Grace… faith… works… such common words,
but what do they mean? What is grace, and how does it work? What is
faith, and where does it come from? Where does it lead? What are the
works that cannot save us, and the works we are saved to do? And for
that matter, what is salvation, anyway? In his letter to the Ephesians,
the apostle Paul was not preaching the gospel, but rather giving the
disciples understanding about what had happened to them and what lay
ahead of them — the process and the purpose of salvation. The gospel is
found in the Gospels. The letters of Paul and the other apostles consist
of instruction and correction for those who are already in salvation. That
is why we must look to the Gospels to find the foundation of these
familiar terms Paul uses in his letters.
There is a process or a progression involved in salvation, and
in the Gospels and the book of Acts there are many examples of people
going through that process, or in some cases stopping short of salvation.
Grace
First comes grace, the unmerited favor
of God. As it relates to salvation, grace is
the working of God in a person’s life
to protect him, prepare him, and bring him
to the time and place where he can hear the
gospel from someone who has been sent with
the authority to proclaim it.
It was grace to Peter that he had fished
all night without catching anything, and that
he happened to be cleaning his nets in that
particular place where the Master wanted to
teach that day, and that the Master chose his
boat to speak from. It
was grace that caused the Master to pass by
the sycamore tree where Zacchaeus was waiting,
and to notice and call to him. It
was grace that caused the Ethiopian eunuch
to happen to be passing near Philip and to
be reading the scroll of the prophet Isaiah,
and it was grace that caused Philip to hear
from the Spirit the urging to approach the
chariot and ask the eunuch whether he understood
what he was reading. And
it was even grace to the “rich young
ruler” that the Master came to teach
in his town.
So grace brings a person near in order to
hear the good news. But what happens next depends
on the one who speaks and the one who hears.
Faith
Faith is persuasion. That is true
both in the natural and the spiritual realm.
A natural man can be persuaded in his mind
to do many things, and it is a sort of faith,
but the faith that saves is the persuasion
of the Holy Spirit which comes to a person
as he hears the gospel. As Paul said, “Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of
God.” But
as Paul also labored to explain, the word of
God must be spoken by a flesh-and-blood person
who is “sent” — that
is, someone who has the spiritual authority
to proclaim the gospel. The only thing that
gives a person that spiritual authority is
that he has obeyed the gospel himself and is
living the life that it demands.
So grace draws a person near to hear, and
then through hearing the gospel from a true
disciple, faith comes — but not automatically.
It requires something very important, and very
rare, on the part of the hearer: he must be
willing to do the Father’s will. He
must have ears to hear, which means a heart
to obey. Otherwise
he will not submit to the spiritual authority
of the one speaking; he will not receive him
as coming from God. He
will not be persuaded, for he is in the grip
of a stronger persuasion — the fear of
losing his own life.
That is what happened in the case of the “rich
young ruler” who came asking what he
must do to inherit eternal life:
Then Jesus, looking at him, loved
him, and said to him, “One thing you
lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have
and give to the poor, and you will have treasure
in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and
follow Me.” But he was sad at this
word, and went away sorrowful, for he had
great possessions. (Mark 10:21-22)
Although there was abundant grace at work,
bringing him into the very presence of the
Master, he did not receive faith from
hearing the gospel, but rather dread and gloom,
for he was not willing to give up his own life,
in order to receive the eternal life that Yahshua
offered him. He loved his life in this world.
But in the case of the 3,000 on the day of
Pentecost, we see a very different story. The many
other words they
heard that day from Peter evidently imparted
faith to them, for it says they “gladly
received his word.” Gloom
did not descend on them at the thought of giving
up their lives, for they were fully persuaded
that this Messiah was worth dying for. Thus
they were baptized into His death and received
the same Spirit that had filled the ones who
spoke the good news to them.
Belief that Impels Obedience
The faith that came to those 3,000
caused them to believe in their hearts
in this Messiah whom they had crucified, that
He had paid for their sins through His death,
and that He had risen from the dead and ascended
to the right hand of the Father. And what happened
next? Did they all go their separate ways,
having added a new dimension to their lives?
