Category Archives: Grace

Sola Fide & Sola Gratia

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Dr. R. C. Sproul, from the book, ‘Willing to Believe’, pages 24-26:

“Evangelicals are so called because of their commitment to the biblical and historical doctrine of justification by faith alone. Because the Reformers saw SOLA FIDE as central and essential to the biblical gospel, the term evangelical was applied to them. Modern evangelicals in great numbers embrace the SOLA FIDE of the Reformation, but have jettisoned the SOLA GRATIA that undergirded it. Packer and Johnston assert:

‘Justification by faith only’ is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of SOLA FIDE is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of SOLA GRATIA. What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it man’s own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God, or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter (as the Arminians later did) thereby deny man’s utter helplessness in sin, and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder, then, that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being in principle a return to Rome (because in effect it turned faith into a meritorious work) and a betrayal of the Reformation (because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the Reformers’ thought). Arminianism was, indeed, in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favour of New Testament Judaism; for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other. In the light of what Luther says to Erasmus, there is no doubt that he would have endorsed this judgment.

I must confess that the first time I read this paragraph, I blinked. On the surface it seems to be a severe indictment of Arminianism. Indeed it could hardly be more severe than to speak of it as ‘un-Christian’ or ‘anti-Christian.’

Does this mean that Packer and Johnston believe Arminians are not Christians?

Not necessarily. Every Christian has errors of some sort in his thinking. Our theological views are fallible. Any distortion in our thought, any deviation from pure, biblical categories may be loosely deemed ‘un-Christian’ or ‘anti-Christian.’ The fact that our thought contains un-Christian elements does not demand the inference that we are therefore not Christians at all. I agree with Packer and Johnston that Arminianism contains un-Christian elements in it and that their view of the relationship between faith and regeneration is fundamentally un-Christian.

Is this error so egregious that it is fatal to salvation? People often ask if I believe Arminians are Christians? I usually answer, ‘Yes, barely.’ They are Christians by what we call A FELICITOUS INCONSISTENCY. What is this inconsistency? Arminians affirm the doctrine of justification by faith alone. They agree that we have no meritorious work that counts toward our justification, that our justification rests solely on the righteousness and merit of Christ, that sola fide means justification is by Christ alone, and that we must trust not in our own works, but in Christ’s work for our salvation. In all this they differ from Rome on crucial points. Packer and Johnston note that later Reformed theology, however, condemned Arminianism as a betrayal of the Reformation and in principle as a return to Rome. They point out that Arminianism ‘in effect turned faith into a meritorious work.’ We notice that this charge is qualified by the words ‘in effect.’

Usually Arminians deny that their faith is a meritorious work. If they were to insist that faith is a meritorious work, they would be explicitly denying justification by faith alone. The Arminian acknowledges that faith is something a person does. It is a work, though not a meritorious one. Is it a good work? Certainly it is not a bad work. It is good for a person to trust in Christ and in Christ alone for his or her salvation. Since God commands us to trust in Christ, when we do so we are obeying this command.

But all Christians agree that faith is something we do. God does not do the believing for us. We also agree that our justification is by faith insofar as faith is the instrumental cause of our justification. All the Arminian wants and intends to assert is that man has the ability to exercise the instrumental cause of faith without first being regenerated. This position clearly negates SOLA GRATIA, but not necessarily SOLA FIDE.

Then why say that Arminianism ‘in effect’ makes faith a meritorious work? Because the good response people make to the gospel becomes the ultimate determining factor in salvation. I often ask my Arminian friends why they are Christians and other people are not. They say it is because they believe in Christ while others do not. Then I inquire why they believe and others do not? ‘Is it because you are more righteous than the person who abides in unbelief?’

They are quick to say no.

‘Is it because you are more intelligent?’

Again the reply is negative.

They say that God is gracious enough to offer salvation to all who believe and that one cannot be saved without that grace. But this grace is cooperative grace. Man in his fallen state must reach out and grasp this grace by an act of the will, which is free to accept or reject this grace. Some exercise the will rightly (or righteously), while others do not. When pressed on this point, the Arminian finds it difficult to escape the conclusion that ultimately his salvation rests on some righteous act of the will he has performed. He has ‘in effect’ merited the merit of Christ, which differs only slightly from the view of Rome.”

Why Did You Come to Christ?

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“…we might imagine asking four professing Christians, ‘Why are you saved?’ They all answer that they are saved by trust in Christ, who died for their sins and rose again. The next question is posed: ‘Why did you trust in Christ?’

