grace

Welcome to another episode of Exploring God.

Today, we want to make a purposeful and, I believe, necessary interjection and look at two verses in Hebrews 13:20-21

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

The goal of our current series on God’s grace is to consider almost all of the New Testament verses that have the Greek word charis in them, in order to understand what grace is all about. However, I believe that today’s episode is a necessary interjection in order to help us better understand the reality of God’s grace.

Why all this controversy about being chosen by grace and believing through grace? Why not just preach the gospel, invite people to come to Jesus, and leave this seeming nitpicking to ivory-tower theologians who apparently don’t have anything better to do?

At the core of grace alone is the cross of Christ and His glory. If you’re a Christian, I assume that His death on the cross is the most precious reality in this universe for you. Without a doubt, our admiration and reverence for His sacrificial death should be to the highest degree. That is the reason for this series on God’s grace. It’s about fully honoring Him for what He has accomplished and obtained through His sacrifice.

When Herod did not give God the glory for his oratory skills, the angel of the Lord “struck him down” (Acts 12:21-23). If God should receive the glory for our natural abilities, how much more should He receive the full glory for our spiritual abilities, including our faith? That’s what believing through grace is all about, giving honor to whom honor is due.

The author of Hebrews wrote that we cannot please God without faith: “And without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb. 11:6). The same author attributes such pleasing faith to “the blood of the eternal covenant,” to what Jesus obtained for us through His death.

If faith is pleasing to God and if God is the one who works in us “that which is pleasing in his sight,” then our faith is based on “the blood of the eternal covenant.” Jesus obtained our faith, which is the meaning of believing through grace.

That shouldn’t surprise us because the same author also wrote that Jesus is “the founder and perfecter of our faith,” or as the King James Version reads: “The author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). Our faith isn’t self-produced, it’s divinely authored. It isn’t our decisive input toward our salvation; it was granted to us “through Jesus Christ.” Our faith is an essential and necessary part of His saving work.

In reference to “the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot,” Peter wrote: “Who through him are believers in God” (1 Peter 1:18-21). It is Biblically accurate to say that Jesus purchased our faith as part of the ransom.

That’s why definite atonement is the heart of the gospel because it includes that God would effectually work in us “that which is pleasing in his sight,” which includes our faith.

Once again, this has nothing to do whether or not those who hold to an election based on foreseen faith are saved—anyone who believes in Jesus is saved. Rather, it has everything to do with giving God the full glory for being saved.

No Christian denies that one must believe in order to be saved, and as such we communicate His gospel. That doesn’t negate that such faith is God’s gracious work within us and is based on “the blood the eternal covenant.” To reject that truth is to undermine a vital part of Jesus’ sacrifice.

I hope you’ll join me next time as we will consider a must-have combination. When you sign up for my blog, you will receive the transcripts of these episodes and also a free copy of my first book.

Here’s a free copy of An Unfathomable Gift!
(feel free to share this book with others)

Welcome to another episode of Exploring God. We are currently doing series on God’s immeasurable grace.

Today, we will consider that our response of faith in the truth of the gospel is grounded in God’s grace. In Acts 18:27, we read:

And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed.

Why did the Holy Spirit inspire these two words: Through grace? What does it mean to believe through grace? Would it not have been perfectly fine if Luke had written: “When he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed”? Yet, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke included through grace.

To believe that salvation is by grace alone doesn’t only mean that our salvation is by grace alone, without any human addition; it also means that our faith in the truth of the gospel is by His grace alone. To believe through grace means that grace produced the faith we have.

As an illustration: not only was God the one who made “garments of skin” for Adam and Eve, He was also the one who “clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). He is not only the one who gave Jesus; He is also the one who gave us the faith to receive Him.

According to Isaiah, our great joy in God isn’t because He provided the “garments of salvation” and the “robe of righteousness,” but because He clothed us with them—He made the effectual application: “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61:10).

After his famous confession of faith, Jesus told Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17). That is synonymous with what Jesus said in John: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).

Jesus restated that truth in that same chapter: “’But there are some of you who do not believe.’ (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him). And he said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father’” (John 6:64-65).

To come to Jesus, which is here synonymous with believing in Him, is a grant from the Father, not something that He foresaw you or I would decisively do. Paul wrote the same: “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should . . . believe in him” (Phil. 1:29). If saving faith is an effectual grant from the Father, election cannot be based on foreseen faith.

By the way, this granting does not contradict or undermine any of the gospel invitations throughout the Bible.

What it does mean is the fact that anyone who does favorably respond to the gospel has been granted to do so by the Father, as Luke also wrote: “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). They believed through grace.

Are these two inspired words only applicable to the disciples in Achaia, or are they also applicable to every other believer? I hope you’ll agree that they are also applicable to every other believer, including you and me.

I hope you’ll join me next time as we will have a purposeful and necessary interjection in our series on God’s immeasurable grace. When you sign up for my blog, you will receive the transcripts of these episodes and also a free copy of my first book.

