John 1:14-17 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. … (17) For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
No one deserves to be saved. Everyone deserves the wrath of God for all eternity, for everyone before they come to Christ is an enemy of God and stands guilty before Him (Romans 3:19). Nevertheless God so loved the world that even when we were His enemies, He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins (Romans 5:10). And so as we have already seen, Jesus took upon Himself the sin of the whole world and thus incurred the wrath of God that we deserved, so that we could be saved. This act is called grace, for it is completely undeserved. Religious people do not understand this truth because in their minds they deserve to be saved, because of how hard they try to live lives that they deem to be righteous before God. And so they stumble at the truth of grace, because they cannot see the justice in God allowing a sinner to be saved because someone else paid the price for their sins. In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit through the apostle John tells us that Jesus introduced the world to grace and truth, for before Jesus came, the world had received the law through Moses. What the law did was to highlight to man just how sinful he really was, for no matter how hard men tried to keep the law they came up short every time (Romans 3:23). We saw earlier in this teaching how Paul, before he was saved, had diligently tried to keep the law as an ultra-orthodox Pharisee, even to the point that he stated that concerning the righteousness which was in the law he was blameless (Philippians 3:6). But you will recall that our Lord Jesus stated that unless our righteousness exceeded that of the Pharisees we would not be able to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 5:20). Paul recognized that it was one thing to keep the Sabbath but that it was an entirely different thing to love his enemies, and so Paul recognized that he needed access to the righteousness of God offered to mankind through faith in the sacrifice of His Son. In other words Paul needed access to the grace of God.
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (9) not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Clearly Paul understood the truth of the salvation of mankind taking place through the grace of God and not through any works that we can do, for in the above quoted passage of scripture Paul teaches the church that we are saved by two ingredients, i.e. grace and faith. In other words the gift of salvation is given to mankind by the grace of God, nevertheless we are only able to access that grace through faith. And so Paul teaches us in this passage that God’s grace is that benevolent that He even gives us the faith we need in order to appropriate His gift of salvation. And so we see that salvation is God’s gift of grace given to an undeserving world without which no one would be saved.
Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, (2) through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit reveals to us that when we are saved that we are able to stand in this grace that has been delivered to us. And so we see that not only are we saved by grace, but we also stand in grace. So what does it mean to stand in grace? As we will see in this section, once we are saved we need God’s grace to keep our salvation.
Genesis 2:16-17 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; (17) but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
We saw in an earlier passage of scripture that death enters through sin. And so simply put, sin kills the human spirit. In the passage of scripture quoted above we see that when God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil He told him that in the day he did eat of the tree that he would die. And so Adam sinned against God and ate of the fruit, and the instant he did that his spirit died. So why did Adam die in spirit the moment he sinned? The reason Adam died is because he was born under law and he had no access to grace, for as we read earlier grace came through Jesus Christ. And so we see that Adam was initially born spiritually alive to God but when he sinned he incurred the penalty of sin which was spiritual death.
Galatians 4:4-5 “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, (5) to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”
Every person born into the earth is born under law. That truth is confirmed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture. This same passage reveals to us that the Lord Jesus was also born under the law, and the reason given is so that He could redeem those who were under the law. So what does it mean to be born under law? We have already seen that because Adam was born under law that he had no access to grace, which resulted in him incurring spiritual death when he committed sin. And so we see that because we are born under law we also do not have access to grace, and just like Adam, when we commit sin we incur the same penalty that Adam did, i.e. we incur spiritual death.
Deuteronomy 1:39 “Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.”
We have seen thus far that everyone born into the earth is born under law, but scripture also teaches us that every person born into the earth is born of God, i.e. their spirits come from God, for God is the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9). And so we see that all children are spiritually alive to God. As children grow up they all begin to commit sin and there are two reasons for that. Firstly, their bodies are inherited from Adam and contain the sin virus, and so their flesh influences them to commit sin. Secondly, they are corrupted by the sin that is in this world. While they are children however the sin that they commit has no effect on their spirits, i.e. their spirits remain alive to God. The reason for that is because as revealed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture, God views children as having no knowledge of good and evil. And so because they have no knowledge of good and evil God does not hold them accountable for sin. On their thirteenth birthday however things change, for from that day onward God holds them accountable for their sin because He no longer sees them as children. And so because they have been born under law and have no access to grace, any sin that they commit on that day causes their spirits to instantly die and they become separated from the life of God.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comments