Grace. Its not just something you say at the dinner table. There is no teaching in Christian theology that offends our contemporaries (especially our Christian friends and family), any more then the teaching of sola gratia. Most people hate to be told that they are helpless. For the reformers they saw grace as the underlying issue that gave clarity and assurance and confidence to everything Christ has done for us. But what is it? Many Roman Catholics, when asked whether they are saved respond with uncertainty. For them grace is not enough. And many arminian Christians they see grace as something that assists us, but, salvation is ultimately up to us. Knowing how sinful we are, and how easy it is for us to fall back into self obsession and idolatry, what hope and assurance does God truly offer us with the doctrine of grace alone. Does it ultimately come down to us, or can we have certainty of the hope that is in Christ? Here, in this doctrine we find the reformers recover our assurace and our hope that Christ will hold on to us.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
For many of us these words are sweet and comforting and yet in them we find the ultimate ground for faith, not in our own will's, but in God's. In the greek, there are no full stops no sentences. So we find here that the subject that "is not your own doing" but that "is the gift of God" is the word faith. Faith is a gift. Faith, the instrument through which we gain union with Christ and His saving work, is given to us by grace. It is a work God does completely on His own. We do not bring ourselves to faith, God does by His Holy Spirit.
Dr. Kim Riddlebarger, pastor of Christ Reformed Church, California says of this passage
"The context of Ephesians 2:8 is the condition of being dead in sins and transgressions, and our enslavement to the sinful nature in verses 1-5. And so it is clear, I think, that when pointing out that "God makes us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in sin," Paul's explanation is sola gratia that is, "it is by grace you have been saved." That God raised us in Christ when we were dead in sin, is to be saved by grace. We must be clear about this, or we will miss what Paul is saying. I have heard far too many people say to me over the years, "Oh yes, I believe we are saved by grace alone," and approvingly quote this verse, and then they turn right around and argue that unless we do something first, unless we decide, unless we choose, unless we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, grace is useless. It is crystal clear that this is not what Paul is saying, and to argue that grace is of no avail to us, unless we do something first, is to deny sola gratia altogether!
If you are not convinced, consider the rest of the passage. "For it is by grace you have been saved though faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast." Whether or not the faith mentioned here by Paul is the gift spoken of or not, it doesn't matter. First, we are not saved by faith, we are saved by grace through faith. We are not saved because we believe, but it is through faith in Christ (sola fide) that God saves --- from our being made alive in Christ, to our exercising faith, to being saved from God's wrath, and our being raised in Christ and even now, our being seated in the heavenlies with him --- it is all God's doing, not ours. The fact is, Paul says that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone and the whole thing, from beginning to end, is a gift. We'll talk about how faith relates to this in our second hour, but if you think that grace depends upon faith, and not the other way around, you misread and misunderstand Paul at this point. This becomes clear in Romans 10, as Paul says there that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ." That is, faith arises in connection with the preaching of the gospel. As Jesus spoke forth the word of God and raised Lazarus from the dead, the same thing happens to us through the preaching and sharing of the gospel today. For it is through the word of the Gospel, and only through the Word of the Gospel, that God calls us forth from the dead -- or to use Paul's language here, "God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in sin, for you have been saved by grace." And this beloved, is precisely what we mean when we speak of grace alone. God makes us alive, when we are dead in sin. This is what it means to be saved by grace alone."
The very sense of the word grace charis (Gk.) implies the freedom of grace. It is wholly unmerited, not evoked by the creature's disposition e.g. Eph. 2:1-10, Tit. 3:3-7)As early as the 2nd century the priority of grace over human response was obscured through a channelling of grace through clerical ministrations through the Church, while the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was neglected. It was augustine who wpoke once more of the priority of grace, especially in his doctrine of predestination. In opposition to the contention of Pelagius that each individual, having been born neutral without any burden of inherited sin, was essentially free for moral choice, Augustine etched out starkly the radical and enslaving character of sin and grounded salvation in grace which alone facilitates repentance and faith and is subsequent to faith bringing about a renewed will enabling the sinner to become an agent of God's own loving acts towards others.