The Pelagian answers, ‘I came to Christ by my own free will.’

The other three say, ‘I came to Christ because the grace of God drew me.’

Another question is posed to these three: ‘Why did you come to Christ when many who hear the gospel do not?’

The Arminian Christian says, ‘I cooperated with the grace that God gives to everyone.’

The Lutheran Christian responds, ‘I did not resist the grace that God’s Word brings to all who hear it.’

The Reformed Christian answers, ‘God overcame my resistance and sweetly inclined my heart to believe God’s Word, so that I willingly came to Christ.’”

[Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Spirit and Salvation, vol. 3, Reformed Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 380]

‘Grace’ According to Rome

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Article: “Understanding the Roman Catholic ‘state of grace’” by Simon van Bruchem, pastor, All Nations Presbyterian Church, Perth, Western Australia. – original source here: https://writtenforourinstruction.com/understanding-the-roman-catholic-state-of-grace/

The word ‘grace’ is a simple word; it means getting something good that you don’t deserve. You experience grace when someone gives you a gift. Grace is not something you earnt or worked for; it was simply given to you by someone who loves and cares for you. The concept of grace is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Yet words can sometimes mean entirely different things to different people. The word “grace”, when heard by someone who has grown up in the Roman Catholic Church, is understood to mean something entirely different, and rather more complicated, than when it is heard by someone used to the kind of definition I gave in the last paragraph.

In Roman Catholic doctrine, when Jesus died and rose again, he won a storehouse of grace for his people. This storehouse of grace is distributed to believers through the ministry of the priests. As you take part in the sacraments, you receive grace from the storehouse Jesus won.

Now, that’s quite different from the simple Biblical description of grace. That’s because this doctrine is not only derived from the Bible, but it is the result of various scholars and Popes over the centuries adding to the simple Biblical teaching.

Related to this ‘storehouse of grace’ idea is the concept of a ‘state of grace’. The Roman Catholic doctrine is that we are born sinful, but when we are baptised in the church, we have our sins washed away and enter into a state of grace. That means that if we were to die after being baptised, we would be OK with God. Baptism is not seen as permanently removing your sin, however. As you continue to sin, you can drop out of a state of grace and be under God’s judgement once more. You return to a state of grace by going to confession, doing whatever penance is necessary, and then regularly taking part in the mass. All of these are seen as sacraments; all of them are ways in which you receive grace from the storehouse Jesus won through the priests and the sacraments. Just before you die, ideally you would receive the last rites (seen as another sacrament) which would return you to a state of grace before you stand before God.

This means, in practice, that a committed Roman Catholic would need to attend mass consistently, regularly go to confession, and even then they might be worried that they are not in a state of grace. How much is enough? The result can be a sense of duty and religion and not a lot of joy in what Jesus has done. The focus shifts from what Jesus has done to all the sacraments and religious duty you have to do to be OK with God.

Grace should be simpler than that. Jesus died for your sins if you trust in Him. This is a gift you receive by the kindness of God (Eph 2:4). There is no middle man. You don’t need to take the sacraments to remain in a state of grace. It is all to do with what God has done for you in Jesus, not what you do through your religion. What Jesus won for us is applied to our hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit, not a priest.

Understanding grace is a freeing thing. If we know that it is all about what God has done, and not what we do, that means we should be joyful. We should be confident about our status before God because it cannot be ruined by our lack of religion or our mistakes. We should want to be involved in church as a response to Jesus’ work, not to remain in God’s good books. Grace, rightly understood, will truly change your life.

Accustomed to Grace

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R.C. Sproul: From Chapter 10: In Holy, Holy, Holy: Proclaiming the Perfections of God (pp. 133–145). Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing.

An Inalienable Right to Grace?

My favorite illustration of how callous we have become with respect to the mercy, love, and grace of God comes from the second year of my teaching career, when I was given the assignment of teaching two hundred and fifty college freshman an introductory course on the Old Testament. On the first day of the class, I gave the students a syllabus and I said: “You have to write three short term papers, five pages each. The first one is due September 30 when you come to class, the second one October 30, and the third one November 30. Make sure that you have them done by the due date, because if you don’t, unless you are physically confined to the infirmary or in the hospital, or unless there is a death in the immediate family, you will get an F on that assignment. Does everybody understand that?” They all said, “Yes.”