No. The message they heard called them to be
saved from the perverse generation they were
living in. The
Bible doesn’t record the “many
other words” Peter spoke to them that
day, but we do know what the Master had commanded
the apostles to do in the preaching of the
gospel, which surely they were careful to obey:
Therefore go and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything
I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:19-20)
And what was the first thing the Master had
commanded them when He called them to follow
Him? It was to forsake everything. And
lest we think that requirement applied only
to the apostles, remember that after the woman
broke her alabaster jar, her most precious
possession, and poured out every drop of the
fragrant oil upon Him, He instructed His disciples:
I tell you the truth, wherever
this gospel is preached throughout the world,
what she has done will also be told, in memory
of her. (Matthew 26:13)
It is doubtful that Peter would have forgotten
to include this story in his many other words,
considering how deeply it had affected the
disciples the day it happened. But
regardless of the exact words Peter may have
spoken, the outcome speaks for itself:
All the believers were together
and had all things in common. Selling their
possessions and goods, they gave to anyone
as he had need. Every day they continued
to meet together in the temple courts. They
broke bread in their homes and ate together
with glad and sincere hearts, praising God
and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily
those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47)
It was neither a coincidence nor a misunderstanding
that those 3,000 new disciples all gave up
everything, including their independent lives,
and shared a common life together. Their
belief impelled obedience
to what they heard. It was not merely a mental
assent to the fact of Yahshua’s death
and resurrection. It was a total identification
with Him and His people that cut them off from
all past loyalties and occupations.
There is a belief that doesn’t impel
obedience. The Master encountered this kind
of belief on several occasions, such as:
Now while he was in Jerusalem at
the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous
signs he was doing and believed in his name.
But Jesus would not entrust himself to them,
for he knew all men. He did not need man’s
testimony about man, for he knew what was
in a man. (John 2:23-25)
The words “believed” and “entrust” in
this passage are actually the same word in
the Greek manuscript. You could well say that
they believed in Him but He didn’t believe
in them, for He knew it was only a belief in
their minds and not in their hearts. They admired
Him, but He knew they would not obey Him at
all costs, therefore He could not entrust His
Holy Spirit to them.
So the faith that saves produces a belief
that obeys; otherwise it is not saving faith.
That is exactly what the writer of James was
laboring to express:
Even so faith, if it has no works,
is dead, being by itself. But someone may
well say, “You have faith and I have
works; show me your faith without the works,
and I will show you my faith by my works.” You
believe that God is one? You do well; the
demons also believe, and shudder. But are
you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow,
that faith without works is useless? (James
2:17-20)
Sadly, many are so foolish as to be unwilling
to recognize the futility of a faith that does
not result in the works that followed the first
preaching of the gospel in Acts 2:42-47 and
4:32-37. But the Master said that those who
have ears to hear will bear abundant fruit — thirty,
sixty, or a hundredfold — and so prove to
be His disciples.
Works
Certainly, there are no works that a person
can do to earn his salvation in Messiah. All
of his good deeds have no more value than filthy
rags in the currency of redemption. It
is only Messiah’s worth that counts — the
infinite value of His blood which He shed on
our behalf.
In fact, anyone who really understands the
futility of his own unredeemed life, with all
the material manifestations of his own selfish
works, will
be eager to abandon it all as soon as he discovers
the pearl of great price. It
would not even enter the mind of someone who
truly hates his own life in this world that
giving up his possessions in order to gain
eternal life could
be considered “works salvation.” He
would be like Paul, who wrote,
Yet indeed I also count all things
loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and count them as rubbish, in
order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8)
Paul understood in the very core of his being
what he was saved from and what he was saved for.
The “loss of all things” was part
of the reality of his old life being buried
with Messiah in baptism, not
a “good work” that he did to earn
his salvation. Paul
was glad to be free of his old life, career,
and possessions so that he could lay hold of
that for which Messiah had laid hold of him. That
is the revelation he had that caused him to
write to the Ephesians,
For we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them. (Ephesians 2:10)
The word translated as works here
(and in verse 9, for that matter) actually
means employment or occupation.
