PREACHED:OL,
“GRACE, FAITH, LAW, WORKS AND LEGALISM”
INTRODUCTION:
A. But
there are basically two views that will determine our definition of legalism:
unconditional grace or conditional grace.
1. In
other words, does God provide the totality of man’s salvation, or does God
expect man to play a part in His plan of salvation by an obedient response.
B. If one
believes that grace unconditionally saves, then he will conclude that any doctrine
that advocates man playing any part in the saving process is legalism.
C. On the
other hand, if one believes that God’s grace is the absolutely essential for
our salvation, but that salvation by grace is predicated on conditions that
must be met by man before forgiveness will be granted, obedience is not
legalistic, but essential if we would be right with God.
II. There are of course, some racial views of
legalism.
A. A few who
believe that we are saved by grace and grace alone advocate that, there is
absolutely no law and thus no prohibition whatsoever.
1.
They are
anti-law.
B. Ray Stedman countered this view most
effectively when he wrote:
1. “First, there is an expected pattern of
behavior. There is a law, if you like, a code, to which we are expected to
conform. Many Christians make the mistake of thinking that to be free from
legalism you must become free from any law whatsoever. Nothing is further from
the truth. The Scriptures never endorse that notion. I know that we sing, “Free
from the Law, O happy condition; Jesus has bled, and there is remission,” but
what we are talking about is not freedom from the Law but freedom from the
curse of the Law. There must always be law. This is a law-governed universe
because the law reflects the character of God…So true Christianity isn’t
freedom from the existence of law. There is always a standard, always a code of
conduct to be observed. That is essential. (Internet article, “Legalism”; www.pbc.org/dp/ stedman/ misc/ legal.html)
C. Brother Charles Hodge wrote an article,
entitled “Law or Grace?” in which speaks of the necessity of “balance” in our
religious life and practices. Listen carefully to his sage advice:
1. “People have always been problemed
with “law or grace?” Ira North served us well with his
compelling book, Balance. People either want ‘all law with no grace’ or ‘all grace with no law.’ BOTH are
wrong, disaster! People have a hard time understanding the difference between ‘law’
and ‘law principle.’ Thus law falls into legalism and grace into license.
Legalism and license are always wrong. Yet without law (transgression) there is
no need for grace. Grace has glory only in an appreciation for law. Love
fulfills law—law does not fulfill love. No one is without law…no one is without
need for grace. There is the law of liberty, faith, conscience, expediency,
God! Without law man cannot exist. Law and grace must be kept in
balance—never
divorced…BOTH liberalism and legalism are frightening things! One blows
away—the other remains to beat you to death. BALANCE! Spirituality is like a
kite free in the sky to dance with the wind, yet is tethered or anchored to the
ground. To lose that tether is to lose its freedom—yea destroy itself. BALANCE!
Therefore we need authority and liberty. We need objective authority and
subjective authority—yet the subjective comes from the objective. The reverse
is chaos… Your emotion, your experience, must never by-pass your mind. Nothing
builds up Christians/churches like truth. We must use our heads, hearts, and
hands to be Christians.”
D. What do the scriptures say regarding
the question of what saves us?
1.
Are we saved by
grace alone, or are we saved by grace through our obedient faith response to
God’s conditions and commands?
DISCUSSION:
WE ARE SAVED BY THE GRACE OF GOD.
A. The late J.D. Thomas wrote:
1. “Obviously grace is the central doctrine
of Christianity, and a failure to grasp this is to have a distorted
view…clearly…the justifying principle of Christianity is not merely “keeping of
rules,” but rather is based on the principle of grace, and its condition,
faith. Christ and his atoning death on the cross is the ground or basis of the
forgiveness of sin, whatever the terms grace and faith may otherwise involve.”
B. Paul
the apostle clearly defined what the grace of God is and what it does when he
wrote:
1. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is
from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry
of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to
himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (II Corinthians 5:17-19)
a.
That’s what
grace is!
1) It is
God taking the initiative to bring lost mankind back into fellowship with him
by providing the forgiveness of sins through Jesus and his death on the cross!
a) That’s
why Paul said, “For by grace you have
been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of
God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
C. But
his grace is not just for those of us in this Christian age; it spans the
centuries and reaches all men since the creation.