On September 30, two hundred and twenty-five of my students came in with their term papers. There were twenty-five terrified freshmen who came in trembling. They said: “Oh, Professor Sproul, we didn’t budget our time properly. We haven’t made the transition from high school to college the way we should have. Please don’t flunk us. Please give us a few more days to get our papers finished.”

I said: “OK, this once I will give you a break. I will let you have three more days to get your papers in, but don’t you let that happen again.”

“Oh, no, we won’t let it happen again,” they said. “Thank you so, so, so much.”

Then came October 30. This time, two hundred students came with their term papers, but fifty students didn’t have them. I asked, “Where are your papers?”

They said: “Well, you know how it is, Prof. We’re having midterms, and we had all kinds of assignments for other classes. Plus, it’s homecoming week. We’re just running a little behind. Please give us just one more chance.”

I asked: “You don’t have your papers? Do you remember what I said the last time? I said, ‘Don’t even think about not having this one in on time.’ And now, fifty of you don’t have them done.”

“Oh, yes,” they said, “we know.”

I said: “OK. I will give you three days to turn in your papers. But this is the last time I extend the due date.”

Do you know what happened? They started singing spontaneously, “We love you, Prof Sproul, oh, yes, we do.” I was the most popular professor on that campus.

But then came November 30. This time one hundred of them came with their term papers, but a hundred and fifty of them did not. I watched them walk in as cool and as casual as they could be. So I said, “Johnson!”

“What?” he replied.

“Do you have your paper?”

“Don’t worry about it, Prof,” he responded. “I’ll have it for you in a couple of days.”

I picked up the most dreadful object in a freshman’s experience, my little black grade book. I opened it up and I asked, “Johnson, you don’t have your term paper?”

He said, “No”

I said, “F,” and I wrote that in the grade book. Then I asked, “Nicholson, do you have your term paper?”

“No, I don’t have it.”

“F. Jenkins, where is your term paper?”

“I don’t have it.”

“F.”

Then, out of the midst of this crowd, someone shouted, “That’s not fair.” I turned around and asked, “Fitzgerald, was that you who said that?”

He said, “Yeah, it’s not fair.”

I asked, “Weren’t you late with your paper last month?”

“Yeah,” he responded.

“OK, Fitzgerald, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. If it’s justice you want, it’s justice you will get.” So I changed his grade from October to an F. When I did that, there was a gasp in the room. I asked, “Who else wants justice?” I didn’t get any takers.

There was a song in the musical My Fair Lady titled “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” Well, those students had grown accustomed to my grace. The first time they were late with their papers, they were amazed by grace. The second time, they were no longer surprised; they basically assumed it. By the third time, they demanded it. They had come to believe that grace was an inalienable right, an entitlement they all deserved.

I took that occasion to explain to my students: “Do you know what you did when you said, ‘That’s not fair’? You confused justice and grace.” The minute we think that anybody owes us grace, a bell should go off in our heads to alert us that we are no longer thinking about grace, because grace, by definition, is something we don’t deserve. It is something we cannot possibly deserve. We have no merit before God, only demerit. If God should ever, ever treat us justly outside of Christ, we would perish. Our feet would surely slip.

Among those now reading this book, there are many who are assuming they are not going to go to hell. But if there is a God (and there is), and if He is holy (and He is), and if He is just (and He is), He could not possibly be without wrath. If you have not been reconciled to Him through the blood of His Son, the only thing you have to look forward to is His wrath, which is a divine wrath, a furious wrath, and an eternal wrath. God must be regarded as holy by anyone who comes near Him. So if you would come into the presence of God, consider the nature of the God whom you are approaching, that you may come covered by the righteousness of Christ.

Who Made You To Differ?

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Excerpt from the sermon The Fruitless Vine by C. H. Spurgeon

It is grace, free, sovereign grace, which has made you to differ!

Should any here, supposing themselves to be the children of God, imagine that there is some reason “in them” why they should have been chosen, let them know, that as yet they are in the dark, concerning the first principles of grace, and have not yet learned the gospel.

If ever they had known the gospel, they would, on the other hand, confess that they were less than the least- the offscouring of all things- unworthy, ill-deserving, undeserving, and hell-deserving, and ascribe it all to distinguishing grace, which has made them to differ; and to discriminating love, which has chosen them out from the rest of the world. Great Christian, you would have been a great sinner if God had not made you to differ!

