"To the praise of the GLORY of His GRACE, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the RICHES of His GRACE" (Ephesians 1:6)
"But where sin abounded, GRACE did much more abound"
(Romans 5:20)"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to HIS MERCY He saved us" (Titus 3:5)
In Part I of this book, our attention was focused primarily upon what the Holy Scriptures reveal concerning the tragic and devastating ruin that has fallen upon the human race, upon each one of us, as a result of our fall in the first man Adam, and because of our own personal rebellion against God. We have seen that, according to the Word of God, we are all conceived and born into this world as sinners by nature (Psalm 51:5), which inevitably results that each of us become sinners by practice (Psalm 58:3) as soon as we are capable of making moral choices. As children, no one had to teach us how to sin -- we came by it naturally. Sins such as lying, stealing, cheating, dishonesty, anger, envy, jealousy, and selfish behavior emerged very early in our conscious existence. We come into the world enshrouded in spiritual darkness (John 1:5), and alienated from the life of God (Ephesians 4:18) -fallen beings whose hearts are deceitful and wicked in the sight of God (Jeremiah 17:9-10), and whose natural disposition is one of enmity, or hostility, to the true and living God (Rom. 8:7) -- in fact, so much so that the Scriptures represent all men and women by nature as "enemies of God" (Romans 5:10; Col. 1:21) -- naturally in rebellion against His authority and rule.
This rebellion against God may not always be obvious on the surface, but it will become apparent at the point at which our wills are crossed by the Law of God, and by the authority of His Word. For a Biblical example of this truth, see Matthew 19:16-26 for the story of the rich young man who came running to Christ, filled with a sense of his own supposed goodness and self-righteousness, and asked Him the question, "What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" Then note how skillfully, yet gently, the Lord Jesus exposed his selfishness, greed, and coveteousness. The young man came to Christ thinking he was good, having kept, as he thought, the Ten Commandments; he went away from Christ sorrowfully, but at least knowing he was a sinner, his rebellion now being openly and publicly manifested, because he was unwilling to submit to the terms of discipleship, and to Christ as Lord.
We have seen from the Word of God that the power of sin in fallen human nature is so great that we are said to be under its reign (Romans 5:21); and Satan's power over the human race is so great that we are said to be "taken captive" by him (2 Timothy 2:26) -- being "the 'god' of this world, he has blinded the minds of those which believe not" (2 Cor. 4:3-4). Further, we have also seen from the Holy Scriptures that we are all by nature under the sentence of death (Genesis 2:17, 3:19; Ephes. 2:1; Rev. 20:14-15) -- spiritual death, physical death, and ultimately eternal death, which means eternal separation from the loving presence, favor and blessing of God. We are, by nature -- unless saved by the grace of God -- under the present, and continual, displeasure and wrath of a holy God (Rom. 1:18; John 3:36; Ephes. 2:1-3), in whose presence we will be required to stand in a coming future Judgment Day (Rev. 20:11-13), Who will judge every word, thought, and deed according to an uncompromising standard of righteousness -- His holy Law. And, as we have seen, the final destiny of all the LOST of Adam's race is eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire, according to Revelation 20:15.
Now, my friend, if the Lord Jesus Christ, by the power and grace of His Holy Spirit, has been pleased to open your heart (Acts 16:14) -- that is, your spiritual eyes, the eyes of your understanding (See Ephes. 4:18 and Ephes. 1:18) -- so that you now see and are willing to face reality, and through repentance acknowledge the above truths (2 Timothy 2:25-26), surely you must also see that, because our condition is so desperate, and our needs are so great, that GOD'S REMEDY must be a mighty deliverance, an Effective Remedy that must meet every point of our need. As we are about to see now in Part II of this book, that is exactly what God does for us by His marvelous grace in the Lord Jesus Christ! Yes, if you have been enabled by the grace of God to face the reality of your true condition before Him, you will surely find that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is good news -- the good news of the Grace of God, the essence of which is stated by the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15, "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." The same truth is emphasized in Matthew 1:21, "And she shall bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." This great salvation is through the shed blood -- the voluntary, substitutionary sacrifice -- of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's Cross, His mighty resurrection from the grave, and His exaltation to the right hand of God the Father, where He is enthroned as sovereign Lord over all creation, and over all mankind (Matthew 28:18; Romans 14:9; John 17:2) to save poor sinners such as you and I. The rest of this book is a detailed unfolding from the Holy Scriptures of God's wonderful Remedy through the sovereign grace and almighty power of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the blood of His cross, in saving and delivering poor sinners such as you and I from the Ruin that sin has brought upon us. May the Lord be pleased to bless it to your heart!
