God Loves… Himself

Romans 3:23 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; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

The clarity with which Paul set forth the fact that all are sinners and all fall short of the glory of God and then the doctrine of justification through grace alone by grace alone apart from works makes it hard for anyone to deny, though there are those who do. Part of the problem is that the full truth of a doctrine is not just an intellectual exercise. There is the intellectual truth which can be captured on paper and set forth in a creed, but the true acceptance in the depths of the heart is quite a different thing. The doctrine as set down on a piece of paper (or computer screen) can be grasped by the intellect, but the depths of the teaching cannot be taught in the depths of the soul by anyone but Christ by His Spirit. This is to say that a person can study a great doctrine for years in terms of classes in an academic setting and reading books on the subject and may never know the depths of the teaching. It is, to say the least, humbling.

When we think of what it means to be a sinner, it is easy for men to know that they have made mistakes and that they have sinned. But it is far harder to get them to admit that they are sinners by nature and from that nature nothing but sin can come. How hard it is to get men to bow to the teaching that the most righteous thing that they have ever done is as filthy rags in the sight of God. For those who pride themselves on doctrine and on being orthodox, they will accept that teaching and even teach it. But that is quite a different thing from having this teaching be brought home to the depths of the soul by the Divine Teacher. This is quite a different thing than the soul coming to the acute realization that it is a wicked and awful sinner, even a vile sinner in the sight of God. The soul constantly wants to find something in itself to find hope in other than in the grace of God and only in the grace of God. The soul will desperately look for something in itself even thinking that as long as it believes something it must be okay. The soul that really and truly sees itself as being nothing but a vile and sinful being will know and bow to the fact that is it worthy of nothing but eternal wrath. But again, it is one thing to say the words that one is worthy of nothing but eternal wrath, but it is quite another for one to know this in the depths of the soul.

In much the same way the doctrine of justification by grace alone apart from works can be grasped by the intellect without it reaching the depths of the soul. It is far easier to grasp this teaching with the brain and think that one knows it than it is to bow from the depths of the soul before the sovereign grace of God. There is a huge difference between knowing that the doctrine of justification by grace through faith apart from works is true and actually being justified by grace through faith apart from works. The devil and the demons know what the Gospel is and they know the facts about justification, but that does not mean that they are justified. The devil and the demons also know that those things are true and they believe that those things are true, but that does not justify them either. Scripture also calls unbelievers the children of the devil and so it is possible for the children of the devil to know the facts about the Gospel and to believe that those things are true and yet not be justified.

Knowing the facts of the Gospel never saved one soul in and of itself. Believing the facts of the Gospel never saved one soul in and of itself either. The message of the Gospel never saved one person, but it is the act of God that saves. It is not the message of what Christ has done that saves, but instead it is Christ working by His Spirit and applying what Christ has purchased that saves. It was not God declaring to the Israelites that He would save them from their enemies that He would save them that saved them, but it was when God acted that they were saved. His promise told them that He would do what He promised, but He had to do what He had promised in order to actually save them. It is not just hearing that Christ was crucified and was raised that saves, but it is when the blood of Christ is applied that a person is saved. Hell is full of people who believed that Christ was crucified, but heaven will only have those who actually have Christ Himself and the atoning virtue of His cross. It is not those who know that a person must be born again who will be saved, but only those who are born again are saved. We must go beyond the mere words and a belief in those words, but we must have Christ Himself.

This entry was posted on February 9, 2014 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.