Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The secret of the mystery, Part 110. The one thing Satan is obsessed with opposing in the life of every believer.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
4. JOH 15:21 - because the kosmos is ignorant of the plan of God.
“All these things” = Satan and the kingdom of darkness who are in the business of exalting the creature and opposing the creator, and do not know God the Father and His plan called grace.
The one thing that Satan is obsessed with opposing in the life of every believer is the grace of God.
We are forgiven on the basis of what God has done for us.
We are never forgiven on the basis of what we have done for God.
1. Grace is not held back or withdrawn because of our failure.
Through the cross all questions of demerit have been banished and God is righteously free to exercise grace in every case.
2. Grace cannot be LESSENED because of failure or sin.
The sin question has been set aside forever and through the cross an equal exercise of grace is extended to all who believe.
Do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “He’s a fiercely jealous lover” - in an anthropopathic way.
This means that some times you need to hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious.
The grace of God is therefore exercised in perfect independence of human sin or failure.
3. Grace cannot incur or bring on a debt.
A gift cannot be called a gift if it is paid for before, at the time, or after the gift is given.
These attempts, although many times made in sincerity, exhibit such a lack of appreciation for the love and grace of God.
A gift cannot be called a gift if it is paid for before, at the time, or after the gift is given.
GAL 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness comes by works, then Christ is dead in vain.
The grace of God is too often denied by well meaning attempts to compensate God for His benefits.
Salvation must be understood and treated as a gift from God and Christian service and faithfulness must be the expression of the believer’s love and gratitude to God.
JOH 15:21 - “they do not know Me or the One who sent Me.”
Salvation is never conditioned on human faithfulness or on the promise of human faithfulness.
4. Grace is not something that God OWES the human race because of the cross.
If God were 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.
It is strictly a manifestation of the grace of God.
Grace demands that every form of human merit shall be set aside completely so that pure grace may be exercised.
COL 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him.
Answer - By grace, through faith.
The entire human race has been placed under the divine judicial sentence of sin.
All men are sinners both by nature and practice.
All men have already been condemned, they are children of disobedience, EPH 2:2, not on the ground of their own sinfulness but on the ground of their federal headship in fallen Adam.
GAL 3:22 But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
5. 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 infinite love expressing itself in infinite goodness.
Divine grace is never decreased or increased; however, the experience of that grace depends on the believer’s fellowship with God.
6. 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.
Not because God is gracious enough to excuse their sins, but because there is redemption through the blood of Christ.
COL 2:13 He has forgiven you ALL your trespasses.
When God forgives absolutely and eternally, through the cross of Christ, He is acting as a judge not a father with a father’s heart = judicial forgiveness.
Judicial forgiveness itself is not an act of grace but a judicial offer to all mankind from the righteousness and justice of God.
Judicial forgiveness covers “all” sin and by it the sinner is pardoned forever.
The forgiveness of God toward the sinner, then, 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.
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.
Those aspects of salvation wherein God is revealed as imparting and bestowing His benefits = “immediate acts of His grace.” These include the gift of eternal life, the imputed righteousness of God, and all your escrow blessings.
This is one of the reasons why a believer “loses rewards” at the bema seat, 1CO 3:11-15.
7. Grace is not the issue in dealing with the sins of the saved.
The Father does not act in gracious kindness when forgiving and cleansing the believer.
He acts in strict faithfulness to His covenant and promise concerning forgiveness of sin.
Forgiveness of sin is based upon the righteousness and justice of God not the grace of God.
“Grace” represents the uncompromised, unrestricted, unrecompensed loving favor of God toward sinners.
Grace is more than love; it is love which is absolutely free “to love.”
Grace depends upon who and what God is and never who and what man is.
Grace is God doing the work and man receiving what God has provided in a non-meritorious way.
Legalism or religion means man does the work and man gets the credit.
Satan hates when God gets the credit; it is creator-credit versus creature-credit.
Grace is needed in prayer, HEB 4:16;
in undeserved suffering, 2CO 12:9-10;
in the release of divine power, 2TI 2:1;
in the stability for the believer, 1PE 5:12;
and to grow spiritually, 2PE 3:18.