Salvation Belongs to God Alone

Introduction

During the Second World War, Corrie Ten Boom and her family showed great courage in helping to rescue Jewish people from the Nazis. Corrie’s involvement with the Dutch underground began with her acts of kindness in giving temporary shelter to her Jewish neighbors who were being driven out of their homes. Soon the word spread and more and more people came to her home for shelter. As quickly as she would find places for them, more would arrive. She had a false wall constructed in her bedroom behind which people could hide.

After a year and a half, her home developed into the center of an underground ring that reached throughout Holland. Daily, dozens of reports, appeals, and people came in and out of their watch shop. She wondered how long this much activity and the seven Jews that they were hiding would remain a secret.

On February 28, 1944, while Corrie was 48 years old, a man came into the shop and asked Corrie to help him. He stated that he and his wife had been hiding Jews and that she had been arrested. He needed six hundred gilders to bribe a policeman for her freedom. Corrie promised to help. She found out later that he was an informant that had worked with the Nazis from the first day of the occupation. He turned their family into the Gestapo. Later that day, her home was raided, and Corrie and her family were arrested (their Jewish visitors made it to the secret room in time and later were able to escape to new quarters). Her father died 10 days later from a sickness.

They were arrested and imprisoned by the Germans. Corrie and her sister were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where her sister died. The rest of her family was never seen again. error just before the end of the war in 1945. She spent the rest of her long life spreading the news of God’s forgiveness.

Here is a story of forgiveness, that she once shared.

A Holocaust Survivor’s Story of Forgiveness

~A Guidepost article from 1972 relates a short story titled “I’m Still Learning to Forgive“(Corrie TenBoom) ~

“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavy-set man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. …

And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!

Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent. …

“You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard in there.” No, he did not remember me.

“I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us.” “But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, …” his hand came out, … “will you forgive me?”

And I stood there — I whose sins had every day to be forgiven — and could not. Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

For I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.” …

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. “Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”

For a long moment, we grasped each others’ hands, the former guard, and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.”

Corrie did not need to offer this man forgiveness for him to be saved and there was really nothing he could do to earn her forgiveness. He could not undo his past sins. He could not bring her sister back. This is the same situation we find ourselves in with God. We can never do anything to earn our salvation, we cannot undo what we have done in the past because.....

Salvation is Not Ours to Offer

Types of False Grace

Cheap Grace

Grace without repentance or change

Pharisaic Grace

Grace that is only accepted through ritual

Grace that only comes from the law

What I do to earn grace

Inherited Grace

Grace that comes from our parents

We have grown up in the church grace

Universal Grace

That everyone, no matter what is saved

No decision, no change

False grace is human offering of salvation

Matthew 16:18–19 NIV

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

This does not mean that we get to choose how grace is given

This means that when we are transformed into holy creature our will aligns with God’s perfect will and we become like prophets

We do not choose who is saved

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover

Salvation Comes From God

True Grace

is total

It is open for all people to experience if they desire

1 Timothy 2:3–4 NIV

This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

is free

God’s grace is a free gift

cannot be earned

[Salvation]

Romans 11:6 NIV

And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

is sacrificial

Brennan Manning Ragamuffin Gospel : “This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God, who out of love for us, sen the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross and died whispering forgiveness on us all.”

Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was the ultimate expression of God’s grace.

it forgives

There is nothing in our past that cannot be forgiven by grace

1 Corinthians 13:5d “it [love] keeps no record of wrongs.

it supersedes the law.

if there is a choice between the law and Grace, grace will always win.

Acts 15:11 NIV

No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

Grace nullifies the law

Galatians 5:4 NIV

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

it transforms

We are made perfect through grace, not the law

Galatians 2:21 NIV

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

In grace we are not so much turning from sin, we are turning towards Christ.

We are saved through grace alone and not works

Titus 2:11 NIV

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.

Conclusion

It is never through what we do that we are saved. We are only saved through the abundant grace which is offered to all of us through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The gift is not offered to a certain class of people, it is not only for the poor and oppressed, it is not only for the well off. The gift is not for a certain nation, or a certain race. The gift of God’s grace is a free gift that is offered to all people and all we have to do is accept it. Let us pray.