Did the witers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - EYEWITNESS

THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

Serving by grace

Stewards of Grace

One of the strong emphases in the Bible is that God’s grace is not given to us merely for our own benefit, but is something that is to be shared with others. It could even be said that it is given to us for the very purpose of benefiting others. When God appeared to Abraham at the very beginning of Israel’s spiritual history, he made him two promises: “I will bless you…and you will be a blessing” (see Genesis 12:1-3). In his excellent and challenging book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace,[1] Miroslav Volf says of this passage:

The same double blessing is given to us. If we just enjoy good things without passing them on, if we are blessed without being a blessing, then we fail in our purpose as channels. We are givers because we were made that way, and if we don’t give, we are at odds with ourselves.

[1] Zondervan, 2005, ©.

This thought comes through strongly in Paul’s statement, “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish” (Romans 1:14). In the original Greek this is literally, “I am a debtor”. A debtor is someone who has received something, by whatever means, that really belongs to someone else. What Paul had been given by God he regarded as belonging to all, and therefore he was obliged to pass it on.

Charles Wesley captured the motivation for this giving in a famous hymn:

Oh, that the world might taste and see

The riches of his grace!

The arms of love that compass me

Would all mankind embrace.

Consider Peter’s words: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If you speak, you should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If you serve, you should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:10,11). Note the following significant points about this passage. First, we are “stewards” of God’s grace. A steward is entrusted with something that does not belong to him and it is his responsibility to faithfully use it for the benefit of others. Second, God’s gifts come to us in many different forms. The phrase “God’s grace in its various forms” could be literally translated “the many-coloured grace of God”. Third, it is only God who can enable us to use whatever gifts we have been entrusted with in the manner that he desires. Fourth, the ultimate purpose for doing so is not that we should be honoured, but that God should receive glory and praise.

Gifts and abilities

Paul has several passages in his letters where he lists various gifts that God gives to believers (e.g. Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; 27-31; Ephesians 4:7-13). These are no doubt only sample lists of all the diverse gifts we may receive. They may be natural abilities, inherent in our DNA, or they may be gifts developed within us by the more direct operation of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 12:7, 11), but they are all granted to us by the grace of God. In fact, for Paul, the giving of grace and the giving of gifts are the same thing (Romans 12:6; Ephesians 4:7,8). This precludes the thought of any pride in the fact that we may have been given gifts that others haven’t. Jerry Bridges goes as far as to say:

To the extent you are clinging to any vestiges of self-righteousness or are putting any confidence in your own spiritual attainments, to that degree you are not living by the grace of God in your life.

You will note the strong emphasis in these passages on using these gifts for the benefit of others and for building up the family of God. They are to be used “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7), “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12,13). There is, indeed, just one gift amongst all those that Paul mentions which benefits only the person who uses the gift—the gift of speaking in tongues. This is why Paul regards it as a lesser gift (1 Corinthians 14:1-5). He urges the user of the gift to pray for the added gift of interpretation, so that it may benefit others (vv. 12,13). We are to develop and use these gifts for the purpose for which they were intended, and “eagerly desire the greater gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:31) so that we may better serve others.

Grace and ministry

There is a great deal in the New Testament letters linking grace with our ministry to others, whatever form that ministry might take. Paul, who blazed a trail for Christ across a major part of the Roman empire and who could be said to be the most effective evangelist and church planter of all time, was very conscious of the fact that he owed his gifts and effectiveness solely to the grace of God. Consider the following passages: “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you…” (Romans 12:3); “I have writtenyou quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles”(15:15,16); “I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:7,8). “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise master builder” (1 Corinthians 3:10); “I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (15:9,10). You will note in this last passage that Paul attributes both what he was and what he was able to achieve to the grace of God.

Warren Myers, who had a very fruitful ministry with the Navigators in South East Asia, wrote about this last passage early in his life:

Hard work without [God’s] grace can accomplish nothing, and though God could do anything without us, he has chosen to include us. So the sandwich is God’s grace that makes us what we are, hard work and God’s grace enabling us to do what he wants. We realise that this is the secret of a fulfilled and successful time, a fulfilled and successful family, and a fulfilled and successful ministry. God is good!”