According to strict principles of justice, God might have destroyed Adam and Eve immediately, or He might have justly permitted the entire human race, in all of its multiplied billions over the centuries, to perish eternally under His wrath. He was under no necessary obligation to provide a Remedy for Man's Ruin. Nowhere in the Word of God do we find that He has purposed to show mercy to the angels that revolted and fell; He has made no provision for the salvation of the Devil. On the contrary, their doom is sealed, for He will ultimately consign them to everlasting torment (Matthew 25:41; Jude 6; 2 Peter 2:4). However, the Bible sets forth throughout its pages the wonderful story of God's Remedy provided for fallen man, through the Person and Work of the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is Immanuel, or "God with us," according to Matthew 1:23. What a wonder of God's sovereignty and amazing grace, that while mighty angels should be cast away forever for their rebellion, God so condescended to send His only begotten Son into the world, to be "made flesh," (John 1:14) -- Who, in order to save sinners like us, "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:26)!
1. The Triunity of God
Before giving a Biblical definition of God's Remedy, we need to look very briefly at what the Bible teaches concerning GOD'S TRIUNE NATURE. The Holy Scriptures reveal that in a wonderful, yet mysterious and incomprehensible way, God is one God in substance, yet He is also three distinct Persons, co-equal and co-eternal, each Divine Person sharing equally in all the glorious attributes of Deity -- yet not three gods, but One God -- the great Three-In-One, the glorious One-In-Three.
The profound mystery of God's triunity is not expressly or formally stated in the Old Testament, but it is clearly foreshadowed in a progressive revelation from Genesis to Malachi, until it bursts forth in the full light of the New Testament revelation of the one God in three Persons -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Though both Testaments clearly teach that there is but one God (Deut. 6:4; James 2:19), the Old Testament hints at a plurality of Persons in unity in the Godhead in its opening verse, "In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). The Hebrew word used here for God, Elohim, is a plural noun denoting compound unity, and is used over 2,500 times in the Old Testament with reference to the one God. Another passage revealing plurality in unity with reference to God is Genesis 1:26-27, "And GOD (Elohim) said, Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness...So GOD (Elohim) created man in HIS own image..." Many other references could be given from the Old Testament illustrating this progressive revelation of God's triunity.
In the New Testament, Divine triunity is clearly unfolded, as God reveals Himself as one God in three Persons -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One of the clearest references is John 15:26, where we find these revealing words spoken by the incarnate Son of God, "When the Helper comes, Whom I will send to you from the FATHER, that is the SPIRIT of truth, WHO proceeds from the FATHER, HE will bear witness of ME." (NASB). The triunity of God is also clearly set forth in Matthew 3:13-17 (our Lord's baptism), and Matthew 28:19 (the baptismal formula). The Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is clearly taught in 1 Timothy 3:16, "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh..." This truth is also found in the following passages, among many others: John 1:1-3,14; 20:28; Titus 2:13; Acts 20:28; Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 1:1-3. Finally, the deity and distinct personality of the Holy Spirit is explicitly set forth in such passages as Acts 5:3, 13:2; Ephes. 4:30; and 1 Cor. 12:11, among many others.
As we seek to draw out from the Scriptures a definition of God's Remedy for Man's Ruin, it will soon become very clear to the reader why it is absolutely necessary that we have a truly Biblical concept of God's triune nature. Otherwise, we couldn't even begin to understand God's intimate, personal involvement in the work of redeeming and saving lost sinners.
2. The Meaning of the Grace of God
When we search the Book of God, in an effort to more fully understand the meaning of its tremendous revelation of God's Remedy, we are immediately confronted with one word which stands out above all others in describing it. That word is GRACE -- it literally permeates the theme of God's great salvation, appearing 131 times in the New Testament alone. The Gospel is called "the Gospel of the GRACE of God" (Acts 20:24). Believers are said to be "justified freely BY HIS GRACE through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24). According to Titus 2:11, it is "the GRACE OF GOD that bringeth salvation..." Again, in the same Epistle to Titus, the Apostle Paul writes, "...that having been justified BY HIS GRACE, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:7). The prominence of grace is seen in that well-known passage, Ephesians 2:8-9, "For BY GRACE are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast." See also Acts 15:11; Romans 5:20-21; 1 Peter 5:12. These are but a few of the many, many Scriptures which teach the preeminence of GOD'S GRACE in the salvation of sinners. And, of course, most of us have heard that famous and beloved hymn, penned by John Newton more than a century ago, entitled "Amazing Grace!"
