THE DOCTRINE OF GRACE
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| Romans 1:16,17 - Introduces the Gospel of Grace |
The first part on these series on the
gospel of Jesus Christ focused on what the message of the gospel really is. The
purpose of that essay was for men to grasp the intent of God in sending His Son
Jesus to redeem them from their sins. And by acknowledging that one is a sinner
and asking God to forgive one of his/her sins, and then believing in Jesus
Christ as one’s Lord and Savior, such an individual is born-again and has
become a child of God. But that is just the beginning of a very glorious walk
with God.
Just as every man is born first as a
babe and must grow up into adulthood, so also is it with every man that has
received Jesus into his life: he is a spiritual babe and is expected to grow.
Babies feed on milk (1 Peter 2:2). In fact medicine has only recently
discovered an eternal truth that God had given humanity from creation, which is
that the best source of nourishment for a baby is the mother’s breast milk. In
other words, while a child can be given all sorts of assorted, man made and
expensive baby formulas, the best kind of nourishment for the baby is the
ordinary, in-expensive and often taken for granted, mother’s bosom milk. The
same goes with the born again believer. He may feed on all sorts of doctrines
we find out there and claim spiritual growth but proper spiritual growth will
only come by feeding on sound spiritual truths. Many of these doctrine are so
ordinary and taken for granted that, like the mother’s milk, they can very
easily be overlooked. God has ordained it that for a Christian to grow properly
such an individual must feed on the doctrine of grace. The scriptures say:
But grow
in grace, and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for
ever. Amen – 2 Peter 3:18
Be not carried about with divers and strange
doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be
established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them
that have been occupied therein – Hebrew
13:9
Doctrine
Doctrine means teaching. Following
the believer’s conversion, such an individual must learn the doctrines of the
faith as stipulated in the bible. The doctrines he learns will determine both
his growth rate and his manner of growth. If he would grow fast, he must learn
much doctrine; if he will grow well, he must learn true doctrines. The
Christian walk is by faith: from first to last (Romans 1:17). This faith comes
by hearing or learning the word of God (Romans 10:17). When a man becomes a
Christian, he has a new spirit man but his mind is totally un-renewed. His
thinking will be based on the things he has learnt all of his life. Such an
individual must begin to learn bible doctrines to ensure a renewed mind set.
This is why the need for sound bible
teachers is so very important. The Christian’s growth is totally tied to what
he learns. Ministers owe it a duty to their listeners to teach the word of God
– undiluted. This means stating what the bible says and not what we think or
what a popular preacher said the bible said. It is important that a
congregation is taught the bible by allowing the bible to speak for itself.
Congregations that have ministers who teach scriptures verse by verse are truly
blessed because the people can see the train of thoughts of scriptures
themselves, rather than the more popular topical teachings that are predominant
among Christian congregations today. There are congregations that do not even
have bible study sessions and what a disaster the people in these churches turn
out to be. Jesus’ admonition to Peter was for him to feed his lambs and sheep (John
21:15-16). The success of the believer’s walk in life is totally tied to what
he learns in his local assembly. Woe betides the congregation whose minister
knows little, for then the people would know nothing.
Next to coming to Jesus Christ, the
Christian must endeavor to learn bible doctrines. He must pray and trust God to
lead him to a sound bible teaching congregation or mentor who will help him
understand the fundamentals of the faith, and begin to build on these through
his own personal study of scriptures.
Grace
The grace of God revealed to humanity
through Jesus Christ is the central theme of the New Testament. It reveals the
free gift of God to humanity that any man can partake of by faith alone and not
by his efforts. The grace of God is seen first in the saving works of Jesus
Christ when he died on the cross and obtained redemption for all men who will
believe in Him. This redemption is free in that man is not required to purchase
it with money or with good deeds or sacrifices but simply with faith.
The grace of God also extends to the
Christian believer in the blessing of righteousness. Most religion will
determine how good an adherent is by the good deeds he does. But the one
who has come to faith in Christ is in union with Him (Colossians 2:10), and
thus he has the blessing of having the righteousness of Jesus Christ as his own
righteousness and not that of his good deeds (1 Corinthians 1:30). This is
probably the greatest blessings of the cross in our walk with God today, as the
Christian does not look up to his efforts to find acceptance with God. Rather
he looks up to Christ, and by his blood he has free entrance to the presence
of God (Hebrew 4:16).
The grace of God extends to men in
Jesus Christ as God comes to make his abode in the believer (John 14:23). The
Spirit of God indwells the Christian and his body has become the temple of the
Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, God’s Spirit was known to dwell in temples
but today he dwells in men. The Holy Spirit helps the believer to be all that
God wants him to be. He helps us to live a life that is pleasing to God. He
instructs us in the way of that we should go. He strengthens our mortal bodies.
He helps us to pray. He helps us to witness about Jesus. He gives us wisdom. He
emboldens us. He is God who is with us and with Him we can do all things.
The grace of God assures us of a
certain hope in the future: heaven. The greatest uncertainty in life for many
people is were they would be spending eternity following death. The grace of
God has secured an eternal home for us in heaven (John 14:2), that is kept for
us by the power of God (1 Peter1:4-5) and not by our ability, strength, efforts
or good works. We are saved by grace through faith and this is not by our
effort but it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Thus a Christian that is
properly brought up on a sound doctrine of grace does not fear death; he is not
afraid of the ills of life and is hardly weighed down by anything. His hope is
fixed on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.