By the time of the reformation grace was widely thought of as an independent virtue by means of which the sinner could produce acts commending himself to God's favour. Under the preaching of the Reformers, a revival of the primacy of grace occurred, together with a conviction of its basic sense of divine favour. Luther renewed Augustine's evaluation of human sinfulness and so emphasized justification as a gift, not a state of grace contingent upon our growth in sanctification. For Calvin, regeneration was inseperable from faith as it must precede saving faith. Calvin thus wrote : ‘Faith, then, brings a man empty to God, that he may be filled with the blessings of Christ.’Luther stressed that grace overthrew our inclinations towards legalism and self sufficiency. Martin Luther said in His small Catechism “I believe that by my own reason orstrength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But theHoly Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts,and sanctified and preserved me in true faith.”
The doctrine undergirding Sola Fide is regeneration, which states that no one can believe on Christ or follow Him unless they are born again. And being born again is from start to work, an act of God's free grace. The noted Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof, defines regeneration as "a work in which man is purely passive, and in which there is no place for human co-operation....The creative work of God produces new life, in virtue of which man, made alive with Christ, shares the resurrection life, and can be called a new creature." Indeed, no one will ever see heaven if they are not regenerate or "born again."
Calvin also formulated a doctrine of grace at work in the world at large, and distingished between the grace of Christ, by which one is effectually called to Christ to become and remain a Christian, and a 'general' or 'common' grace to which may be attributed the restraint of our depravity so that God does not completely give us over to the depths of our wickedness.
For them Grace becomes a substance we cooperate withthrough which we produce righteous acts and deeds to God’s credit which allowus to remain in a state of grace. If we sin we need a number of prayers,confession and sacraments to attain grace again. For them grace involved both the initial act of Christ on the cross but this grace was not sufficient to save. For further grace to be infused into the soul, so that we would ascend to a 'state of grace' our works were required which stored up merit which then leads to salvation and less time in purgatory. For roman catholics when asked the question, are you going to heaven, they accordingly respond with uncertainty, feeling the weight of the guilt for their sins and further knowing the insufficiency of their works in meritting what the church requires of them to be saved. For them, without enough grace they either fall from a state of grace, or never achieve a state of grace which leads either to hell or purgatory.
The Roman Catholics denied this doctrine saying that ‘grace’ is a substance infused into us that we must co-operate with in order to produce our own righteousness and merit salvation.Thus the Roman Catholic church says of the sacraments role in infusing grace:
“The sacraments of Christian initiation - Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist - lay the foundations of every Christian life. "The sharing in the divine nature given tomen through the grace of Christ bears a certain likeness to the origin, development, and nourishing of natural life. The faithful are born anew by Baptism, strengthened by the sacrament of Confirmation, and receive in the Eucharist the food of eternal life. By means of these sacraments of Christian initiation, they thus receive in increasing measure the treasures of the divine life and advance toward the perfection of charity." 1212
Later Arminian theologians rejected the distinction between common grace and the grace in salvation, seeing onlye a single divine grace held out to every person. This 'prevenient grace' is something they say we either resist or cooperate with and thus salvation is ultimately up to each individual, making salvation a work which some carry out and others do not.
The Bible does not approach this subject from the perspective that everyone is entitled to a chance at heaven, as do most Christians. the degree to which we argue that we contribute something to our salvation is the degree to which we deny sola gratia. It was Charles Spurgeon who said, "he that thinks lightly of sin, thinks lightly of the savior." It is really very simple. Either God saves sinners who are dead in sin, by calling them forth from the grave when they could contribute nothing, or else sinners have something good within them is that not somehow tainted, corrupted, polluted our damaged by the fall. As Calvin puts in the Institutes, "Whatever mixture men study to add from the power of free-will to the grace of God, is only a corruption of it; just as if anyone should dilute good wine with dirty or bitter water." Sola gratia is most clearly seen in the fact that Jesus Christ came to do for us they very thing that we could no do for ourselves. sola gratia is the basis for our comfort and assurance as sinners before a Holy God.
We should take head from the reformers not to deal trivially with this doctrine but hold it in the highest esteem remembering the famous words of John Owen:
"To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of no effect."
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