John Calvin, in his New Testament Commentaries, sums up very well what Paul is saying here:

For having said that something was applicable to himself, he corrects that and transfers it entirely to God; entirely, I insist, and not just a part of it; for he affirms that whatever he may have seemed to do was in fact totally the work of grace. This is indeed a remarkable verse, not only for bringing down human pride to the dust, but also for making clear to us the way that the grace of God works in us. For, as though he were wrong in making himself the source of anything good, Paul corrects what he had said, and declares that the grace of God is the efficient cause of everything. We should not imagine that Paul is merely simulating humility here. He is speaking as he does from his heart, and because he knows that it is the truth. We should therefore learn that the only good we do is what He does in us; that it is not that we do nothing ourselves, but that we act only when we have been acted upon, in other words under the direction and influence of the Holy Spirit.

God calls into his service those who are neither worthy nor adequate and he makes them so. We can well say with Isaiah, “all that we have accomplished you have done for us” (26:12).

Giving by grace

Paul considers the matter of giving to be such an important subject that in his second letter to the Corinthian church he gives two chapters to it—chapters 8 and 9. It is significant that he mentions grace seven times in these chapters (8:1,6,7,9,19; 9:8,14). First, he describes the generosity of the Christians in Macedonia. He says, “We want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches” (8:1). He describes how “in the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability” (vv. 2,3). As in the case of the grace of God supplying strength to face trials, grace here encompasses the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in moulding our characters and prompting our motivations. Charles Hodge, in An Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, said in reference to this passage:

The sacred writers constantly recognise the fact that the freest and most spontaneous acts of men, their inward states and the outward manifestations of those states, when good, are due to the secret influence of the Spirit of God, which eludes our consciousness.

Such was the Macedonian Christians’ awareness of the abundance of God’s grace that they had received (though in their case it was spiritual blessing rather that earthly possessions), that they desired to share their material possessions with those whose need was greater. And they considered it a privilege to do so. “They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people” (v. 4).

He puts this example of giving alongside other evidences of God’s grace that the Corinthian Christians had shown in their lives: “Since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving” (v. 7).

Paul then points to the example of Jesus: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (v. 9). Jesus demonstrated his undeserved love for us by choosing a life of poverty. This could apply to his leaving the riches of his Father’s presence in glory in order to share our earthly experiences, or it could mean that he deliberately chose a life of poverty during his earthly existence. As far as we know, all he owned when he died was the clothes he wore. James Dunn, in Christology in the Making, suggests that the comparison is between the richness of his communion with God, expressed in his abba prayer in the garden, and the poverty of his desolation on the cross. I expect Paul intends it to encompass all meanings.

In a verse that has aptly been described as “the verse of the five ‘alls’”, Paul says, “And God is able to bless you abundantly (literally: “make all grace abound toward you”), so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (9:8). It seems that Paul is saying here that if we have learned to depend on God’s undeserved goodness to meet all our needs (not our wants!), then we have no excuse for not living a life of abundant generosity. God provides for our need in order that we may be generous. And if generous, God can enable us to be more generous. And if we do not share generously, there is little point in God giving generously!

This demonstration of God’s grace will lead to praise to God and gratitude towards ourselves: “Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, people will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (9:13-15).

If God should bless us in the matter of material possessions, we must always recognise that this is due to his grace and for a purpose. Moses gave the Israelites the following warning as they were poised to enter the “land of milk and honey”. “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.” (Deuteronomy 8:17,18). Jesus said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48).

Miroslav Volf emphasises how true fulfilment in life can only come as we learn this secret of drawing on the resources that the grace of God provides, and sharing them with others:

A Christian, concluded Luther in The Freedom of the Christian, “lives not in himself, but in Christ and his neighbour…He lives in Christ through faith, and in his neighbour through love.”

But shouldn’t one live “in oneself”? Isn’t that what the self is supposed to do? Not really. It’s just what the self likes to do. The self will lose itself if it simply lives in and for itself. It will seek only its own benefits, and the more it seeks its own benefits, the less satisfied it will become. That’s the paradox of self-love: The more you fill the self, the more it echoes with the emptiness of unfulfilment. Living in itself and for itself, the self remains mysteriously unsatisfied and insatiable. Since God creates the self to be indwelled by Christ, that self will be fulfilled only if it draws the living water from the wellspring of love’s infinity and passes it on to its neighbours.

Perhaps another way we could put it is this: because God is a giving God, we can only find fulfilment as we allow him to transform us into his likeness.