God's love in six views (Two gracEmails)
John 3:16 reminds us that God's love is personal, passionate, powerful, perpetual, profuse and, in one sense, perilous.
good news of God's grace
There is one God, who created all that exists. He is YHWH and Elohim of the Hebrew Scriptures -- the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. From the beginning, God made humankind for constant loving fellowship with himself. However, the first human being, Adam (both a proper name and the Hebrew word for humankind), chose autonomy over creaturely dependence and expressed that choice by disobeying.
grace is personal
"I hear much about the doctrine of grace," writes a gracEmail subscriber. "Can you give me a good definition of what it really means?"
four vital choices
For Christians other than Lutherans and Calvinists, the four gospel slogans: "grace alone, Jesus Christ alone, faith alone, Scripture alone," might sound less than obvious. The third expression ("faith alone") sometimes even provokes a vigorous denial. But properly understood, the four Reformation mottos well summarize biblical teaching about our salvation. How would you complete each of the following sentences?
one life, death and judgmentI grew up in the 1950's in the Deep South. In the summertime, for two special weeks, we attended a "Gospel Meeting" conducted under a big tent. Not uncommonly, the preacher drove home the urgency of the occasion with the words: "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." The point was clear. "Life is short. Death is sure. Judgment is certain."
an imaginary conversation (two gracEmails)Someone objects: "All this talk concerning justification by grace through faith is largely theoretical. When we talk to real people, they want to know what they must do to be saved." I respond that nothing us more practical than the reality that God saves us, apart from anything we deserve, attain or accomplish, for the sake of his Son Jesus Christ and on the basis of Jesus' finished work of redemption.
Jesus pleased God for youDid you ever stop to think, if you are a believer, that Jesus' perfectly obedient life was lived for you? That when God views you through Jesus your representative, he sees you as perfectly pleasing to himself? That is the astounding message of Hebrews 10:4-14.
Jesus' sacrifice and oursSomeone asks, "Although Jesus made the only sacrifice we need to atone for our sin, don't we have sacrifices which we are supposed to offer to God as well?"
why Jesus' righteousnessA gracEmail subscriber writes: "The substitutionary atonement seems very clear biblically, i.e., that Jesus paid the penalty (that we were required to pay) through his death. I understand the transfer of our sin to him. From my perspective, that seems sufficient for God to call us just. Why does there need to be a transfer the other way of Jesus' righteousness?"
five steps of salvationA gracEmail subscriber from the Churches of Christ asks the origin of the teaching she has heard concerning "five steps" of salvation.
God's gift conditional?Someone writes: "I believe that salvation is totally God's gift of grace, and that we do not merit or earn any of it. However, I think we may truly say that baptism is the condition on which a person receives salvation as a free gift."
God's law and God's approvalA gracEmail reader asks, "Since no one is justified by the law" (Gal. 3:11), how can Paul say that he was "blameless" according to the law? (Phil. 3:6)"
Jesus' cross and oursA friend in the Southeast recently sent a private post expressing concern at a sermon he had heard in which the preacher quoted Galatians 2:20 and insisted that the work of salvation involves two crosses -- Jesus on his, and us on ours.
grace free but not cheapA brother in the Northeast asks, "I know that God forgives us again and again and that his forgiveness is forever. But I am sometimes concerned that we presume on God by taking his forgiveness for granted. That seems to me to be cheap grace which fails to appreciate the sacrifice of Jesus."
grace-only not clutterA gracEmail subscriber complains that I am "cluttering up" his email with my "grace-only teaching."
Jesus paid it allAn independent Christian church minister in Missouri writes: "Jesus paid it all on Golgotha, plus or minus nothing. It is finished! The cross of Christ was and always will be enough."
'trusting,' not 'trying'"Christ is the end of the law for righteousness," writes Paul, "to everyone who believes" (Rom. 10:4). The word translated "end" here is telos, and it means "goal" rather than "termination." Many Jews in Paul's day tried to keep God's laws so well and so thoroughly that God would examine their record of obedience and pronounce them "righteous." Their goal to be found right with God was commendable but they were ignorant of the way to attain it.
but what if I am wrong?A brother in Tennessee says that he is much in accord with comments here about God saving us gratuitously because of what Jesus did as our representative, instead of depending on our ability to figure out all the religious answers and cobble together an acceptable record of obedience on our own. "But wouldn't it be a real tragedy," he asks, "if I go to hell because I misread what the Bible is saying?"
Yom Kippur (three gracEmails) Yom Kippur is the Hebrew name for the Day of Atonement (literally, "Day of Covering"), the most holy day in the Jewish calendar. On this day, observant Jews worldwide repent of sins committed during the past year and seek God's merciful forgiveness. In keeping with these solemn exercises, a total fast is imposed, even from water, with certain merciful exceptions.... Everything about this day emphasized the holiness and inaccessibility of God as well as his mercy and grace.
salvation: process or event?A gracEmail subscriber in the San Francisco Bay area asks whether salvation is a process rather than an event.
the many-faceted gospelThe word "gospel" means good news, and it is the very best news we wandering and broken mortal creatures might ever hope to hear. There is only one true gospel, but New Testament writers proclaim it through many pictures and figures of speech. It is as if they lead us through the city and find examples and illustrations on every street.
salvation and conditional giftsA gracEmail subscriber writes: "Salvation is certainly a gift, in the sense that we cannot merit or earn it. But it is a conditional gift. For example, suppose a rich relative gave me a check for a substantial sum of money. I must endorse the check to receive the gift -- but endorsing the check does not mean that I earned, deserved, or merited it."
conversing about salvation (three gracEmails) Someone objects: "All this talk about justification by grace through faith is largely theoretical. When we talk to real people, they want to know what they must do to be saved." The down-to-earth, practical truth is that God saves us, apart from anything we deserve, attain or accomplish, for the sake of his Son Jesus Christ and on the basis of Jesus' finished work of redemption.
two objective realitiesIn Romans 4, the Apostle Paul explains the nature of saving faith, using Abraham as the model -- for believers from all nations and times --of one whose faith was "reckoned as righteousness." He concludes this stirring discourse in verse 25 with two ringing affirmations about Jesus Christ. Jesus "was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification" (NASB). These truths so startle and overwhelm us that most Bible versions do not translate the verse literally, instead substituting the weaker, more colorless preposition "for" in both phrases
trusting God's finished workA gracEmail subscriber asks whether someone who confesses Jesus as Lord and believes that God raised him from the dead really enjoys salvation as Romans 10:9-10 seems to say, or whether believing and confessing merely move a person down the road toward salvation pending further acts of obedience.