1. The
Hebrew writer clarified this when he wrote, “…a
death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under
the first covenant (i.e. the Law of Moses)…” (Hebrews 9:15)
a. In
other words, God’s grace looks back from the cross to those who lived and died
under previous covenants with Him and walked by faith, it looks to the present
where we live and, it looks forward to the future generations of sinful men
until God
calls
a halt to this world and ceases to extend his grace.
k WE ARE
SAVED BY FAITH AND TRUST IN GOD’S PROVISION THROUGH CHRIST.
A. Paul
wrote in the Roman letter, …if you confess with
your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him
from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
1. It is
clear that there is no salvation apart from a firm belief that Jesus is truly
what he claimed to be.
a. On
Pentecost, Peter told the Jews, “Let all
the house of
b. But in
the same sermon, Peter had previously said, “God
raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him
to be held by it.” (V 24)
1. Since
the wages of sin is death (Romans
c. Jesus
told the Pharisees, “You are from below; I
am from above; You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told
you that you would die in your sins, for unless
you believe
that I am he you will die in your sins.” (John 8:23, 24)
d. The
repeated reference by Jesus to God as his Father indicates that he was the
Messiah and the Son of God, and unless they believed it, there was no hope of
salvation for them. He was the promised Deliverer—the one prophesied to come
and save them.
1) He was
to deliver them as a great earthly leader like David from Roman oppression, but
as a spiritual king from sin and eternal damnation.
B. We all
know the golden text of the Bible, “For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in
him, should not perish but have eternal life.” (John
3:16)
1. But
that one statement is not the whole story, Christ elaborates:
a. “For God did not send his Son into the world
to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever
believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not
believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (Vs 17, 18)
1) (Hebrews 11:6). “Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw
near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek
him.”
a) Genuine
faith, then, is not mere mental assent, but trust in his existence and
provision that motivates one to seek Him and strive to please and obey Him.
b) And
that brings us to the next point:
l WE ARE
SAVED BY FAITHFUL OBEDIENCE.
A. It is
quite popular, especially in some evangelical circles and even by some of our “newly
enlightened” brethren, to hear such statements as, “We are saved by grace and nothing more, nothing added. There is not a
single thing, not a whit that man can add by his effort to influence his
salvation. It is 100% grace and nothing else.”
1. But is
that statement true?
a. In an
article in the February, 2000 issue of the Gospel Advocate, entitled,
“Save by Grace 100 %?” Clinton Hardin
observed correctly:
1) “If the statement, ‘You are saved by grace
100 percent’ means Christ paid 100 percent of the debt we owe because we are
sinners, then the statement is true. Christ shed blood was essential for payment
of our debt. We pay zero percent. On the cross Christ made this free gift
accessible to us…If the statement ‘You are saved by grace 100 percent’ means
that man is saved without
completing a response
that is
ordained by God, we
have a false statement. In such a case, everyone would be saved and no one
lost…”
a) Brother Hardin is absolutely correct. The grace of
God is not extended unconditionally.
B. Paul
said that we are saved by “…grace through
faith…” (Ephesians 2:8);
therefore, Faith is a condition of
salvation.
1. As
Brother Jimmy Jividen
wrote:
a. “Faith is a choice of the will. It can be
commanded. If it can be commanded, certainly it can be willed. The Roman jailor
at
2. The
only way the validity Brother Jividen’s position can
be denied is to accept the Calvinist view that man is totally depraved, unable
to do anything to accept or reject the Lord’s grace, and therefore God must
miraculously “plant” faith in the heart of the totally depraved.
a. To
accept this view, however, one must accept the total package of Calvinism—the
entire baggage—including arbitrary election that advocates that man has no free
will and is predetermined to salvation or condemnation.
3. You
can’t believe in free will and still believe that faith is not a work—something
that man does to accept the grace of God.
4. If
faith, then, is a necessary work that man does to accept the grace, are there
other works of faith (not works of merit) that man must do to accept God’s
grace? Yes, there are.
a. The
writer of Hebrews wrote, “Although he was
a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him…” (Hebrews 5:8, 9).
b. If
Christ had to obey to please the Father, and return to heaven, what makes us
think that we can refuse to obey and please God and go to heaven?
