October, and Grace

“If you, oh Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared” (Ps. 130:3-4).

Here the Psalmist gives us an overview of why sin is the main problem in the world:  If God were to justly hold people accountable for their sins, no man would survive.  Biblically, we are sinners by representationin Adam (Rom. 5:12ff), and we are also sinners by nature and choice ourselves (Rom. 3:23).  Since all are sinners, and the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), man is desperate for a Savior and Mediator.

And that’s why Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law (Matt. 5:17), and, ultimately, He to whom the Law points (Jn. 5:39-46).  He lived life in the same fallen world in which we do, but maintained a sinless record, so that, while everyone else has an “F,” he alone had an “A.”  If one sees their own problem first and foremost as sin, and embraces Jesus by faith, they’re forgiven and, by Jesus’ “A,” are put into a state of grace before the same holy God before whom they were formerly condemned.  In essence, they are no longer condemned, but adopted, because Jesus the true Son of God took their condemnation at the cross – their sin and the punishment for sin.  He took their “F,” with it’s consequences, and gives them His “A” with it’s reward.

Being forgiven, the believer is then, in Jesus, made a worthy vessel of God’s Spirit.  This is why Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to His people who believe: so that they can follow Him, serve Him, and look like Him (Jn. 14:16, 16:13; 2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 5:22ff).  Living with Jesus, they love God and fear God at the same time.  And that, as the Psalmist said above, is the point of the grace of God in Jesus: that God would be feared, which means reverenced and loved for who He is.

October

This Reformation month, I’m so thankful that this – the true Gospel – was recovered by faithful 16^thcentury men and women who believed, in a time when it was unpopular to do so, that the Scripture is the ultimate court of authority when it comes to truth.  In their day, they heralded the Scripture up against a culture that was all about tradition and the authority of those in positions of power.  Today, the Scripture is to be heralded up against a culture that is all about the feelings of fallen people and the fleeting opinions of the fickle and guilt-driven populace.  It doesn’t matter what people think about what is right and wrong.  What matters is what God the Creator thinks.  And God looks down from heaven on men and women and concludes, “No one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:11-12, cf. Ps. 14:2-3).  

Therefore the Apostle Paul’s aim in life was to labor that men would be reconciled with the God they hate and who is angry at them.**  So Paul says, “We implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:20-21).  Paul couldn’t be clearer here that our main problem – regardless of what the modern day “theologians” say – is that we stand before a holy God who not only knows more than we do about our own hearts, but is perfectly righteousness in every sense, and expects the same perfect righteousness from us, because we’re made in His image.  But since we’re fallen in Adam, we need another righteousness.  And that righteousness comes from the last Adam, Jesus of Nazareth, who bore our sin and drank the cup of wrath dry, so that we can find grace and mercy in Him, that God would be feared.  In essence, the God who is justly angry at sin (like you would be if a drunk driver drove their car into your living room), extends His hand of reconciliation to the guilty, if they’ll lay down their vain self-confidence and trust in human reason.

Not Really Believers 

I read something recently from a Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermon, circa 1930, where he claimed that the reason this gospel was being rejected by much the church (even in his day)  is that people within many of the churches don’t even believe in God, but in a God who is little more than a figment of their unrepentant imagination.  They, like Israel (Numbers 15:39), were prone to listen to their own hearts when it came to God and His truth, instead of listening to God's Word.

That was the issue in the Reformation.  The church had shrink-wrapped God into manageable terms where his grace could be bought off by subjecting one’s self to the Catholic system, and staying in it all the way up until they finished their time in purgatory.  But the Reformers, reading and applying Scripture, saw that one isn’t saved by the things they do.  They’re saved by what Jesus has done.  And in repenting “from dead works” (Heb. 6:1), they come to embrace that, while they are saved by works, it is not by their works, but by Christ’s works: His performance, His good deeds, and His obedience. Therefore, Peter says during the Jerusalem council, “We believe we’ll be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus” (Ac. 15:11).  This is why Jeremiah said that the city of God will be called, “The Lord is our righteousness” (Jer. 33:16): No one gets into the city unless God Himself, in the person and work of Jesus, is their righteousness.  That is why He came: to save a people who need Him.  

Rebirth doesn't happen in any other way than by realizing that even one's best deeds are tainted with Adam's proud flesh, and thus they need all of Christ.  So they embrace Him.

Eternal Life

When one embraces this offer, they, like Luther, “enter into paradise” here and now.  Seeing that at the cross, the wrath of God and the mercy of God meet in the person and work of Jesus our Mediator, the believer sees how the fear of God (2 Cor. 5:11) and the love of God (Rom. 5:5) can coexist inside of their own heart:  At the same time that they fear Him, they love Him.  In other words, they worship Him because they delight in Him, and, they being in the Son, know that He delights in them.

And that is eternal life.

**Jn. 3:36: “Whoever doesn’t believe in Jesus, the wrath of God remains on Him.”  “Remains” = Gk. Menei, present active.  This means the wrath was already there before the one who rejected Jesus rejected Him.