It is not speaking of isolated good deeds that
one does from time to time, but rather the
direction of one’s will — what
he does with his time, energy, skills, and
strength. Everyone who is saved is saved for
the purpose of spending the rest of his life
employing his gifts to
build up the Body of Messiah:
From whom the whole body, joined
and knit together by that which every joint
supplies, according to the effective working
by which every part does its share, causes
growth of the body for the edifying of itself
in love. This I say, therefore, and testify
in the Lord, that you should no longer walk
as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of
their minds. (Ephesians 4:16-17)
Paul and the other apostles did not conceive
of the Body of Messiah as a mystical union
of isolated believers who live their own independent
lives all week (“walk as the Gentiles
walk”), and get together for an hour
or two on Sunday. It was to be a full-time,
visible demonstration of disciples living together
in unity, loving
one another just as their Master had loved
His first disciples — 24
hours a day, 7 days a week — serving
one another according to their gifts and abilities.
Such people do not need to be concerned about
what they will eat or what they will wear, but
can actually seek first His kingdom and His
righteousness, knowing that all their needs
will be met through the “effective working
of every part” for the benefit of the
whole. Such is the miracle of self-sacrificing
love.
If you love Me, keep My commandments.
(John 14:15)
He who has My commandments and
keeps them, it is he who loves Me. (John
14:21)
He who says, “I know Him,” and
does not keep His commandments, is a liar,
and the truth is not in him. But whoever
keeps His word, truly the love of God is
perfected in him. By this we know that we
are in Him. (1 John 2:4-5)
It is impossible to obey His commandments
on your own. It takes a community. That
is where the love of God is perfected in us — where
we can truly love one another. That is where
God has commanded the blessing of eternal life.
Amazing Grace
The amazing thing about grace is that
it brings about the purpose of God on the earth
through willing human beings who receive faith when
they hear the word of God, which causes them
to believe to the point that they actually obey His
commandments. Together
they bear the fruit of the kingdom — the
life that bears witness to the fact that the
Father actually sent His Son, because
as He is, so also are they in this world.
It
is ironic that most of the popular “plans
of salvation” make little use of the
Gospels and much improper use of Paul’s
letters. As a result, very few people have
actually heard and obeyed the gospel.
John
7:17-18
Luke
5:1-10
Luke
19:2-10
Acts
8:27-39
Mark
10:17-30
Romans
10:17
Romans
10:14-15; Matthew 10:40; John 13:20. There is
not a single example in the New Testament of
a person receiving the Holy Spirit without receiving
a flesh-and-blood person filled with the Holy
Spirit. So it is peculiar, to say the least,
that most Christians believe that a person can
become a disciple by simply reading a tract and
saying a prayer, all by himself.
John
7:18b; Otherwise he is living a lie and can only
pass on the same deceptive spirit he is in communion
with, according to John 7:18a; 2 Corinthians
4:2; 1 John 2:4; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15.
John
7:17
Matthew
13:9,15; Luke 14:26-35
Matthew
10:40; John 13:20
Hebrews
2:15; Luke 9:24; John 12:25; Revelation 21:7-8
Acts
2:40
Acts
2:41
Acts
2:38 (NKJV); Rom 6:2-5
Acts
2:36
Acts
2:40
Mark
10:28; Luke 5:1-11; Luke 14:33
Matthew
26:8,14-16
Acts
4:32-35; 5:20
Impel means
to urge, constrain, or motivate a person to an
action; to cause to move forward with force.
John
8:30-44 is another vivid example of vain belief.
Acts
5:32; Hebrews 5:9
Matthew
13:3-9; John 15:8; John 13:34-35; 1 John 3:14-18
Isaiah
64:6
Even
if those past works looked good to the natural
man, as in Titus 3:5.
Matthew
13:44-46
John
12:25
Mark
10:28-30; Luke 14:33
The
Greek word Paul used here means something worthless
and detestable, such as the excrement of animals.
Romans
6:4-7
Titus
3:5
Philippians
3:12
See
the article Friends & Enemies for
more on this theme.
His “calling” or
employment in the Body of Messiah, Ephesians
4:1.
John
17:20-23
John
13:34-35; 15:12-14
Matthew
6:31-33
2
Corinthians 5:14-15
Psalm
133:1-3
John
14:15,21; Revelation 22:14 (KJV, NKJV)
Matthew
21:43
John
17:23
1
John 4:17
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