If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefields besides, is mere fight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
Martin Luther
Grace Bible Church
Gbible.org
Pastor-Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday,
December 07, 2022
The Doctrine of Grace
Our first word is the Greek noun “charis” correctly translated grace.
Point 1. Introduction.
- God exists.
- God reveals Himself through the Bible or the Word of God.
- God has a plan for the Church.
- God's plan is based on a policy, God's policy is always called grace.
- The grace of God is divided into 3 categories.
- The Church-age believer is saved by grace and we are required by God to live by grace.
- The seventh proposition is the fact that every believer owes both the plan and the grace of God a hearing.
Point 2. Definition and Description of the Grace of God.
- Grace is not held back or withdrawn because of failure.
It is our failures and faults which usually compels a person to reach out for the kindness and benefits of grace.
Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the presence of human failure or sin.
Grace cannot be exercised where there is the slightest degree of human merit to be recognized!
- A second fundamental fact about grace is the fact that grace cannot be lessened because of failure or sin.
God cannot to do less in grace for one who is sinful than he would have done for another.
TIT 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
Grace cannot be increased because it is the expression of God's infinite and unconditional love.
Grace cannot be diminished because every limitation that sin might impose on the action of a righteous God has been dismissed forever through the cross.
HEB 8:12 "For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more."
Grace does not mean that God ignores or overlooks sin, grace means that God has dealt with sin perfectly in His Son on the cross.
The grace of God is exercised in perfect independence of human sin or failure.
When you think of grace I want you to think of the freedom that God has to express his love to all mankind.
- A third important fact about grace is the fact that grace cannot incur or bring on a debt.
An act is not gracious if under any circumstances a debt or an obligation is incurred.
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If you work for something, you expect to be paid a wage for the work you did .
To the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor but as what is due.
Grace must always remain pure and uncompromising in its' generosity and benefit.
This means that grace must always be based on purity = Pure God and nothing whatsoever to do with man.
Through grace, God is glorified, and sinners are saved.
Whatever God does, He does in grace and therefore He presents it as a gift.
Prin-A benefit or a blessing cannot be called a gift, if it is paid for before, at the time, or after the gift is given.
Any attempt to compensate God or to pay Him back for whatever He does is totally incompatible with the grace of God.
These attempts, although many times made in sincerity, exhibit such a lack of understanding and appreciation for the love and grace of God.
This is the true meaning of frustrating the grace of God, GAL 2:21 "I do not frustrate the grace of God."
All attempts to repay God for His gifts, even though they are sincerely made, serve only to frustrate His grace and lower the marvelous kindness of God to some form of creature credit.
How faithfully we should serve him but never to repay Him because of grace, we do not owe God a thing.
Service is our means of expressing our love and devotion to Him but it is not what we owe Him.
As God expressed His love to those whom He saves by the gracious things he has done, Christian service for God should also be based upon "grace."
Salvation must be understood and Christian service must be the expression of the believer's love and gratitude to God.
Salvation is never conditioned on human faithfulness or on the promise of human faithfulness.
- Grace is not something that God owes the human race because of the cross.
If God was indebted to the human race because of the work of the cross, then the payment of an honest debt could never be an act of grace.
The offer of salvation to the human race is not something that God owed the human race nor is it something God had to do.
Grace demands that every form of human merit shall be set aside completely in the salvation of man but also God's policy for the individual after salvation!
COL 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.
EPH 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
Grace is God's means of expressing to mankind His fantastic love for all.
No divine obligation exists toward any individual.
Grace is never the overpayment of a debt or a reward for trying hard.
Grace is neither treating a person "as" he deserves, nor treating a person "better" than he deserves.
Grace is treating a person "graciously" without the slightest reference to what he deserves.
Grace is infinite love expressing itself in infinite goodness.
Through the unlimited atonement, grace is free to save anyone who believes on TLJC in every case and only grace can save mankind.
1TI 4:10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.
