We will continue our critique of Morris Chapman’s article in the August 2007 edition of SBC LIFE. Here is a representative quote from that article again: “The Baptist Faith and Message agrees that both the work of grace and the responsibility of man are necessary elements in the salvation experience.” In contrast to that here is a quote from Joseph Alleine: “If ever thou wouldst be savingly converted, thou must despair of doing it in thine own strength” (An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners). In the last BLOG we looked at James 1:18 and John 1:12-13 and saw that God regenerates sinners according to His will and not theirs.
But what would cause God to save sinners when they have nothing in themselves that would cause or move Him to save them? A look at Titus 3 will help with this: “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7). This text tells us the reason that God did not save and the reason that He does save. He does not save us on the basis of deeds done in righteousness. Perhaps the reason is that we have no righteousness as set out in Romans 3:10: “There is none righteous, no not one.” What does this verse tell us about something other than grace being a necessary element in salvation? It tells us that God saves according to His mercy and result of that is that sinners are justified by His grace. This text wipes away any act of man that contributes to salvation. If a person has “free-will” and it is that will that must move in order to be saved, then that will must be a righteous will and not a totally depraved one. That will that must move must be free from the power of grace in order to be free. But the text tells us without one bit of equivocation or shame that one is saved according to the mercy of God and the mercy of God alone. There is nothing in man that contributes to salvation and so there is nothing of man’s responsibility that is a necessary element in the salvation experience. It is all of grace.
Romans 3:23-24 shows the real cause of salvation as well: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” This text tells us the nature of grace and simply blows away any thought of man being able to add to grace or contribute anything to his salvation. Justification is a gift. But what does that mean? It really means that justification is without cause in man. John 15:25 uses the same language about Jesus: “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.'” The words “without a cause” is from the same Greek word that is used as “a gift” in Romans 3:24. Salvation is without a cause in man. There was no cause for Jesus to be hated in Jesus, but the cause of the hatred for Him was found in the depraved hearts of those who hated Him. In the Gospel there is nothing but God as the cause to save sinners by His grace. The cause of salvation is not the “free-will” of man or of anything in man. There is nothing about the responsibility of man that contributes to the grace of God in salvation in the slightest or in any way. Salvation is by grace alone.
Romans 4:4-5 simply seals the case even further: “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Here the text tells us that if a person tries to work for salvation that person is not saved. Salvation is to the one that does not work for salvation. We must get that idea in our heads and to sink deeply into the depths of our being. It is only when a person gives up trying to save self or contribute to his or her own salvation that a person can be saved. If there is something about men’s will that can contribute to salvation and that not be the working of the will and so be a work, someone will have to do a lot of explaining to get that one across. A person must give up all efforts of self and all of his or her own willing in order to be saved by grace alone.
We then move on to Ephesians 2:1-10. Without quoting the verses, we see what a person that is dead in sins and trespasses can do nothing in the spiritual realm but sin. The person that is dead has no spiritual life and no spiritual will. The will is not free as it is in bondage to the devil, sin, selfishness and love for the world. What would move God to save one like that? The person’s choice? No, a person dead in sin will only choose sin and nothing but sin. What can that person contribute as a necessary part of his or her salvation? What moves God to raise that person from the spiritual dead but His great love and mercy? There is nothing that man can do that is a necessary element in the salvation experience. It is all by the uncaused (in man) mercy and grace of God. God only needs Himself.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment