Video Transcript: Understanding Grace

We've been talking lately about God's answer for sinful rebellion. To sum up, to  sum it up out of love. God provides a way to deal with the problem of sin. And  this way has to do with sacrifice and atonement first and provisionally the  Atoning Blood of sacrificed animals but ultimately and perfectly, the atoning  sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. This atonement becomes personally applied  through repentance, a turning from and renouncing of sin and returning to an  acceptance of God's gift of life through Christ. The result is that all such people  move from a status of alienation from God, to a place of reconciliation with him.  But here, we must pause to consider the nature of the grace of God that leads  us to be reconciled with Him. Let me start with some questions. What's the  difference between those who respond to God's offer? And those who do not?  That is? What's the difference between those who repent and say yes to God's  offer of life and those who do not repent? Who either ignore him or say no to  him? There something inherently better about the former group even before they have repented? Is there a seed of goodness in them a seed that is lacking and  others that helps them turn to God? Or to ask in a different way, do people who  turn from lives of sin to life with Christ, get any credit at all for their good sense.  Scripture teaches that those who repent do so not because of any inherent  goodness in themselves, but simply because of God graciously enables them to  do so. That's because by nature, all people are dead in sin, unless and until they are made alive by God. Let me mention a few passages, patch passages of  Scripture that tell us a hopeless condition of humanity. Apart from God's grace,  Genesis 8:21 tells of God's determination to never again destroy the Earth with  a flood, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.  Jeremiah 17:9 calls the human heart deceitful above all things and beyond cure. In Psalm 51:5, David speaks for himself but also for all humanity when he  confesses, surely I was sinful at birth, and sinful from the time my mother  conceived me. Isaiah 64:6 says, all our righteous acts are like filthy rags. Ezekiel 11:19, recognizes that God's people have been incorrigibly unfaithful, and they  have stony hearts that become faithful and open to God only by the power of  God. And then Romans 3:10, the apostle Paul and following the Apostle Paul  starts his summary of the Old Testament saying, on this in saying that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. It was not, it was not this way  originally. But the sin of Adam and Eve, brought God's judgment of death not  only to them, but also to all their descendants. That is to say, no one is born into  the state of innocence that Adam and Eve originally knew in the Garden of  Eden. Everyone is born in a sinful fallen condition. We are by nature, in bondage to sin and have within ourselves, no ability to get out of it, or even incline  ourselves to love and serve the Lord. This is a historic position of the Christian  church and one that the church father Augustine was particularly clear about.  Augustine focused much of his energy upon this topic because of an alternate  view posed by one of his contemporaries, Pelagius. Pelagius said that people 

are born into a state of innocence, and have within themselves the ability to live  a life of obedience to God. Pelagius still spoke of the importance of the grace of  God, which he said was manifested in God's gifts of freewill, the law of Moses  and the teachings of Jesus. These were important Pelagius thought to facilitate  righteousness. But in the end, such righteousness he thought was not  impossible to attain without God's grace. Pelagius was a rightly condemned as a heresy to the Council of Churches in Carthage in 418. And this condemnation  was repeatedly upheld by subsequent councils Even so, it for persisted and with modifications still persists today in what is generally called semi Pelagiunism.  The idea that although divine grace is necessary for salvation and  righteousness, there is still within the human soul, an island of righteousness,  untouched by sin that can and must be exercised to cooperate with God in the  process of salvation. Here's the analogy one semi Pelagian evangelist used and this is cited by RC Sproul in modern reformation, volume 10. Number 3 of May/  June 2001. This evangelist said sin has such a strong hold on us, a stranglehold that it's like a person who can't swim who falls overboard in a raging sea, and  he's going under for the third time, and only the tops of his fingers are still above the water. And unless someone intervenes to rescue him, he has no hope of  survival, His death is certain. And unless God throws him a life preserver he  can't possibly be rescued. And not only must God throw him a life preserver in  the general vicinity of where he is, but that life preserver has to hit him right  where his fingers are still extended out of the water and hit him so he can grasp  hold of it, it has to be perfectly pitched. But still, that man will drown unless he  takes his fingers and curls them around the life preserver whereupon God will  rescue him. But unless that tiny little human action is done, he will surely perish.  Sproul goes on to critique this semi Pelagian view and saying, Now if we're  going to use analogies, let's, let's be accurate, the man isn't going under for the  third time, he's stone cold dead at the bottom of the ocean. That's where you  once were when you were dead in sin and trespasses and walked according to  the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, and  while you were dead hath God quickened you together with Christ. God dove to  the bottom of the sea took that drowned corpse, and breathed into it the breath  of his life and raised you from the dead. So, again, Scripture teaches that by  nature, all people are dead in sin unless and until they are made alive by God,  all people, both those who are eventually brought to life and those who remain  under condemnation. The difference is not an island of righteousness in some,  the difference is God's some work. In some. The New Testament is very clear  that God gets all the credit, not only for providing a way out of sin, but also for  giving sinners, irrespective of their connections or meritorious works, for giving  centers the will and strength to travel that road. This truth is proclaimed in the  New Testament, as I said, but this truth is also proclaimed earlier in the pages of the Old Testament. Despite the propensity of some of Abraham's physical 

