Grace Alone, Faith Alone
Notes
Transcript
Imagine for a moment that the year is 2018. Can you remember that year? Every now and again Shanna will get a whiff of something in the air and she’ll say, “That smells just like bay mud.” If you were here during those first few months after Hurricane Michael, you know all-too-well what smell I’m talking about. But imagine for a moment that we go back in time, just after the hurricane, and facing the enormous task of putting church life back together, we begin telling the congregation, “Hey, for a $50 donation, you can buy your way out of suffering and into the presence of God. After all, when a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from condemnation springs!”
That seems ludicrous, but there was a time in history, just over 500 years ago, when that was a common practice, and a man named Martin Luther, a German priest and scholar, rightfully took issue with it. (By the way, if you’re looking for something to do this October 31 — and I suggest partnering with church members in your neighborhood especially if you live in a place where you see heavy foot traffic looking for candy — using it as an opportunity to love on others and shine the light of Christ. Maybe even consider passing out a tract or something along those lines. After all, it’s the one time in the year when the world comes knocking on our doors! But if that’s not the case, or if you have a conviction around October 31, maybe watch the 2003 movie starring Joseph Fiennes entitled Luther. I doubt you’ll be disappointed!)
Luther’s frustration with the church’s practice of selling indulgences — a donation made to the church to lessen the time someone might spend in purgatory — came to a head. He claimed that God does not save a person because of their merit and work, but only by grace through faith. So, he wrote was is known as the “95 Theses,” issues of contention that needed reformation in the church, according to Luther. He nailed this document to the church door…which is why most churches now have glass doors…we’re scared of what someone might take issue with!....just kidding. This was the place to put public announcements. And so, this single event, October 31, 1517, is marked as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Some of our richest theology is birthed out of this movement, chief among them being salvation by grace through faith. But consider what becomes known as the “Five Sola’s” of the Protestant Reformation:
Sola Gratia — grace alone.
Sola Fide — faith alone.
Sola Scriptura — Scripture alone.
Sola Christus — Christ alone.
Sola Deo Gloria — to the glory of God alone.
Works Can’t Work (v.1-3).
Works Can’t Work (v.1-3).
Spiritually dead: to be alienated and separated spiritually from God, the One who gives life. This is the effect of a person’s trespasses and sins. Here, he simply establishes this as fact. It will be expounded upon later. This separation is the state in which a person exists apart from God (which is why death is a good way of describing it), not simply the result of his rebellious actions. A person sins because he is a sinner. The state of spiritual death is the opposite of what pop culture teaches about the nature of mankind. To the world, humanity is basically okay and only needs to find their true self through self-actualization. To borrow from Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, apart from God, we are not “mostly dead”...we are totally dead.
Paul’s discussion of spiritual death comes on the heels of His celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
Trespasses were addressed first in 1:7, and Paul adds here sins. Both of these form barriers to a person’s relationship with God. It is probably unfruitful to try and distinguish between the meanings of the two words. Instead, they combine to communicate a single concept. Together, they speak of both the state of being a sinner and the actual acts commited that are departures from God’s standard.
Lived, manner of behavior. This was a common Jewish F.O.S. which indicated a person’s conduct in everyday life.
The course of this world is to embrace the rebellion promoted by the enemy. However, it goes beyond a simple embrace. The phrase is introduced by the Greek word kata, which in the strict sense means following or according to. However, the implication is stronger, indicating that in some way they have come under the control of another.
The literal phrase is the age of this world, what is elsewhere called the present evil age. The word age typically carried a time implication, but it could also be used in reference to deities. Paul probably intends a temporal sense. Typically Jewish thought, which has been embraced by Paul, uses it as an expression of life in times of rebellion against God. It emphasizes the fact that this world has been influenced and corrupted by sin and the prince of the power of the air.
The course of this world can refer both to a united rebellion against the Judeo-Christian worldview and value system...a type of Babylon, if you will...but it also includes more mundane instances of rebellion where we turn blind eye to what God desires in order to embrace what culture demands of us. Influences like peer pressure, celebrity status and statements, the media, all oof these provide “a script for living day-to-day life” and they typically lead us away from Christ.
This is a value system statement. The values that influence the unbeliever are adopted from the cultural norms around them, and they are influenced by the chief rebel to God’s glory.
Though they would scarcely be able to realize it, much less embrace it, it is Satan’s influence that drives the values of the world. The fact that the world is oblivious to his working serves to only prove how crafty he is.
This is surely spiritual influence as he is named the prince of the air and is then identified as a spirit. The title prince is elsewhere used of Satan in Daniel (prince of Persia and prince of Greece) and in the Synoptics when the devil is described as the “prince of demons.” The term air was an ancient thought that considered the “air” as the dwelling place for evil spirits.
The air can be distinguished from the heavens, the abode of God. It is an intermediate space, the domain of evil spirits. This idea was well-known in Judaism, and it seems fit since the spirits are invisible.
Ephesians speaks more about spiritual principalities than any other NT letter, and it names the influence behind it all -- Satan. What is described here is not possession, but dark influence and sway.
The spirit of Satan, the adversary, is disobedience. Later in Ephesians (5:6), Pau. links the sons of disobedience to sins like sexual immorality, impurity, greed, and foolish talk. This list isn’t exhaustive, but it does provide a quasi-checklist.
The word for flesh, sarx, often communicates the idea of sinful nature, the natural man who is set in opposition to God, dead and pursuing self above all else. The mantra “if it feels good, do it” is embraced by the world. The NIV says gratifying the desires, not simply carrying out. It more communicates giving in and indulging the sinful nature.