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| Jesus Cares for You |
The Gospel of Grace
All of these blessings of grace that
the cross of Jesus has secured for Christians are the truths that must be
taught to the new believer in Jesus Christ for him to grow properly. These
truths are encapsulated in what Paul the apostle referred to as the gospel of
grace:
But none of these things move me, neither
count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy,
and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God – Acts 20:24
The gospel of
grace tells of the good news of what God has done in Christ Jesus. It tells us
of the riches that we have in Him (Ephesians 1:18). It tells us of the love of
God for us Christians and of our security in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:30). It
is a doctrine that is etched in liberty (Galatians 5:1) and must be carefully
and reverentially disseminated so that the saints do not see this liberty as
license to sin (Romans 6:1).
It is important
that the Christian is properly and adequately nourished in the gospel of grace
so that he may find strength in his heart to serve the living God. David Prior,
speaking on Hebrew 13:9 said in his book Bedrock, “the value of this passage in the letter to the Hebrews is that it
extricates two essential characteristics of truly sound teaching and holds them
before us with unmistakable clarity – the grace of God and the atoning work of
Jesus Christ. Unless the teaching in a local church is founded irretrievably
upon these two essentials, God’s people will shrivel and die. There is no
substitute for such steady, thorough exposition of God’s grace in a local
church. Unless there is this consistent diet of sound teaching, believers will
not be strengthened for the costly life of faith to which all Christians are
necessarily called at (these times). If such unfolding of the grace of God is
not done, a congregation becomes prey to any forceful or articulate personality
who will either cajole or bully them into what he thinks a church ought to be
and to do. Put more bluntly, no preacher or minister can tell a congregation
how to behave or what to do. If Christians are not freely motivated by God’s
grace in Jesus Christ, their activity is not (in any real sense) Christian.”
Paul in many
instances personalized the gospel he preached and called it “my gospel”. He
claimed he received it by revelation directly from God (Galatians 1:11-12) and
it was not different from what the other apostles preached also (Galatians 2:2,9-10).
However, this gospel of grace has some marked differences from the gospel Jesus
preached, which some call the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus had a peculiar
ministry that was strictly to the Jews. Jesus came to announce the kingdom of
God (Matthew 4:17), with the hope that the Jews will recognize their messiah
and accept him but he was rejected and crucified. This gospel will still be
preached to the Jews to usher in the millennial rule of Jesus Christ at the end
of age. Also, Jesus operated under the law of Moses, fulfilled it and
bequeathed its righteousness to us Christian (Romans 8:4). So because of the
peculiar nature of the dispensation in which our Lord lived in, a dispensation
that combined law and grace, he did not preach a gospel of grace but a gospel
of the kingdom. However, after his death and resurrection and the church had been
instituted, the gospel of grace was the message He gave to His apostles, with
Paul as the leading harbinger, to reach the nations with – especially the
gentiles.
The core of this
gospel is the fact that Christ has fulfilled the law and has given to us the
righteousness that God sort from it. The law is now null and void and had
become obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). The believer is now blessed with immense
resources through grace to begin to live in a newness of life that is Holy
Spirit enabled. There are no laws to keep as such (Galatian 5:23b), but God’s
laws are embedded on our hearts. We have the blessing of being led by the
Spirit as sons of God. Etc.
The full extent of this gospel cannot
be taught in a paper like this but surfeit to say that the gospel of grace
tells us of the resources we have in Jesus Christ and how we could use them to
fulfill God’s plans and purposes in our lives.
Conclusion
Whatever the Christian will turn out
to be, following his conversion in Christ Jesus hinges on what he learn
afterwards as doctrine. It is the doctrine he has embedded in his mind that
will inform his practices. His practices will determine whether what he does in
the kingdom is good works or dead works. The grace of God that brings salvation
will certainly save him at last, but the success that he would make of this
life hinges on how much doctrines he has learnt. This is one reason why false
doctrine must be contended against earnestly because it results in two ills:
creating malnourished and defeated believers; and it breeds false Christians –
people who think they are Christians but are not but doomed for destruction.
In the midst of the confusion in
Christendom, men can still turn to God in prayers and He will teach us the
doctrines that we need to learn and practice. Jesus has said he that wills to
do God’s will, will learn His doctrine (John 7:17). There is an anointing
within us that can teach us all things, without the need to resort to any
teacher. Thus, let us learn doctrine: sound and true bible doctrine. Let us be
like the Berean brethren who searched the scriptures to be sure that all that
was being taught them were found in the bible. And we shall know the truth and
the truth shall set us free.
PS:
In the first part of this lecture I
said that the intention of that paper was not to ask anyone to be a Christian;
but one would notice that I kept referring to those who have come to faith in
Christ as “Christians” in this paper. Truth is that much of what goes by the
name Christianity today is just mere religion; in the same way we have a
plethora of religious groups in the world today. My aim in these essays is not
to have people leave one religion to join another; rather, I desire that men
understand the gospel of Jesus and come to faith in Him, which is an act that is
way beyond professing a certain religion. Fortunately or unfortunately, people call those who
profess faith in Jesus Christ as Christians but the truth is that there are
real Christians and false Christians. So the aim is not to ask people to begin professing
a certain religion but to have the life of God which His Son Jesus Christ
imparts in the spirit of men and make them begin to behave like Christ. Then
can they truly be called Christians in the real sense of the word. Thus, I look
forward to a situation were a professing Muslim grasp the meat of my discuss in
these essays, come to faith in Jesus Christ and not even renounce his Islamic profession
since that is just belonging to a religious group. What will save men at the
end is having a renewed spirit in Christ Jesus and showing this by living as
the Master demands we live and I am convinced anyone can do this regardless of
the religion they profess.