descendants to suppose their enjoyment of God's favor had to do with their  moral superiority. Take for example, what happened after Adam and Eve  rebelled against God. They did not find their way back to fellowship with God  they rejected instead. And despite their low, total lack of merit, God uncovered  their hiding place, and called them back into fellowship with himself in this way,  both providing for them and assuring them of future blessings. And this is only  the first of many instances in which it was God who took the initiative to show  his love and rescuek people from their self destructive ways. We also see this  pattern in the wor God later undertook with Abraham and his descendants.  Most, if not all, Abraham's contemporaries were idol worshipers. And Abraham  and his family were too. Joshua made that clear centuries later. Joshua 24:2  says, This is what the Lord the God of Israel says. Long ago your ancestors,  including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates  and worshiped of other gods. If God had been looking for an especially  righteous person in the time of Abraham, he might have gone to the mysterious  Melchizedek to whom were introduced in Genesis 14. This king of Salem. Salem was later called Jerusalem, this king of Salem was already in Canaan where he  was living up to his name which meant King of Peace. Hebrews 7:1 says that  Melchizedek was a priest of God Most High and calls him greater than Abraham. But God chose the unrighteous Abraham from among all the idol worshipers and set him apart to to be this special recipient of His mercy. Abraham responded in  belief and obeyed the Lord's call to travel with his wife, nephew, servants and  possessions to the land of Canaan. And from this time on, while others continue  to worship the evidences of the divine in the heavenly bodies and in themselves. Abraham committed himself to the worship of God and staked his future upon  God's existence and faithfulness. To be sure, Abraham went through times of  doubt, particularly in the manner of the hair of the heir, God had promised him  and Sarah, but he remained faithful to God, even so he did not have the ability  to earn righteousness by his faithfulness, instead is Genesis 15:6 puts it, Abram  believed the Lord, and He credited to him as righteousness. Before this,  Abraham had rightly obeyed God's call to go to a different land, but that  obedience had not made him righteous, had not made him able to stand before  God without guilt and as a full covenant partner of the Lord. But now, with  Abraham's belief, following this repetition of God's original promise, Abraham  was credited with he was granted righteousness, not as something he earned by believing but as a gift of God, to one who believes. The New Testament goes  into detail about this, but the seeds of its teachings are found in the truth, that  righteousness before God's simply cannot be earned. There was nothing in  Abraham, which was not in his contemporaries that commended him to God and prompted God to bless him. Nor does God grant His blessings today, only to  those who have in them any seed of righteousness. No righteousness is entirely a gift of God, to people who don't deserve it. Every other religion of the world 

emphasizes the need to do credit worthy things in order to be accepted by the  gods. Biblical religion alone says that nothing we do is credit worthy enough to  make us righteous. righteousness comes only from the one true God who then  

enables us to see and do what is good. This unmerited grace of God. unmerited  grace you understand is a redundancy. If something is merited, it's really  payment for services rendered. If a blessing is unmerited, it has to be by grace.  Anyhow, the unmerited grace of God, shown to Abraham was also given to  Abraham's descendants languishing under slavery in Egypt. God delivered them from Pharaoh's grasp and brought them to to Sinai where he gave them his law  to live by. As God reminded them there, the gift of their freedom came prior to  their call to righteous living. Years later, Moses warned Israel never to suppose  that their blessings were wages from God for the things done for him.  Deuteronomy 9:4, for example, says after the Lord your God has driven your  enemies out before you do not say to yourself, the Lord has brought me here to  take possession of this land because of my righteousness. In other words,  obedience was not a precondition for Israel's deliverance, or Israel's possession  of the promised land. These blessings were entirely due to the unmerited grace  of God. Of course, the appropriate response to this grace is obedience, as  Moses also reminded the people and obedience is not to be underrated. But it's  a different thing, to see the keeping of God's law as an appropriate response to  God's blessings than as the thing that obligates God to reward you. There's an  important story in II Kings 5 that reinforces the teaching of Moses and other  biblical authors about the relationship between God's grace and human efforts.  The subject of the story in Kings Naaman was an outsider to Israel, an important Syrian official who lived during the time of the prophet Elisha. But Naaman had a problem. As important as he was, he had contracted one of the most dreaded  diseases of the ancient world, leprosy However, Naaman also had a slave girl  who told him about the healing power and mercy of the God of Israel and His  Prophet Elisha. Well, Naaman was desperate enough to make the trip to see  Elisha in the hope that he could be healed. But he was significantly disappointed and angered when upon arrival at Elisha's house, he did not even get to see the  prophet. All he got was an instruction from him to go bathe in the Jordan River  General Naaman went off in a rage. His resistance was not unusual for one  thing he had probably expected more deference, a meeting with the prophet at  least. But he may also have expected a prescription for certain rigorous  procedures to follow involving sacrifices or ointments or dietary supplements,  something besides bathing in an insignificant river Nevertheless, he eventually  was persuaded by the wise counsel of His servants to do what the prophet has  instructed seven times Naaman and had to go into the river to show that the  healing was a work of God and afterwards Naaman got the healing he desired.  Naaman was overjoyed by his healing. He naturally appreciated the prophet  Elisha but more than that, he appreciated the God of Elisha, who had shown 

