Post Diluvian

This is an assignment that I have completed toward my “Cert IV in Christian Ministry” course at the Gold Coast Christian Training Institute (GCCTI).

What is grace ? Grace in the context of salvation is the unmerited favour of God toward mankind. Grace is just one aspect of the nature of God. God is also Holy and Righteous and Just and hence requires that law breakers be punished. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So who cares ? Why should I be interested in grace ? We are all lawbreakers or sinners as it says in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and fall under God’s wrath. See also Romans 6:23 – Spiritual death is a result of God’s wrath. God’s wrath is terrible and God commands us to choose life instead of death in Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,” and gives frightening descriptions of God’s wrath in Revelation 6:16 “calling to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb,”.

What is sin ? Sin is an indifferent attitude or ignorance of God. Sin can be wrong attitudes or actions or a lack of action or attitudes. For example it is sinful to know what is right and to not do it ( I need a scripture reference here ). We have a sinful nature by default since man’s fall – Romans 5:12 says “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”

Ok so I am a sinner and am in deep trouble. How can I fix it ? If the bible could speak it would say “I knew you were going to say that human!, and you can’t fix it yourself!”. Romans 6:20 says “When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.” We were slaves to sin and were enemies of God.

What if I keep the ten commandments ? That is not enough – you have to keep 100% of the law 100% of the time as we see in James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.” So what is the law for ? In this context the law is there to point us toward a saviour as we see in Galatians 3:24 “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” The fact that we can’t save ourselves is the hardest fact to accept. We want to be our own saviours or “gods”. We don’t want God making the rules and being who he actually is. This attitude is caused by our proud hearts.

So then how can I be saved ? By Grace alone, through faith alone ! God’s attitude towards us, even in view of our hostility towards him is one of abounding love and mercy. So much so that he gave his only son so that mankind could be saved.

This is really really good news for us ! It did not come without a cost though; because God is righteous and Holy, he requires a penalty for sin, which his son Jesus Christ paid when he lived a perfect life and was crucified on a cross and died; Hebrews 4:15 says “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

This penalty was very severe and required that Jesus suffer all of God’s wrath for all humankind’s sin in our place. It also shows us that there was no other way as we read in Galatians 2:21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died needlessly”. This is an awesome and wondrous fact : that an almighty, all knowing and omnipotent God died for sinful mankind, especially since he would have known about the sacrifice he would eventually make for us at the time when he created us. Awesome !

Only Jesus could do this for us. Only he is perfect or good as we see in Matthew 19:17 “And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” We can see again from this scripture that God is the only one who can keep his commandments perfectly as he requires. Salvation is dependent on God’s grace through his gift of Jesus’ life and death on the cross.

Unfortunately far too often people think that human effort or merit (including man made religions or belief other than in Jesus) can measure up to God’s standards for mankind. Tragically modern Christianity often places an emphasis on Christians obeying God’s law to the loss of realisation of how they believed in the first place. This was also the case with the Galatians in Paul’s time in Galatians 3:3 “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” as they were justified by faith and were trying to remain in the lord by their own works.

The bible is very explicit about this Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” As stated earlier, but nonetheless necessary to re-emphasise here if salvation could be obtained elsewhere then Christ died needlessly (Galatians 2:21).

We don’t deserve the mercy that God displayed through his son Jesus – we were God’s enemies at the time as we see in Romans 5:6-8 explains “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

This salvation plan was God’s idea. It is all about him and the glorious riches of his grace as we read, finally in Ephesians 2:4-7 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”