In the last post we looked at God’s motive in justification which helped us to see the biblical reason for why justification is by faith alone. We tried to show that justification is by the work of God alone and man can contribute nothing to his own salvation. The thought of this was based on Obadiah Grew whose original work that was published in 1669 was re-published in 2005 by Soli Deo Gloria as The Lord Our Righteousness. In this post we want to look at the grace of God as being moved by God Himself and not by anything found in a sinner or sinners. God is moved by Himself to justify sinners, which is simply to say that He saves by grace alone. Salvation by grace alone is a salvation that is moved from within God alone.
Deuteronomy 7:7 – “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
Romans 3:24 – “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;”
Romans 5:6 – “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Ephesians 1:5 – “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
Ephesians 1:9 – “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him”
Ephesians 1:12 – “to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation– having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”
From Deuteronomy 7:7-8 we can see the reason that God loved the Israelites. It was because the LORD loved them. Boiled down, the thought of those verses is to say that God loves you because He loves you. In other words, God’s motive for loving and for blessing the Israelites was not what was found within them, but it was found from within God Himself. This was hard for the Israelites to accept as they continually wanted to do works and keep the Law as ways to move God to love them. The same is true today. We want to be sufficient in and of ourselves to give God reasons and motives to love us and we don’t want to be totally dependent on grace. The natural man does not receive the grace of God because the demand of grace is that it be alone and have no help at all. It is impossible for the natural man to bend his pride and bow his heart to receive a salvation that is not moved by anything within man or done by the work of man. But that is exactly what the Gospel of grace demands. For the Gospel to be all of grace it must be by the grace of God alone and with the motive found within God alone.
Romans 5:6-8 sets this truth out for us. It was while sinners were helpless that Christ died for the ungodly. They were not almost helpless, but they were helpless. In other words, there was nothing that they could do. To be helpless is to have an inability to help self. Christ came for helpless people and not for those with just a little ability. He came for those who were helpless and ungodly. What would move God to save those like that? It could only be from within Himself. All of His motives and motivations must be from Himself. In other words, sinners are saved by grace alone which is to say that God saves according to His own motives and reasons and nothing from within the sinner. This is a truth that is worth waking up and getting excited about. This is utterly glorious. Why, it is almost as if God saves sinners apart from anything they can do which means that there is hope for the worst of sinners! God saves sinners who give up on themselves and look to Him alone because He saves sinners based on Himself and nothing in the sinner. This delivers sinners from having to look to themselves for anything and that includes even the smallest act of the will. It tells them to give up all hope in self and look to God who saves based on Himself and expects nothing from sinners other than what He gives. This is the Gospel of hope.
God Loves... Himself 
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