O! you who are valiant for truth, you would have been as valiant for the devil if grace had not laid hold of you! A seat in heaven shall one day be yours; but a chain in hell would have been yours if grace had not changed you! You can now sing his love; but a licentious song might have been on your lips, if grace had not washed you in the blood of Jesus! You are now sanctified, you are quickened, you are justified; but what would you have been today if it had not been for the interposition of the divine hand? There is not a crime you might not have committed; there is not a folly into which you might not have run.Even murder itself you might have committed if grace had not kept you.You shall be like the angels; but you would have been like the devil if you had not been changed by grace!

Is Grace “Amazing” To You?

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The Bible does not merely show sinners to be undeserving, but as ill-deserving. So often we are inclined to think of ourselves, prior to our salvation, as in some sense “neutral” in the sight of God. We are willing to admit that we have done nothing to deserve His favor, but this is entirely insufficient as a background to the understanding of divine grace. It is not simply that we do not deserve grace: we do deserve hell!

Grace is stripped of its meaning when it is merely thought of as a “good business decision” on God’s part. I am referring here to the mistaken idea that God saw our “worth” and decided that the high price was indeed right, and that He would pay the necessary expense to bring us safely to heaven. No, a thousand times, no! That’s not grace at all. That’s just a good business deal!

Grace is seen in this – while we were wretches; while we were sinners, shaking our fists at God, hating God, defying God in thought, word and deed – every single one of us; God did something ridiculous – paying an outlandish and scandalous price to redeem us (the blood of His beloved Son). This was not because He calculated it all out and thought it was a good investment on His part; that we were “worth it.” No, God was motivated by His radical, amazing, abundant and all conquering love alone, as He set about saving a people for Himself. There was nothing of intrinsic worth in the creatures He redeemed. Any worth we had was entirely borrowed from the God who made us in His image.

I find that all of us really need to get this in our bloodstream, so to speak, before grace can be fully appreciated. At times, we are far too quick to talk of God’s remedy for sin before we have described and firmly established our terrible plight before a holy and just God. Fallen humanity is not to be thought of as merely helpless, but as openly hostile toward God. It is one thing to be without a God-approved righteousness. It is altogether another thing to be wholly unrighteous and deserving of divine wrath. It is, then, against the background of having been at one time the enemies of God that divine grace is to be portrayed, for “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:10).

Grace is sovereign and free. Although God is gracious in His eternal being, He need not be gracious or shower His grace upon anyone. Think about it – though many angels had fallen into sin, no plan was ever initiated to rescue even one of these angels from the fierce wrath of God. Yet, the angels of God surrounding the throne are still singing “holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.” In the heavenly courts, there is not even a hint of injustice in any of this. Why? Because God is never obligated to show mercy to any of His creatures. No injustice takes place when justice is administrated! If God was ever obliged to show mercy, we would not be speaking of mercy at all, but of justice.

Grace is not to be thought of as in any sense dependent upon our merit or demerit. This may be expressed in two ways. As said above, in the first place, grace stops being grace if God is compelled to give it. But more than this, grace treats a person without the slightest reference to merit whatsoever, but solely according to the good pleasure of God. Since grace is a gift, no work is to be performed, no offering made, to repay God for His favor.

Sola Gratia – Grace Alone

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I am thankful for today’s opportunity to share God’s word. I was able to say a whole lot on the vital theme of “Sola Gratia” (Grace Alone) in just under an hour.

The host, Julio Rodriguez wrote, “Today, I had the privilege of having John Samson join me on BRIDGE Radio to talk about the Reformation and “Sola Gratia”, that is ‘By Grace Alone.’ On today’s episode, we discuss why it is only by God’s grace that we are saved and not by our works or through other means. The Word of God describes the human condition as being completely unable to achieve salvation on his own. We review Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Arminian view of God’s Grace in relation to our salvation. What is the correct view? Do I play any part in my salvation? Well, tune in to find out!”

Here’s a link to the podcast.

The paperback version of my new book “The Five Solas – Standing Together Alone” is available here.

The ebook and audio version is available here.

God Raised You From the Dead

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Dr. John Piper: You came into this world dead. Not sort of “hard of hearing” towards the gospel, not simply crippled in good works, not struggling to keep your head above the waters of sin. You were dead: spiritually lifeless and unmoving. Everything that a dead corpse can contribute to becoming alive, you could do, spiritually, to believe in Christ. Nothing. Dead means dead (Ephesians 2:1–3).

But God, because of the wealth of mercy in his being, loving dead corpses such as we are, said to us, “Live.” And as surely as the voice of God raised the Son of God from the tomb outside Jerusalem, he raised us up from death, and set us about the works of Christ, by the same power that breathed in our souls from the beginning of our first cries of faith (Ephesians 2:4–7).

