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.

Saved by grace

Salvation and grace are inextricably linked in the New Testament. Consider the following:

“All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).

“It is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:5, 8).

“By his grace [he] gave us eternal encouragement and good hope” (2 Thessalonians 2:16).

“Who has saved us…not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace” (2 Timothy 1:9).

“Having been justified by grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7).

“He suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Hebrew 2:9).

This salvation is by grace, as we see in these quotations; it has nothing to do with what we deserve. In fact, the New Testament constantly emphasises that to find our acceptance with God on the basis of our good behaviour and to do so on the basis of God’s undeserved grace alone are two totally contradictory concepts. Consider again the following statements:

“Now to anyone who works, their wages are not credited to them as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to anyone who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness” (Romans 4: 4, 5).

Speaking of the Jewish people of his own day, Paul says that “they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (Romans 10:2-4).

“If by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace” (Romans 11:6).

“We … have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified…I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing” (Galatians 2:16, 21).

In Romans 11, Paul asks a pertinent question: “Who has ever given to God that God should repay them? (v. 35—see Job 41:11). Entry into heaven is a matter of what we have received, not what we have achieved.

There is both a positive and a negative side to this offer of undeserved grace. The positive side is that, because acceptance by God has nothing to do with merit, there is no moral depth to which a person may sink from which he cannot be saved by the grace and power of God. Jesus has paid for “the sins of the whole world” (1 John 1:2). Our God is a God who “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5). History abounds with stories of drug addicts, thieves, alcoholics, murderers, prostitutes—you name it—who have found forgiveness and been transformed into joyful and useful citizens by the grace of God given us in Jesus Christ. The following are just a few examples from the many I have collected over the years. The grace of God is nowhere better illustrated than in such stories.

Take the story of Bronwen Healey, reported in Challenge Weekly. She was a full-blown drug addict and prostitute; heroin and her life on the streets nearly killed her. She says:

I had a bad habit that, like an animal, needed to be fed. I found myself lost, alone and confused. After many years of being completely addicted to heroin, one doctor was willing to treat me and I got a place in a support house for people trying to break free from the shackles of addiction.

The house happened to be Christian and part of the programme included going to church, prayer meetings and Bible studies. I thought it was ridiculous—until the day I encountered Jesus in a very personal way. He changed my life forever.

Now, as a committed Christian, wife, mother and author, she shares her story whenever opportunity offers. Since 2004 she has spoken in schools, at women’s meetings, in prisons and rehabilitation centres, as well as all denominations of Christian churches. Her first book, telling her story, has had an amazing response and has challenged and inspired many people into a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. It is called Trophy of Grace.

Or consider the story of Bev Adair, reported in DayStar. Bev’s mother and father were alcoholics. Her mother was a street woman as well. She says:

From my earliest years I lived with violence. I remember knives, blood on walls, being beaten, being locked in cupboards, being used by my mother’s men friends (she put me on show for them) and being molested by my Dad. I was often outside in the gutter, picking up my mother and then hiding with her down the garden. We knew if Dad walked home and everything wasn’t perfect we’d all get it—especially my mother—and his hobnailed boots could make quite a dent in a body.

When Bev was nine, her father was jailed for molestation. From then on she lived in seventeen foster homes and attended seventeen schools. She experienced further abuse from foster dads. On Sunday morning, 15 April, 1973, she awoke to the sound of clear words that she was convinced were the voice of God. She found a church, prayed with the minister and committed her life to Jesus. The road since has not been easy, but God has been with her each step of the journey. She says:

Today Jesus is my closest friend. He’s given me confidence and made a way where there appeared to be none. Stuff happens, but you can build on the truth. Yes it hurts, yes it stinks, yes you shouldn’t have done that, yes that was the worst. You can cry and scream and yell. And after it all you can say, “OK God. What now?”

Her work with Christian organisations has taken her around the world. She says, “Every day I’m aware of [God’s] grace in my life.”