that he had no equal among the gods of the world. In fact Naaman said as much as he wanted to show his appreciation in the customary way with a generous  payment for services rendered but Naaman did not understand however, is that  God is not impressed by worldly wealth. Nor did he know that God meant to  teach Naaman that what he had received had not been for sale, but was a free  gift of gracious God. Naaman and was thus given a taste of what God intended  for many more outside of the Covenant lost in sin people. Naaman and would be a sign of God's grace to all such as this and also a message to Israel that they  shouldn't either take God's grace for granted nor forget the love God has for  strangers and aliens. Elisha's servant Gehazi, I knew the lessons God wants to  Naaman and to learn however, in his greed Gehazi, I put them out of his mind  and secretly caught up with the Syrian to secure for himself some of that wealth  that his master had refused to take well for his part Naaman was happy to  comply. He had wanted to pay for the healing and receive now he got another  chance. But with that chance, he probably came to another conclusion about  Elisha. He concluded that Elisha was not that different from other prophets, after all, is more powerful to be Sure. But like all other prophets he wanted to be paid, albeit secretly in order to preserve his image as someone who cared nothing for  money. Tragically, Gehazi's greed gave Naaman the wrong idea about God.  Naaman now thought or at least was tempted to think that God and His prophets were just like all other gods in their prophets. We don't know if Gehazi's  misrepresentation of God's grace was disastrous for Naaman, but we do know  that it was disastrous for Gehazi the leprosy which had not been a judgment for  Naaman, became a judgment for Gehazi and his descendants. Those personal  consequences were bad enough, but even worse, was a compromised witness  to the purposes and character of God. In the wrong idea that healing, healing  and salvation was something a person could earn, or at least pay for, or  contribute to. All too often, the world's religions still offer some sort of legalistic  solution to the problems of life that that people attribute to the disfavor of their  gods solutions that usually involve gifts of money or sacrificial actions. The God  of Scripture, however, wants us to understand that salvation is by grace through  faith in Christ. Gifts and sacrificial actions may be appropriate responses to  God's grace, but they aren't ways to earn it. If anyone is to become cleansed, it  will be by the power and initiative of God. After which anyone so cleanse is  called to a life of service to God. The story of the prophet Isaiah's call in Isaiah 6 is another good Old Testament illustration of this. Isaiah had a vision of the  majestic Lord seated on the throne surrounded by and worshiped by angels. But far from being happy at what he saw Isaiah was filled with dread, for he was  overwhelmed by his own unworthiness in the presence of the Lord. Listen to His words and Isaiah 6:5. Woe to me, I cried, I'm ruined. For I'm a man of unclean  lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. In my eyes have seen the King,  the Lord Almighty. Isaiah was correct about himself and his people, all people for

that matter. But his dread was allayed when an angel took a burning coal from  the holy altar of the Lord and touched Isaiah's mouth with it, saying, See, this  has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away in your sin atone for Isaiah had  known his utter inability to do anything about his uncleanness. But he realized  

now too, that the grace and cleansing fire of God, freely given without regard to  his worthiness, was able to wipe away all his sin and guilt, and not only make  him able to be in the presence of God, but able and willing to do the work that  God wanted done. The cleansing and reconciliation Isaiah experienced, as we  have come to understand from the New Testament witness also comes to all  who put their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior from sin and the Lord of their  lives. But it remains so important that all such never forget. It is by grace, they  have been saved and not by works. Even the faith by which we take hold of  Jesus Christ is God's answer for sin. Even that faith is a gracious gift of God,  without which we would forever remain dead in sin. God gets all the credit and  all the glory