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.

The means of grace

There are many ways in which we may receive grace. It may come to us through the ministry of others who have received it. We may receive it through meditating on passages of the Bible, or through the worship and sacraments of the Christian fellowship. However, there is only one ultimate means of grace, the cross of Christ. This, of course, does not mean that before the cross God was not gracious. Grace is eternally one of the characteristics of God’s nature. In fact, Paul tells us that the grace that comes to us through the cross “was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has been revealed to us through the appearing of our Saviour, Jesus Christ…” (2 Timothy 1:9,10). It seems it was the grace of God back in eternity that set in motion the whole of creation, in order that God might have people like you and me to share it with.

There are many glimpses of grace through the Old Testament, but it was not until Christ was made known in his humanity, and particularly through his willing death for our sins, that it was fully revealed. In Titus 2:11 Paul says that the grace of God “appeared” with the coming of Christ. This is the same Greek word used in Luke 1:78, 79, “the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” Grace had always been there in the nature of God, but it “shone forth” with the coming of Jesus, and especially through his cross. As Jerry Bridges put it, “Christ’s death was the result of God’s grace; grace is not the result of Christ’s death.” The cross was the means by which it was made possible for us to receive it. Maybe there is some significance in the fact that with the giving of the law at Mount Sinai 3,000 people perished, while at Pentecost 3,,000 people were saved (Exodus 32:28; Acts 2:41).

Alan E. Lewis, in his impressive volume Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday, describes the consistency of God’s expression of grace with his eternal nature, like this:

Embodied for us in time by the eternal Son, grace is revealed as everlasting: the consistent, unambiguous expression of God’s nature. It remains, to be sure, God’s free choice to love us and adopt us, not some necessary principle of divine being; but this freely chosen grace confirms and corresponds to God’s true nature; and it is a freedom exercised eternally, not in accidental moments.

It was because God is a gracious God that the cross became a necessity, as there is no way in which we could be the recipients of grace without the offering of God’s Son for our sins. It is the cross that explains the significance of Paul’s statement in Romans 5:21, “just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness”. In offering us his grace, God is not being unrighteous in ignoring the fact of sin and evil. At the cross, sin received the full weight of his judgement. Through our identification with Christ in his death, grace can now reign “through righteousness”. Our forgiveness and continued access to his grace is fully consistent with God’s righteousness.

In the book Why Did Jesus Die? Unearthing the meaning of the Cross I have described in detail the significance of the cross, what it achieves and the blessings that flow from it. I won’t go over that again. Here I would mention three very significant “buts” that we find in the letters of the New Testament.

In the first three chapters of Romans, Paul describes in some detail why all the human race, Jews and Gentiles, are guilty under God’s law and have no hope of proving themselves righteous before him. However, half way through chapter 3 he declares, “But [1] now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known…This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ … all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. … He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (vv. 21-26).

[1] Italics mine.

In Ephesians 2, Paul describes how we were spiritually dead in our sins, subject to the ways of this world and the spirit of evil, slaves to our sinful nature and deserving God’s anger. He continues, “But [2] because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved” (vv. 4, 5). He goes on to explain that it was “by the blood of Christ” and “through the cross” that this was achieved (vv. 11-18).

[2] Italics mine.

In Paul’s letter to Titus he describes how “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures” (3:3). Then comes the third “but”. “But [3] when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but … through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (vv. 4-7). Though the cross is not specifically mentioned here, it is certainly implied.

[3] Italics mine.

Another significant word that Paul used is the word “still”, in Romans 5. In verse 6 he says, “when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” In verse 8 he says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In verse 10 he says, “while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son”. There you have grace! While we were still weak, sinners and enemies, we were reconciled.

Although grace is freely and undeservedly given to us, it is not without cost to God. It cost him the cross. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who was executed by the Nazis for his stand against Hitler, called Christianity without the cross “cheap grace”. He wrote:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, and grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.

The repentance and discipleship demanded of us are not our means of earning grace, but our necessary response to the cross and to the grace freely offered. In this sense there is a cost to us, but of a different sort. This is illustrated in two stories Jesus told. God’s grace, and all that goes with it, is the “treasure hidden in a field” for which someone will gladly go and sell all to possess, or the “pearl” of such value that someone will sell everything he has to obtain it (Matthew 13:44, 45). The benefits far outweigh any cost to us.

Two simple acrostics emphasise where the cost really lies.

God’s Gift from God

Riches Received by faith

At Available to all

Christ’s Centred in the cross

Expense Extending through eternity

As someone has said, “At the cross, God gave the most precious thing he possessed for the most undeserving people he knew.” This truth is vividly illustrated by Christ’s acceptance of the repentant thief while hanging on the cross. “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). As Henk Hamsteeg put it in an article in Challenge Weekly, “A sin-soaked criminal is received by a blood-stained Saviour. That’s the pure definition of grace.” And, as Paul declares in Romans 8, his great chapter on the blessings that come to us through the cross, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (v. 32). All things, that is, that are for our good, in time and in eternity (cf. v. 28). Paul argues here from the greater to the lesser. If God has graciously given his greatest gift, his Son to die for us, to meet our greatest need, our need for reconciliation, then this is the guarantee we have that his gracious meeting of our other needs will follow. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (v. 31). Who indeed?