We started looking at Sola Gratia (grace alone) last time. Today the subject matter will be on the motive or motivations of God in showing grace or perhaps the cause of grace. Abraham Booth’s (died in 1806) wonderful book, The Reign of Grace, points out an essential part of grace. He went to the first cause of grace from God’s perspective rather than man. He demonstrated from Romans 3:24 (being justified as a gift by His grace) that the Bible teaches that there is no cause within man for grace. The text says that sinners are “justified as a gift by His grace” and other translations use the word “freely” rather than gift. The real idea is seen in John 15:25 (“THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE”) which translates the same Greek word as “without cause.” The Jews hated Jesus freely or without cause. They hated Jesus, but the cause was not found in Jesus but in their own hearts. A literal translation of Romans 3:24 with an explanatory word added would read like this: “Being justified without cause within themselves by His grace.” This text points to an essential truth about grace in that without it, grace is no longer grace. That truth is that for God to save by grace He can find no cause within man to save man. Sola gratia teaches us that all the causes for salvation are found in God and that man is saved for no cause or reason found in him. When people are trusting in their own works or worth they are trying to provide God with a cause to save them and are not looking to grace alone. Grace cannot have a cause within a human being or it is no longer grace. God’s only cause in His grace is Himself or grace alone is simply an empty term without any real meaning.
This is a truth that should be driven home in each heart because it is necessary to see the beauty and freeness of grace. This truth should deliver souls from the notion that they can contribute anything at all to salvation. This should show us the brokenness of heart and the brokenness from pride and self-love that is needed. When the Bible speaks of a salvation that is by grace alone through faith alone, it is speaking of a salvation that comes to sinners apart from any worth or merit on their own. Yet unbelief is a state of unbelief in Christ from the depths of the soul and therefore a belief and trust in self and pride. A soul must be broken from its pride and trust in self in order to be saved from sin by Christ who does it by grace alone. A soul must be broken from any idea of merit in self or by self in order to truly trust in grace alone. To the sinner that the Spirit has enlightened to see how utterly vile and helpless s/he is, this is music to the spiritual ear. God saves sinners because of Himself (grace) alone.
The older orthodox teaching was that sinners had to be broken from all trust in self and pride before they would or could trust in Christ alone for grace alone to save. This showed the sinner that s/he must trust in grace alone or not trust in grace at all. It demonstrated to the sinner that the whole soul must be broken from trust in self in order to truly rest in grace alone which is the only way to trust in Christ at all. What we must get at is the connection of the motives of God in saving sinners with the sinner’s motives. God’s motive in saving sinners by grace alone is to shine forth the glory of His grace. There is not one place in Scripture that tells us that God’s motives are to make the sinner feel good about himself or that He needs just a little of the work of man to save man. The soul of man must in some way be broken from any hope in himself in order to trust in what God is really doing. If God saves sinners to the glory of His grace, then if a man trusts in himself as giving God a motive (whether man realizes that or not) that man is at odds with the whole purpose of God in salvation. Man must trust in God to save him in the way that God is really saving. That way is grace alone. Man must trust in grace alone to be saved. If man tries to do or be something before God in order to be saved, he is trying to give God a motive other than Himself to save a sinner. It is an effort to get God to love a sinner more than Himself and is opposite of how God really saves. God’s only motive is His own glory and for Him to obtain that glory He changes the heart of man so that man desires to be saved by grace alone as God views and shows it rather than any other motive at all. It is by God’s grace alone.
The Gospel of grace alone demands that the Gospel of Jesus Christ be motivated by God’s love for His own glory or it is not by grace alone. The Gospel that is meant to display the glory of God’s grace in His love for Himself cannot have any rivals in terms of the cause of salvation. The Gospel of Jesus Christ rings with the beauty and glory of grace because it rings with the beauty and glory of God in His love for Himself. The very beauty of God as love is His love for Himself. The delectability of God to the human soul is that God is so glorious in His love for Himself that He manifests His glory in saving souls totally out of His love for Himself. God’s love for Himself is manifested in Christ and then in all those that Christ lives in. God’s love for Himself is so great that the only cause that He needs to save sinners is His love for Himself. His love for Himself given to sinners who then repent of their self-love and then have His love in them is the very heart of grace. God’s motive to save sinners is His love for Himself and His determination to display His glory in Christ. That is why sinners are only saved by grace alone.
God Loves... Himself 
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