B. To
please God and go to heaven, we must
repent of our sins.
1. Jesus
commanded, “…unless you repent you will
all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3, 5)
2. Paul
told the Greeks in
a. God
set a day for his judgment of the world
in
Noah’s day.
1) For a
hundred years Noah preached righteousness and repentance as the only means of
salvation.
a) The
world did not repent and was destroyed by the flood.
b. God
has set a day in the future for the judgment of our world.
1) We are
preaching righteousness and repentance until that day.
a) Likewise,
as in Noah’s day, the only way that people will be saved from destruction is to
repent and come to God!
3. Jesus
said the purpose of the message of the Holy Spirit is to “convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment…” (John
16:10).
4. The
message of John the Baptist, the message of Jesus, the message of the apostles
and our message is “Repent!”
5. Again,
if man has free will to accept or reject God’s grace, then repentance is a
work! Not a meritorious work, but a work of God’s righteousness, a condition he
establishes and that we must do to receive his gift of forgiveness and
salvation.
C. God
expects us to acknowledge our faith—we
must make the good confession.
1. Jesus
said, “So everyone who acknowledged me
before men, I also will acknowledge before the Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32)
2. Paul
concurred when he wrote, “For with the
heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is
saved.” (Romans 10:10)
D.
We must be baptized to be saved.
1. Both Belief
and baptism are commanded by Jesus to be saved (Mark
2.
Peter taught, “Baptism…now saves you…as an appeal to God
for a good conscience, through the resurrection from the dead.” (1 Peter 3:21).
3.
By direction of
the Holy Spirit, he commanded repentance and baptism as necessary for the
remission of sins on the day of Pentecost. (Acts
4.
But is baptism
an act through which I am attempting to justify myself, or is baptism an act of
faith and reliance on God to forgive and save me from my sins?
a. Paul
gives the answer in Colossians 2:12. “…having been buried with him in baptism, in
which you were also raised with him through the powerful working of God, who
raised him from the dead.”
1) Christ
was not glorified by God until after his death, burial and resurrection, and we
are not justified until after we have died to sin, been buried with Christ in
baptism and are brought forth by the powerful working of God from the watery
grave.
2) We
were dead in our trespasses and
sins,
and dead men are raised only by God’s grace (
b.
It is God’s
grace, not legalistic, meritorious work, that saves us
in the act of baptism. But baptism is something that we must do—a work of
grace, a command, an essential condition of saving
faith.
1. Romans 6:17
Romans
6:3, 4
C. We must
continue to walk by obedient faith if we desire to be with the Lord in heaven.
1. Listen
to Paul, the greatest proponent of grace: “…our
great God and Savior Jesus Christ…gave himself for us to redeem us from all
lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are
zealous for good works” (Titus 2:13, 14) “…be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (I
Corinthians 15:58) “…work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to
will and to work for his good pleasure…” (Philippians
2:12, 13) “…we are his workman-ship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we
should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10)
2.
John described
faithfulness as a walk with God. I John
1:6-10; 2:6.
a. He
said, “… the world is passing away along
with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (
3. No
where do the scriptures teach that we can or will be saved by human perfection,
but repeatedly they declare that we must be faithful to God and to his will!
CONCLUSION:
I. The
late Dr. James O. Baird wrote these appropriate words that will close our
lesson:
A. “If we let grace or works get out of balance,
sooner or later other biblical teachings become skewed as well. By an
overemphasis upon God’s grace, love and mercy, we tend to weaken the view of
God as a God of justice and punishment. In consequence, we alter our view of
the seriousness of sin and the danger of eternal punishment. This has happened
to some extent today. As church historian Martin Marty observed, ‘Hell
disappeared and no one noticed.’”
“Oceanographers
tell us certain fish must have salt water to survive. To dispute over grace in
opposition to works is like disputing over whether or not the salt or the water
is more important to these sea creatures. Of course both are essential to
survival. So it is with us. Our hope of living eternally with God must rest on
both divine mercy and our willing to submit in humble obedience in response to
what He has prepared for us.”(Christian Chronicle/ July 1989, page 18)