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.

Appropriating grace

Paul urges the church members in Corinth “not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, ‘In the time of my favour I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:1,2). How can we receive God’s grace in vain? A few verses earlier, in the previous chapter, Paul has said that through the cross “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their sins against them” (5:19). There is a sense in which sin has already been fully atoned for, and in that sense it could be said to have already been “received”. However, Paul still urges his hearers to “be[1] reconciled” to God (5:20). If the benefits of grace are to be mine, there are still things I have to do, otherwise all that Christ has achieved on my behalf is of no value to me personally. I would suggest that three things are necessary on my part: acknowledgement of need, faith, and submission. And these not only have to do with receiving forgiveness, but also with my growth as a Christian and my ability to meet the trials of life with confidence and even joy.

[1] Italics mine.

Acknowledgement of need

The first step towards a personal experience of the grace of God, whether it be for forgiveness, or the need of strength for service, or in the face of trials, must always be the acknowledgement of my need of it and my dependence on him. This does not always come naturally, as we are all infected with an independent streak and a desire to do things our own way. Simone Weil was a French intellectual who joined the Free French and who died of tuberculosis complicated by malnourishment when she refused to eat more than the rations of her countrymen suffering Nazi occupation. She left a record of her journey toward God in her journal and scattered notes in which she concluded that two great forces rule the universe, gravity and grace. Gravity causes one body to attract other bodies so that it continually enlarges by absorbing more and more of the universe into itself. Something like this same force operates in human beings. We want to expand, to acquire, to swell in significance. It was the desire to “be as gods”, after all, that led Adam and Eve into sin. Emotionally, Weil concluded, we humans operate by laws as fixed as Newton’s: “All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.” Most of us remain trapped in the gravitational field of self-love, and thus we “fill up all the fissures through which grace might pass.”

Yancey uses the illustration of the “dry drunk”:

Alcoholics use the term "dry drunk" to describe an alcoholic who stops drinking but remains in denial, refusing to admit he has a problem. Dry but miserable, he makes everyone around him miserable also. He still manipulates others and pulls the strings of codependency. Yet because he no longer drinks, he no longer has intervals of happiness. Family members may even try to get such an alcoholic to drink again, for relief; they want their "happy drunk" back. Author Keith Miller likens this person to a hypocrite in church, who changes the outside but not the inside. Real change, for the alcoholic as well as for the Christian, must begin with admitting the need for grace. Denial blocks grace.

When it comes to being forgiven and accepted as a member of God’s family, then the need is for the acknowledgement of guilt. As C. S. Lewis put it, “a man who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness.” Ignatius of Loyola, one of the most grace-laden leaders in Christian history, wrote several years after his conversion, “The most important gift I have received from God during my spiritual journey is to know that I am a sinner.” However, there must also be the willingness for God’s grace to begin its work of transformation in my life and character. The Bible term for this is “repentance”, a willingness to change, or at least be changed. “Christ accepts us as we are,” wrote Walter Trobisch, "but when he accepts us, we cannot remain as we are.”

Faith

Faith is simply trusting God to do what he says he will do. Miroslav Volf has this to say about it:

Notice what faith doesn’t do. It doesn’t wrest Christ from a God who is unwilling to give. It doesn’t earn Christ from a God who wants something in return. Faith isn’t some strange, empty work we do for God so that God will give us Christ…faith is our hands open to receive Christ whom God has given. If I am giving you a present, all you need to do is open your hands, and it will be yours. God gives, faith receives. And because God gives even before the hands of faith open to receive, faith never goes away empty handed. To have faith is to have Christ and, with Christ, a new life and forgiveness of sins.

When it comes to receiving grace for daily needs, then faith is trusting in God’s unchanging love, wisdom and faithfulness. He is aware of my situation, his love for me is unshakeable and his wisdom is such that he knows what can best meet my need. Those who trust in Jesus have the wonderful privilege of daily access to “the Father”, “the throne of grace” and “the Most Holy Place” (Ephesians 2:18; Hebrews 4:16; 10:19-23), and as God delights in our company, he desires us to take advantage of it. His response to our need may not be always what we want or expect, but he always has our best long-term interest at heart.

And this faith is not just passive. It may result in positive action and often should. In ‘Gutsy Guilt’, an article in Christianity Today on the subject of sexual failure, John Piper writes:

This faith will fight anything that gets between it and Christ. The distinguishing mark of saving faith is not perfection. It is not that I never sin sexually. The mark of faith is that I fight. I fight not with fists or knives or guns or bombs, but with the truth of Christ. I fight anything that diminishes the fullness of the lordship of Jesus in my life. I fight anything that threatens to replace Jesus as the supreme treasure of my life.

Although the article is on sexual failure, his comments are relevant to many situations. This brings us to our next point—submission.

Submission

Submission to God involves the willingness to accept whatever he chooses to give or to withhold. Jerry Bridges, in Transforming Grace, tells how, after the death of his first wife, a friend sent a sympathy card on which she had written the following verse, apparently from an ancient hymn, which he put in his notebook and often meditates on when he prays:

Lord, I am willing

To receive what You give,

To lack what You withhold,

To relinquish what You take,

To suffer what You inflict,

To be what You require.

To take such an attitude involves the recognition that when it comes to my relationship with God I have no rights. Grace is the only secure foundation for that relationship and the only basis on which I can enjoy it. Jerry Bridges spells it out clearly as follows:

He is sovereign in every area of life. God as our Creator has the right to endow each of us at birth with different physical and mental abilities, with different temperament characteristics, and with different natural talents. He also has the right to give each of us different spiritual gifts. Not only does God have the right, it is obvious He exercises it. We are not created equal, nor are we given equal opportunities throughout life. Each of us has his or her own unique set of circumstances; those of some people being much more favourable than others. Since God is under no obligation to any of us, He is free to bless some more than others as He chooses. He has the right to do what He wants with his blessings.

All the rights belong to God (see Matthew 20:15, Luke 4:25-27 and Romans 9:20,21). As Bridges says, “We will never win the battle of ‘rights’ with God. He cares too much about our spiritual growth to let that happen.” This is where faith and submission go hand in hand. I am not going to submit my life and situation fully into his hand unless I believe he has my best interests at heart, and the cross is the guarantee of that.

Sharon Dyer in Women’s Touch, An Inspirational Magazine for Women, puts it like this:

At first I thought

that to love God meant

carefully following

commandments,

precepts,

exhortations—

making sure my life shaped up

and measured up.

But now I realise

submission is more than doing

and acting.

It’s knowing God’s heart,

cherishing His Word,

caring so much

about His kingdom

that I delight to obey.

Peter says: “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favour [or “grace”] to the humble and oppressed’ [Proverbs 3:34]. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:5-7). The Old Testament prophet Micah declared, “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). It is this kind of trust and submission that leads to peace of mind and contentment. Psalm 131 has always appealed to me in this respect:

My heart is not proud, Lord,

my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters

or things too wonderful for me.

But I have calmed myself

and quieted my ambitions.

I am like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord

both now and forevermore.

The well-known story of the Prodigal Son that Jesus told in Luke 15, which we described earlier, gives us a wonderful picture of what grace is all about and what can happen when we submit to the Father’s will. The boy who had so disgraced his father was willing to acknowledge his sin and declare that he was unworthy to be restored to his original position in the household (v. 21). He was also willing to submit to his father’s decision regarding his future (v. 19). To what extent his repentance was sincere, or driven by his desperate need (vv. 16,17), we can only imagine. However, his acceptance back into the family by his father was far beyond what he deserved or expected. That is just a small picture of the love that awaits those who put their life and future into the hands of their heavenly Father and rely on his grace alone.