I was impressed with an account in Challenge Weekly of Bellavista Bible Institute, which is located in Bellavista maximum security prison in Medellin, Colombia. BLI president Jim Falkenberg described a recent event:

We saw 22 men being baptised in Bellavista’s chapel. Most of them were convicted murderers and kidnappers who have come to realise the forgiveness they can have in Christ.

It was touching to see them celebrate their new commitment to Christ, many with tears of joy.

Not so many years ago, an average day saw one to two inmates killed by other inmates. Sometimes their bodies lay for hours before guards collected them. But in 1985 a pastor, who had been an inmate himself, began preaching the gospel inside the prison walls. Almost immediately, the violence subsided. Since 1990, only four inmates have been killed, despite terrible overcrowding—more than 5,000 inmates occupy a space built for only 1,500.

A somewhat similar story is told in Decision magazine. Angola Prison is the largest maximum security prison in the USA, with 5,100 men, and has long been labelled the bloodiest. A murder a month was common; and in 1996 there were 346 assaults on inmates, using weapons. The prison is reserved for murderers, rapists, armed robbers and habitual felons with life sentences. Parole hearings are not allowed.

In 1995 Burl Cain became Warden and challenged the chaplains to increase attendance at the prison churches. He also opened the prison to outside ministries. Violence has decreased every year since, and now 2,000 of the inmates are Christians. Cain also invited the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to open an extension seminary within Angola, and today 120 inmates have degrees in Christian ministry. There are six evangelical churches in the prison, with their own pastors. Over the last two years Cain has sent inmates two-by-two as missionaries to other prisons and violence in those prisons has “slid right down”.

I was particularly impressed with the testimony of one prisoner, who goes by the name of Carolina. He had been in four prisons in three states and was once known as one of Angola’s most violent and dangerous inmates. He says, “To me, God was a fairy tale and anyone who believed in him was a fairy.” Five years ago he signed up for a prison ministry retreat in order to get the free food. He describes his conversion experience while there, as follows:

With no preliminaries, no prayer, no blinding lights or trumpets, God just took the violence and bitterness right out of my heart. I knew it was gone because I’d lived with it for 44 years. I thought I’d lost my mind…Then I heard Jesus say, ‘I love you.’ It sounded like words from speakers at a concert. In every joint of my body I felt Jesus say, ‘I love you.’ I started crying and I cried for two weeks. I hadn’t cried since I was seven years old.

Today Carolina is a humble follower of Jesus. This is the grace of God at work.

The Bible gives us a dramatic account of such a transformation in 2 Kings 21 and 2 Chronicles 33. Manasseh, who reigned over Israel for fifty-five years, was undoubtedly the worst king they ever had. This was in spite of the fact that he had a godly father who was the king before him. “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal… He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshipped them… In the two courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger” (2 Kings 21:2-6). Not only that, he “led [the people] astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites” and “shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end” (vv. 9, 16). Tradition declares that he found the prophet Isaiah hiding in a hollow tree and ordered his soldiers to saw both the tree and the prophet in two.

However, Manasseh had a change of heart. He was taken prisoner by the Assyrians and “In his distress he sought the favour of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God” (2 Chronicles 33:12, 13). The evidence that his repentance was genuine was that he got rid of all his foreign gods and restored true worship in Jerusalem. In ‘Amazing Grace’, an article published in Christianity, Larry Libby comments on this story:

Can you top that! It would be like bringing Hitler out of that bunker in Berlin and making him Chancellor of Germany. Or calling Stalin up from Hades and naming him Secretary General of the United Nations. Or appointing Saddam Hussein as a deacon in your church.

Near the end of a chapter in which he explains the benefits of the cross, Paul writes, “where sin increased, grace increased all the more…” (Romans 5:20). Noted Bible commentators R. C. H. Lenski and John Murray both use the term superabounding to describe the riches of God’s grace. So a good translation would be, “But where sin abounded, grace superabounded.”

