Peter 1:5 says we are “protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
You don’t need to torment yourself with the fear that your faith may fail. Since grace led you to this faith–so grace will keep you believing until the end.
Passion of God’s Grace
God’s grace is the limitless capacity to forgive and bless in the face of endless rebellion and rejection.
Why would he do this? He delights in mercy as a father delights in compassion towards his children. It is part of his nature.
God removed our banishment–not because of anything we’ve done–but through the virtues of Christ’s atoning death. Yet, none has ever returned to the divine favor except through the sheer, passionate goodness of God.
Our Proper Response to God’s Grace
The irreducible condition for receiving God’s grace is humility. God works through repentant sinners.
And once we repent, we become missionaries. Missionaries in our neighborhoods, workplace and churches. Full time missionaries. We share God’s grace bottom up: I repented because I saw I was dead in sin. We see the tragic state of the lost and mourn for them.
In other words, our proper response to God’s grace is, as John Piper says, “to live hour by hour in the forgiving, justifying, all-supplying grace of God, and then bend it out to all the others in your life.”
What has been your response to God’s grace? Let me know what you think.
Trevin Wax on Abortion, Anarchy and Antinomianism
If you’ve spent a lot of time around the Christian blog scene in the last year or two, chances are you’ve run into Trevin Wax.
Trevin Wax serves the people at First Baptist Church in Shelbyville, TN as Associate Pastor for Education and Missions.
He’s also a contributor to Christianity Today and the author of the forthcoming book Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals. Read excerpts.
But I know him through his blog Kingdom People.
At Kingdom People Trevin tackles theology, church issues and he’s among the best Christian book reviewers out there. All you have to do is read a couple of his reviews and you’ll understand.
Without a doubt, Trevin has the pedigree and chops to articulate our Gospel faith clearly, concisely and compellingly.
That’s why I decided to approach him and nail him down on three issues I think are fracturing Christianity: anarchy, abortion and antinomianism.
Are you ready?
Trevin Wax on Anarchy
Demian: Do you think the American church is a cohesive or a chaotic body?
Trevin: The American Church seems to me quite fragmented at the present hour, which is one of the side effects of living in a fragmented culture.
But we’re not only seeing fragmentation at the denominational level. You also have a breakdown of church unity even at the local level, and that should always give us cause for concern.
Many churches are dividing up their congregation based on age or musical preference. These new developments are an indication that we have brought the consumerist mindset into the church, and though evangelical churches may experience a measure of initial success, consumerism becomes deadly down the road.
Demian: Do you think there are persons or groups or movements who are trying to systematically undermine orthodox Christianity?
Trevin: I’m sure there are some people who are intentionally seeking to undermine the church. Many people are hurting. They’ve been bruised by the church in some form or fashion.
Demian: What do you think about The Shack?
Trevin: A book like The Shack demonstrates what is good and bad about evangelicalism today.
The good? We emphasize personal experience. A personal relationship with God is still on the forefront of our imagination and at the center of our heart’s desire. And God himself provides the answer to our suffering and sin.
But The Shack’s popularity also demonstrates the bad of evangelicalism. Too few evangelicals have the doctrinal foundation to clearly recognize what is wrong with The Shack – in its portrayal of God, in its blatantly anti-Church mindset, and its individualistic streak (just me and God, no other community necessary).
Trevin Wax on Abortion
Demian: Do you have no, mild or strong feelings on abortion?
Trevin: I have always been pro-life. Ever since I was a child, I remember having a deep understanding that abortion is morally wrong.
About three or four years ago, I began to be cynical about the way in which abortion was used by the Republican party…an issue dangled before our eyes every four years and then put away until the next election cycle.
Bush made some progress for the pro-life movement and deserves our praise and gratitude. But much of his good work will probably be erased by Obama. And then we will be back where we were during the Clinton years.
Demian: Do you wish people would stop talking about abortion?
Trevin: In the past couple of years, I have become less convinced that seeking to change laws is the only way forward. Instead, we need to work on a number of levels at eliminating abortion.
I am convinced that abortion is the greatest single issue of justice in our culture today. It goes to the heart of what we believe about human dignity.
I understand that some evangelicals want to broaden the scope of political issues. But let us not deemphasize abortion. It must be prioritized. We are talking about innocent human life.
So… I wish people would talk about abortion more. Not on blogs or in the media necessarily, but on the street.
I wish people would be discussing this in Starbucks, at Borders, at theaters and plays. I wish people would watch an abortion on the internet and see the horror of dismembering a baby.
Demian: Do you agree that abortion is equal to child sacrifice?
In many ways, abortion is our culture’s version of child-sacrifice. Most abortions take place because the mother decides the baby should be sacrificed instead of her emotional health, her career path, or her financial stability. In other words, something else is more valuable than human life.
Demian: Will abortion ever go away?
Trevin: But I am optimistic. If our country can turn the corner in race relations in forty years and elect an African American president, who’s to say we can’t turn a corner on the abortion issue in forty years? I hope that my grandkids will not only live in a world where abortion is illegal, but unthinkable.
Trevin Wax on Antinomianism
Demian: Do you think we are overwhelmed by people who latch onto grace but ignore the law and run wild in sin?
Trevin: I don’t think that we have an epidemic of grace in our country. I think we have too little grace actually.
Those who latch onto grace and then ignore the law haven’t actually latched onto grace. The grace of God meets you where you are, but it doesn’t leave you in that state. It changes you. It transforms your desires.
Demian: Do you think grace-heavy/lawlesness is a non issue?
Trevin: The problem is not that we believe too much in grace…it’s that we have not yet realized the enormity of human sin.
There is no need for costly grace if sin is not a big problem. When sin isn’t a big deal, neither is grace. Neither is the law. Who needs Jesus, except as life coach and cheerleader?
What Do You Think?
Trevin’s brought up some great ideas, like the problem of antinomianism lies…not in too much grace…but in an ignorance of the severity of sin.
Do you agree? And what about his thoughts on abortion–do you share his optimism that abortion could be gone one day?
Share your throughts. Brutal and all. We look forward to hearing from you.
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