But what exactly is the meaning of grace? How do we define it? The word "grace" in all of these Scriptures is translated from the Greek word "charis." While this Greek word has various shades of meaning, in the context of God's salvation of fallen man, it can be briefly and Scripturally defined as "God's unmerited favor, meaning that favor and blessing of God shown, through the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the ILL-DESERVING, yea, even the HELL-DESERVING, where there is no consideration whatsoever of claim or merit on their part." Because the whole race of mankind is guilty before God (Romans 3:19), and justly exposed to His wrath (Romans 1:18), the whole concept of THE GRACE OF GOD presupposes that God was never under the least obligation to exercise it toward anyone, but that He bestows it freely out of His own sovereign good pleasure (Ephesians 1:5-6; 2:7-9; Romans 3:24-26). And as we shall see, God's grace is ultimately and finally revealed in the precious shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ in His substitutionary sacrifice on Calvary's cross.
3. The Meaning of the Mercy of God
"But God, who is RICH IN MERCY, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved) . . ." (Ephesians 2:4-5)
The mercy of God differs from the grace of God in this respect: it focuses on that aspect of God's character whereby He is inclined to have sympathy for and be compassionate toward those who are needy, or miserable and wretched. There is a general mercy of God which has reference to His providential care for the needs of all of His creatures, as in Psalms 145:9, "The Lord is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works." This general mercy of God, which is temporal in nature, extends to all mankind, as expressed in Matthew 5:45, "For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." But in the context of the eternal salvation of fallen beings such as man, the mercy of God necessarily flows out of His grace, because God's exercise of saving mercy presupposes positive demerit in its objects. In the context of salvation, or God's Remedy for Man's Ruin, we could define the MERCY OF GOD as His COMPASSION (as revealed in the Person and redemptive work of the His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ) for His ENEMIES, who are wretched and miserable, and notorious in their hostility and rebellion against Him, and justly exposed to His wrath for having defied Him, and for disobedience to His holy Law.
Is it possible for anyone to deserve mercy, or merit the mercy of God, because of any degree of goodness that they think may be found in them, or because they have "made a decision," reformed their life, or "turned over a new leaf"? No, this is not at all possible, because the concepts of merit and mercy are antithetical, or contradictory, and the Word of God tells us that "after the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us..." (Titus 3:4-5).
But how is it possible for God to show mercy to rebellious sinners such as we, without compromising His justice? The holiness and justice of God demand punishment upon sinners who have trampled under foot His holy Law, despised Him, and rebelled against Him. God will not, yea even He cannot, show saving mercy to sinners at the expense of His justice. He has emphatically declared in His Word that He "will by no means clear the guilty" (Exodus 34:7) -- yet in the very same verse He says He is a God who is "keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." How, then, is it possible for God to honor His justice by not clearing, or acquitting the guilty, and at the same time, show mercy and forgiveness to the guilty? My friend, the greatness of God's mercy is measured by the DRASTIC STEPS which were necessary in order for Him to recover us. Because He is infinitely holy and abhors sin, and a just God who could not let our sins go unpunished, the only solution -- the solution which the triune God in His infinite wisdom conceived -- was the incarnation of God the Son, born under the Law of God, revealed in the world as the Lord Jesus Christ, who would perfectly obey that Law in our behalf, and then offer Himself up to the Father as a SUBSTITUTIONARY SACRIFICE, shedding His own precious blood, thereby satisfying the justice and wrath of God in behalf of those for whom He died. This wonderful salvation by GRACE, through the perfect righteousness and substitutionary blood atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, is available to ALL (Romans 10:9-13) who will come to God through His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, in heart-felt repentance, confessing themselves to be poor guilty, Hell-deserving sinners, and wholly trusting and relying upon Him and His substitutionary work in their behalf (Romans 3:24-26).
4. The Grace and Mercy of
God Bestowed Only Through
the Lord Jesus Christ
The grand theme, the central theme, of the Bible is how God magnifies and glorifies His grace and mercy in saving poor sinners through the Person and redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ. "For the Law was given by Moses, but GRACE and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). The Apostle Paul declared this great truth in 1 Corinthians 1:4, "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the GRACE OF GOD which is given you by Jesus Christ," and also in 2 Corinthians 8:9, "For ye know the GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." The Apostle Peter also emphasized this great truth in Acts 15:11, "But we believe that through the GRACE of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." See also Ephesians 1:6-7.
The Lord Jesus Christ made the astounding claim that He alone could provide access for sinners into the presence and favor of the Father in these words, recorded in John 14:6, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." In this tremendous declaration, the Lord Jesus excludes all who came before Him, and all that should ever come after Him, as the way back to God. This is true because He is the only Divinely appointed Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (I Timothy 2:5), Who is also "God manifest in the flesh" (I Timothy 3:16), the only unique God-Man -- truly God and truly Man, in one Person. What tremendous good news this is to poor Hell-deserving sinners! Just to think that our blessed Lord Jesus is GRACE PERSONIFIED, according to John 1:14 and Titus 2:11. We also find these precious truths set forth so clearly in Romans 3:24-26:
"Being justified FREELY BY HIS GRACE through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a PROPITIATION through faith in HIS BLOOD, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, His righteousness, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."