God’s grace, made available to us through the cross, is such that he will remove our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). He will “put all [our] sins behind [his] back”—that is, out of sight and out of mind (Isaiah 38:17). He will “hurl our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). John Bunyan made the comment that it is just as well it is the sea and not a river, as a river might dry up and our sins would be exposed. He will “blot out” our sins from the record and “remember [them] no more” (Isaiah 43:25). Jerry Bridges points out that the blotting out of transgression is a legal act. It is an official pardon from the Supreme Governor. The remembering of them no more is a relational act. It is the giving up of any sense of being offended and the promise to never bring them up again, either to himself or to us.

Not all who receive the grace of forgiveness have the opportunity to demonstrate this change of heart publicly. Michael Green, in You Must Be Joking, tells of a letter sent by some prisoners awaiting execution in Penang jail to a Rev. Khoo, thanking him for sharing the gospel with them. In it they wrote:

It is through you that we now look death in the face with courage and calmness, for we doubt not God’s promise of forgiveness by the simple act of belief and acceptance. We know that in three and one half hour’s time when we pass from off this earth, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will be waiting with open arms to lead us to our new home in the house of the Father… With our dying breath we once again affirm to you our undying gratitude…

Paul, who had violently persecuted the early church and described himself as once being “a blasphemer and a persecutor and violent man” (1 Timothy 1:13), always regarded himself as a particular example of God’s grace, which should be an encouragement to any who think they may have sinned too much to be forgiven. He said, “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly… Here is a trustworthy saying that demands full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:14-16). So great was his transformation that he became one of the most effective ambassadors for Christ and for grace that this world has seen.

This amazing grace of God is made available to all who want it, because a short distance from where Manasseh sacrificed his sons in the fire another innocent Son was sacrificed by his Father and consigned to death.

The negative aspect of salvation by grace is that those who do want it must be prepared to admit that they need it and they can do nothing to earn it. As William Temple once put it, “The only thing of my very own which I contribute to redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed.” That means we all have to admit our guilt before God. Whether we are big sinners or little sinners is irrelevant. “There is no difference…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Imagine someone standing on the top of the world’s tallest building, looking down on someone on the street, and declaring, “Poor fellow, what hope has he got of reaching the stars!” We have to acknowledge that all the good we may have done or attempted to do is not going to blot out our sins. It was necessary that God himself, in the Person of his Son, should pay for those sins. It is hard for some to accept this, impossible for others. Usually, it is our pride that gets in the way. In the article ‘Suffering and Merit’ in Tabletalk magazine, theologian R. C. Sproul wrote:

Perhaps the most difficult task for us to perform is to rely on God’s grace and God’s grace alone for our salvation. It is difficult for our pride to rest on grace. Grace is for other people—for beggars. We don’t want to live by a heavenly welfare system. We want to earn our own way and atone for our own sins. We like to think that we will go to heaven because we deserve to be there.

However, there are no alternatives to salvation by grace. Noted New Testament scholar Gordon Fee has a favourite saying: “Everything outside hell is grace.” There is an old hymn that says, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” This is the only hope we have, and for those who know the true nature of their own heart, it is the greatest news there ever was. It is the sure guarantee of eternal life.

Also, there must be a willingness to be transformed so that our goals in life are for God’s glory rather than our own. This means a leaving behind, with God’s help, of those things which may be dear to us but which get in the way of the best he wants for us. The Bible word for this is “repentance”. [1]

[1] I have explained the meaning of repentance in some detail in the booklet Repentance: What it is and why you can’t get to heaven without it.

Some may object that proclaiming such a message could cause people to think that, providing they trust in Christ for forgiveness, it does not matter how they live. That is always a danger and I deal with it in the next chapter. But here I would leave you with a quote from one of the great preachers of the last century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

There is thus clearly a sense in which the message of “justification by faith only" can be dangerous, and likewise with the message that salvation is entirely of grace...

I would say to all preachers: if your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly, to the sinner, to those who are enemies of God. There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation.

Or, as Mark Galli put it in a Christianity Today editorial, we can spend so much time worrying about cheapening grace, we end up hoarding it.