Gal.6:7 is clear that we reap what we sow. If we once lived in the passions of our flesh and carried out sinful desires, we can expect to by nature be children of wrath.
The idea of nature means categorically or the attributes that are proper due to a thing’s origin. It is the state in which we exist from birth. David expresses this truth in his psalm of repentance, Ps.51:5.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom.8:8). This is why the wrath of God persists on those who are not in Christ. Indulging the sinful nature happens because, apart from Jesus, we exist forever in a spiritually dead state. This is no life (*of godliness) that can pursue righteousness.
Christ Does Work (v.4-7).
Christ Does Work (v.4-7).
God’s mercy “restrains His wrath.” It’s not that God has mercy, but He is rich in mercy. This provides a beautiful contrast to those who belong to the kingdom of God. When introduced in the SOTM (Matt.5:5), kingdom members are described as “poor in spirit.” The OT describes God as being rich in steadfast love (i.e., Ps.103:8). This idea of steadfast love is committed, faithful, and true, particularly to His promises/covenant. Believers live under a new covenant.
God’s mercy flows out of His great love. While humanity may be dead in our trespasses and sin, God is not dead, and He is not still.
God’s love is not a passive idea, but an active reality. How do we KNOW God has loved us? Christ’s death on the cross (Rom.5:8).
He is the One who quickens us to life. This is not an act we can muster on our own. This is God’s grace. We certainly did not earn it, for dead people can do nothing to earn life again. This MUST be the work of God.
Just as Christ called Lazarus forth from the tomb, so also the Spirit of God calls us forth from spiritual death. Here, we cannot over-emphasize the regenerative work of the H.S. Christianity isn’t a set of steps to become a better person. Following Jesus isn’t about adopting a set of proper beliefs and practices, finally having the right guru to follow. Being a believer isn’t a spiritual self-help program. Instead, it is about becoming a new person, and Jesus alone does this.
Jesus made us alive, in the aorist tense, communicating a simple action that has occured. But, when Paul says by grace you have been saved (here and in v.8), saved is in the present tense, emphasizing the fact that salvation has ongoing and lasting effects. The meaning is that we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved.
The evidence of God’s grace is seen in the fact that anything God asks of us, He provides for us. Any life that we are going to live for Him, the ability to answer the call to follow the Messiah, is first provided by God when He makes us alive.
With Christ is an idea that is communicated three times in this text. Dr. Hammett notes, “I believe the union of the believer with Christ is a real, vital, life-giving, spiritual union, accomplished by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and his union with our spirit. Note the close association of Jesus and the Spirit in Rom. 8:9-11, II Cor. 3:17-18, John 14:16. ...Christ lives in us by means of the Holy Spirit. Calvin says, ‘The Holy Spirit is the means by which Christ effectively links us to himself.’”
The already-but-not-yet nature of salvation is seen by the fact that we are already raised and seated with Christ. These are true about us, even though we don’t fully experience them yet. They are certain, even though they are yet unrealized in practical experience.
Our salvation is a crown of grace that will forever be on display in those that God has saved! As the throng of worshipers gather at the end of time from every tribe, nation, language, and tongue, they will sing of the immeasurable worth of God’s mercy and grace!
Grace Will Work (v.8-10).
Grace Will Work (v.8-10).
Grace = God’s unmerited favor, an undeserved gift. The right response to grace is faith. See James’ discussion on true and genuine faith. Remember that faith will only be exercised because the believer has been made alive in Christ -- grace!
“The only thing that a man can contribute to his redemption is the sin from which he needs to be redeemed.” - William Temple
“If there is to be in our celestial garment but one stitch of our own making, we are all of us lost.” - C.H. Spurgeon
If the grace of God has any affect other than humility, then we truly have missed the beauty of grace.
Notice how Paul brings the entire discourse full-circle. Whereas we once walked in the bondage of our sin, we are now made alive to walk in the goodness that God has prepared beforehand for us. But, we could never walk in this on our own -- it is all of grace, it is the work of Christ. Lest we think that Paul is unconcerned with practical holiness and obedience to Christ, he reminds us that the overflow and evidence of it all is a life lived in surrender to the desires of Christ, to live with a conscience that is captive to Jesus and His word.
Back to Luther — it was never his intention to break from the Catholic Church. He only wanted practices…95 of them…that he saw as necessarily contradictory to the teaching of Scripture, to be reformed in the church. As you probably already know, the church was unwilling to change. As a copy of Luther’s “Theses” made their way to Rome. If Luther continued down the path he was on, discipline would come. Luther refused to remain silent, so Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther in 1521. Still, the brilliant theologian that he was, the church refused to give up on him just yet, and he was called by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, to appear in the city Worms. This meeting is called the Diet of Worms, by the way. Luther was given the opportunity one last time to recant all that he said, particularly concerning salvation by grace through faith. He could not, more on that in a moment, and as a result, the Edict of Worms declared Luther an outlaw heretic, which meant that anyone would kill Luther and not face the consequences.
My favorite moment in Luther’s entire moment is when he gives answer at the Diet of Worms. After months of deliberation, Luther says:
Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason — I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other — my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.
My conscience is captive to the Word of God. And what was his conscience captive to, according to God’s Word?
Works cannot work.
But, Christ absolutely does work.
And, grace will continue to work as we follow Christ in obedient faith.
So all the more, may we cling to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, casting aside anything that would hinder us in our pursuit of Him, be it good things that become hindrances to the BEST THING, or sin itself, that we may pursue Christ and His glory as our highest goal.