Tonight, the word “grace” became a touchy subject at my small group. Because of differing opinions on certain doctrines, feelings were hurt and faith was shaken. I am deeply troubled and saddened by the events that took place tonight, and I want to use this platform to present a biblical view of grace and salvation.

I’ve posted before on what it means to be a Christian and how to be a Christian, but for the sake of this post I’m going to go over it again.

How do you become a follower of Jesus Christ? That’s probably the simplest question to answer.

“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-13 NIV)

I really like what the Message says here too (emphasis mine):

Say the welcoming word to God—”Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!” Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”

It’s all about realizing that you’re a sinner and that there’s nothing you can do by your own power to redeem yourself. It’s about calling on Jesus to become Lord of your life and allowing Him to change you from the inside out.

Once you take the initiative to call on Jesus, then a process has started in your life. A process that changes you to become more like Christ in attitudes, ambitions, and actions.

Because that’s what following Christ is all about. It’s about lining up your will with His. As humans, we have the worst sin nature. We are bent to being sinful and depraved. We want to be lord of our own lives. And often, even after making a decision for Christ, we still follow our own path.

Thank God for grace.

What is grace? The definition that we’re most familiar with is simply “undeserved favor.” It’s getting something you don’t deserve. So how do you come up with this definition biblically? It must be noted that in order to get an accurate view of what the Bible says, you must view the Bible as a whole. It must be “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, and there a little” (Isaiah 28).

Ephesians 2:89 says that we are saved by grace. We know that we all deserve death because no one is righteous (Romans 3:23), but that God gave us a “pardon” by sending his Son to take the punishment for us (John 3:16). It is through that pardon that we are saved (if we accept it). That’s a clear example of God giving us something that we don’t deserve (salvation/eternal life) and how the Bible says that is grace.

Paul’s message is consistently about grace. He uses the term (the greek word charis or charisma) more than 100 times in the New Testament. From the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (NIDNTT):

For Paul, grace is the essence of God’s decisive saving act in Jesus Christ, which took place in his sacrificial death, and also of all its consequences in the present and the future (Rom 3:24-26).
…
Paul unfolds the reality and power of charis in a stubborn conflict with rabbinical ideas of justification by works and synergism. This leads him to set up and then contrast two antithetical, mutually exclusive series of ideas: grace, gift, the righteousness of God, superabundance, faith, gospel, and calling on the one side; and law, reward, sin, works, accomplishment owed, one’s own righteousness, honor, worldly wisdom, and futility on the other side. The person and work of God’s Son has made it possible for justice in the Judge’s pardon not to conflict with grace. In Christ, therefore, God’s grace is given as a precious gift. Apart from him there can be no talk of grace. But this also means that grace can never become a quality that someone possesses in one’s own right.

Paul constantly contrasts grace with the law. In Romans 4, the ideas of grace and debt (a reward for work accomplished) are mutually exclusive.

Verse 4-16:

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
 ”Blessed are they
  whose transgressions are forgiven,
  whose sins are covered.
 Blessed is the man
  whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
 Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

In the previous chapter it is also clear that righteousness comes from faith by grace and not through the law (emphasis mine):

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Romans 11 tells us that being chosen by grace and a life based on works have nothing in common. Grace would not be pure grace if they did; it would be compromised by the rabbinical principle of accomplishment and achievement.

So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

In Galatians 2:21, Paul offers the high point of his theology of grace:

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

In Galatians 5, Paul warns the church that those who try to find their justification through the law or through their works that they are alienated from Christ:

You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

They have plunged into the abyss of their own righteousness and are now in bondage (NIDNTT).

Grace is a free gift from God. Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin are death but the gift of God is eternal life!

Salvation is a work of God for man, rather than a work of man for God. No aspect of salvation, according to the Bible, is made to depend, even in the slightest degree, on human merit or works.

But what about repentance? Repentance is, essentially, changing your mind. Acts 26:20 says, “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” So biblically, repentence is a change of mind that results in a change of action.

The deeds/works that you do after you have repented and accepted Christ are a byproduct of your salvation, not a prerequisite.

From GotQuestions.org:

It is impossible to place your faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior without first changing your mind about who He is and what He has done. Whether it is repentance from willful rejection, or repentance from ignorance or disinterest – it is a change of mind. Biblical repentance, in relation to salvation, is changing your mind from rejection of Christ, to faith in Christ.

…

Turning from sin is not the definition of repentance, but it is one of the results of genuine, faith-based repentance towards the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s important to remember what our salvation is based on. Salvation is not based on whether a Christian has confessed and repented of every sin. When we turn to a life with Jesus, ALL of our sins have been forgiven. Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins. He was crucified once.

It’s all about the attitude from there. God looks at the heart.

Trackposted to: Pursuing Holiness, Conservative Cat, Dumb Ox News, Third World County, Planck’s Constant, Conservative Thoughts, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Categories: Christianity, Definitions, Faith, God, Grace, Jesus, Religion, Spiritual Growth | 9 Comments »