Here’s a free copy of An Unfathomable Gift!
(feel free to share this book with others)

Welcome to another episode of Exploring God (click here for audio).

Today, we will continue to look at the Biblical definition of God’s grace, this time found in Romans 11:5-6

So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

Last time, we saw that grace is never a response or a return to something that’s commendable—loving those who love you, doing good to those who have done good to you, and doing something because you except (or hope) that people will have a favorable response to what you did or gave.

Grace doesn’t take any commendable attitude or action into account, including foreseen attitudes and actions; otherwise, grace wouldn’t be grace. Today, we have Paul’s definition that goes straight to the heart of the matter.

What was he referring to? The issue he raised was whether or not God had rejected His people—the people of Israel in His plan of redemption. Paul gave a definite answer: “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew” (v.2), of which he included himself.  

He then used God’s answer to Elijah as an illustration, who believed he was the only faithful one left: “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (v. 4).

He used that statement in relation to his day and age: “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace,” which introduced his definition of grace.

Here’s an important question: do you believe that Paul implied that having been “chosen by grace” was based on foreseen attitudes and actions?

If so, you undermine and even reject the nature of God’s grace. That’s not a put down, but a desire to be faithful to the truth about God’s grace, including His grace to you.

Often, people will argue that faith isn’t a work, but a receiving. To receive by faith doesn’t require any work, right? The problem is that it goes against what Paul wrote two chapters before: “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls” (Rom. 9:11). Notice that the contrast is not between works and faith, but between works and “him who calls.”

Obviously, the response of faith is really good because we cannot please God without it (Heb. 11:6). Yet, Paul made it explicitly clear that God’s purpose of election wasn’t based on anything good or bad, which also means anything that He foresaw as good or bad.

Do you think that, forty-nine verses later, Paul changed his conviction about people having being chosen by grace because God foresaw their faith, especially in light of the fact that he used the same Greek word for election?

To believe that salvation is by grace alone is to also believe that we have been chosen by grace—a grace that didn’t take any foreseen attitude or action into account. It’s a grace that also produced our response of faith. This leaves us utterly without any boast in ourselves.

I hope you’ll join me next time as we will look at the response of faith, which is also grounded in God’s grace.

When you sign up for my blog, you will receive the transcripts of these episodes and also a free copy of my first book.

Here’s a free copy of An Unfathomable Gift!
(feel free to share this book with others)

Welcome to another episode of Exploring God.

Today, we will look at the Biblical definition of God’s grace. In Luke 6:32-34, we read:

If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.

These verses may seem odd in light of our subject; yet, the express the principle and nature of grace. The Greek word charis is used three times.

As in most languages, a word can have more than one meaning, or, in this case, more than one translation. Each statement, though, expresses the essence of what grace is.

To make it more tangible, let’s consider them as such:

If you love those who love you, what GRACE is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what GRACE is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what GRACE is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.

All three statements are the opposite of what grace is all about. Let’s consider each one of them.

“If you love those who love you, what grace is that to you?” Grace is never a favorable response to what someone has done for or to you that was in any way commendable. It’s never a corresponding return to something that was to your benefit.

When grace is a response or a return of anything good that has been done for or to you, it has ceased to be grace.

Secondly,

“And if you do good to those who do good to you, what grace is that to you?” Once, again, any response to something good nullifies the nature of grace. I will do good to you because you did something good or pleasing to me annuls grace.

That’s why, to drop a bombshell, any theological persuasion that election is based on foreseen faith is, at a minimum, an undermining of what it means to be saved by grace. At a maximum, it’s a rejection of what it means to be saved by grace.  

If we hold to salvation by grace alone, we cannot hold to an election that’s based on God foreseeing man’s response of faith as the decisive, ultimate reason of why one is saved; otherwise, we undermine the nature and necessity of grace.

Paul made that clear when he wrote: “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls” (Rom. 9:11). The “nothing either good or bad” includes any foreseen faith because that would contradict Paul’s statement.

In case you’re up in arms about this, ask yourself honestly: is the nature of grace a response to foreseeing something good and pleasing that you would do?

By the way, this has nothing to do whether or not someone is saved by holding to an election that’s based on foreseen faith; rather, it has everything to do with a correct biblical understanding of salvation by grace alone.

God’s grace didn’t (and doesn’t) take any foreseen good into account. That’s always true, including after we’ve been saved and after we’ve entered glory.

Thirdly,

“And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what grace is that to you?” The gospel of God’s grace doesn’t ever expect or receive a repayment for what it has done because it produces all the “repayments.” Paul also expressed that with these words: “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid” (Rom. 11:35).

The one who gives us every single breath is the same one who gives us every moment of grace to believe and obey. That’s why God’s grace should completely stun you, realizing that you didn’t bring anything to the table, whether now or at any point in time.

I’ll hope you’ll join me next time as we will continue to look at the Biblical definition of grace. When you sign up for my blog, you will receive the transcripts of these episodes and also a free copy of my first book.

Here’s a free copy of An Unfathomable Gift!
(feel free to share this book with others)