This is the good news of Jesus. No boasting, no claim of contribution to our own resurrection — we boast, but say nothing but “useless” of ourselves. Our boasting is in the Lord who raises the dead, for his glory (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Scripture: Ephesians 2:1–10

LAB_PDX_10 from Desiring God on Vimeo.

Grace: What Does God Give Us?

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grace02Grace: What Does God Give Us?

This extract is from Why The Reformation Still Matters, by Michael Reeves and Tim Chester, Crossway, 2016. (available here)

Michael Reeves is President of Union and Professor of Theology. He is the author of The Good God: Enjoying Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Paternoster, 2012).

Tim Chester is a pastor with Grace Church, Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, and a tutor with the Acts 29 Oak Hill Academy. He is the author or co-author of numerous books.

Years before the Reformation, in his days as a monk, Martin Luther had begun lecturing on the Bible at the university in Wittenberg. There he taught his students that salvation is by grace. ‘Not because of our merits,’ he explained; salvation is ‘given out of the pure mercy of the promising God’.[1] No alarms went off; not a single eyebrow was raised among all the inquisitors in Rome. And why not? Because Martin Luther the monk was still then upholding Rome’s own theology. He was loyally teaching standard medieval Roman Catholicism, that salvation is by grace.

Eyebrows might not have arched in Rome, but perhaps yours did just then. For was not the whole point of the Reformation that medieval Roman Catholicism falsely taught salvation by works? That, certainly, is how many see it. Yet that idea actually fails to grasp quite how things really were. More importantly, it fails to grasp the true wonder and acuteness of the Reformers’ message.

Grace in medieval Roman Catholicism

What, then, did Luther the monk (before the Reformation) mean when he taught salvation by grace? He could state that salvation ‘is not on the basis of our merits but on the pure promise of a merciful God’. Which sounds all very Reformational – until he goes on to explain:

Hence the teachers correctly say that to a man who does what is in him God gives grace without fail . . . [God] bestows everything gratis and only on the basis of the promise of his mercy, although he wants us to be prepared for this as much as lies in us. [2]

So, according to this, God does save by grace, but that grace is given to those who are ‘prepared’ for it, who do ‘what is in them’ to be fit for grace. Or as others (‘the teachers’) of the day liked to put it, ‘God will not deny grace to those who do their best.’

Romans 5:5 is perhaps the single most helpful verse for under- standing this view of salvation by grace. ‘God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us,’ writes the apostle Paul. Instead of being read as a verse about the transformative work of the Spirit in those who ‘have been justified by faith’ (Romans 5:1), as the context proves, Romans 5:5 was taken as an account of salvation, meaning that God pours his love and grace into our hearts, transforming us and making us holy – holy enough, ultimately, for heaven.

Our problem, according to this theology, is that, while God is holy, we are spiritually lazy. Only holy people belong with a holy God in heaven, but, while we may recognize the problem, we really cannot be bothered. We do not seem able to summon up the energy needed to be truly holy. And so God in his kindness gives us grace. ‘Grace’ is thus a bit like a can of spiritual Red Bull. I find myself unable to pull myself together and get holy. Then God gives me Grace, and suddenly I find myself much more eager and able.

This, then, was a theology of salvation by grace: without this grace, we could never become the sort of holy people it claimed belong in heaven. But it was absolutely not a theology of salvation by grace alone. Here grace provided the necessary boost it imagined we all need to earn eternal life; but it did not actually give or guarantee eternal life itself. The Red Bull of grace would be given to those who wanted and pursued it, and it saved only in so far as it enabled people to become holy and so win their salvation.

This might all have been the theology of sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism, but it does not feel too unfamiliar to twenty-first century Protestants and evangelicals. ‘Grace’ is still routinely thought of today as a package of blessing doled out by God. And, small details aside, that picture captures well a common and instinctive view of salvation, that while we know God saves by grace, we still look to ourselves and our performance to know how we stand before him. Our prayer lives are often painfully revealing of this. Every day Christians should be able to approach the Almighty and boldly cry ‘Our Father’ all because of Jesus. As we read in Hebrews, ‘Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God… Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace’ (Hebrews 4:14–16). Yet in practice our sins and failings make us shrink back. Ignoring Jesus’ salvation, we feel we cannot approach the Holy One because of how we have performed. Continue reading →