Grace is never decreased or increased because the experience of that grace depends on the believer's fellowship with God.
Grace did not appear in the immediate divine dealings with the sins of the world.
Grace did not judge our sins, justice and righteousness did.
Under the principle of true gospel preaching, sinners are to be told that they may now stand forever pardoned before God.
As COL 2:13 says He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.
We call this judicial forgiveness.
For the believer, accepting this judicial forgiveness guarantees an unchangeable standing and position before God forever.
The sin issue has been dealt with once and for all and unless you understand that you can't even begin to understand the grace of God.
In faithfulness, God will correct and chastise His child who sins, but there is a tremendous difference between judging and chastising.
The forgiveness of God toward the sinner is made possible only through the cross and never an act of immediate grace.
Forgiveness cancels every debt before God whereas justification declares the sinner to be forever judicially righteous in the eyes of God.
Of the various divine undertakings then, some are acts of divine justice, and some are acts of the immediate grace of God.
Those acts which deal with human unworthiness and sin are "acts of justice."
These include: forgiveness, justification, death to the law, freedom from the law, and the whole new creation.
MAT 6:15 "But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
All of this was made possible through the cross and not accomplished by an act of immediate grace.
Those aspects of salvation wherein God is revealed as imparting and bestowing His benefits are said to be immediate acts of His grace.
These include the gift of eternal life, the imputed righteousness of God, and all of your escrow blessings.
It's not that he didn't have any rewards, he does, grace deposited fantastic blessings in eternity past "in Christ" for every believer.
- Grace is not the issue in dealing with the sins of the saved.
What God does in forgiving us experientially in time is based on the cross and all that was accomplished!
By His death, Christ provided the sufficient ground for both the salvation of the unsaved and the restoration of the saved.
Certain fundamental elements enter into the divine forgiveness and cleansing which takes place when a believer is restored.
There must be confession, this is the one and only condition on the human side.
Then there is forgiveness and cleansing which is promised on the divine side.
Then protection is promised because of the advocate which we have at the right hand of God, TLJC.
He acts in strict faithfulness to His covenant and promise concerning forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness of sin is based upon the righteousness and justice of God not the grace of God.
The believer does not depend upon the mercy and grace of God when he is restored to fellowship, but he depends on the character and nature of God for his forgiveness.
1JO 1:9 "He is faithful and righteous, with the result that He forgives us our sins [known sins] and purifies us from all unrighteousness [unknown sins]."
It can be concluded that the word grace represents the uncompromised, unrestricted, unrecompensed loving favor of God toward sinners.
Grace is the limitless, unrestrained love of God acting on behalf of the lost.
Grace depends upon who and what God is and never who and what man is.
Legalism or religion means man does the work and man gets the credit.
Grace is also undeserved blessing and suffering from God to mankind.
In grace, God works and mankind benefits.
In grace, God provides for man and man receives the blessings.
Grace means that God knows best.
Grace is the policy of God in establishing a relationship with mankind.
Grace is the policy of God in providing and maintaining fellowship with God.
Grace is the policy of God in providing both relationship and fellowship with all three persons of the Trinity.
Relationship with God is the grace policy for eternal salvation of the unbeliever because we are spiritually dead.
Fellowship with God is the grace policy for all Church Age believers to execute the PPOG.
(1) Grace is extended to mankind in spiritual death.
(2) Grace is extended to mankind at the point of salvation.
(3) Grace is extended to mankind as a believer in Christ under the grace policy of God under the PPOG.
Grace is the policy of God in providing everything necessary for the believer to execute God's plan, purpose, and will.
God is the aggressor in establishing a relationship with man.
This is a great passage because this introduces to us the bondage of the free will.
Pharoah chose to do this on his own with no interference from anyone who we would call hyper-Calvinism.
John Calvin was not a Calvinist, it was one of his students call Theodore Beza who disagreed with him and he called it Hyper- Calvinism.
1TI 4:10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.