Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
It would appear that the modern day “message” of the Gospel is full of legalism from beginning to end. Grace reigns in all aspects of the Gospel and of sanctification, but many things have been brought in. It is true that a soul must repent, but is that repentance a work of the flesh or of the Spirit? Is that repentance before or after conversion? It is also true that a soul must believe/ have faith, but is that a work of the human will and flesh or a work of the Spirit? It is also true that we must consider whether a soul can believe with an unregenerate heart or if the soul must be born again that it may have a true spiritual faith. These are points where men who have conservative and orthodox creeds can be ashamed of the Gospel of grace alone in practice.
If we are to preach a Gospel that is the power of God for salvation to all who believe, then we must preach a Gospel that is the power of God in all aspects of the Gospel and not a Gospel that joins the power of the will of man to the will of God. The Gospel is the good news of the glory of God and not the good news of the glory of God and of the will of man. When we bring in some form of cooperation between the will of God and the will of man in terms of salvation, we have introduced some work of the human flesh into the Gospel and it is no longer the Gospel of grace alone. When we bring in something that the human soul must do in order for God to show grace to that soul, that is a form of legalism or a form of conditionalism that the human soul has the ability to meet apart from grace working that in the soul.
There are no conditions that a soul has the ability to meet in order for God to show grace to the soul. Once a condition is given that the unregenerate soul (or regenerate as far as that goes) can meet in order to obtain grace, this makes grace no longer to be grace. For grace to be grace there can be no conditions that the soul meets in its own strength and power to obtain grace. Instead, God gives grace based upon His love for Himself and His own glory and He is sufficient to save based on Himself. God saves in a way that puts the stress on His grace and not on human ability or choice. God saves in a way that allows for the brilliance of His glory to shine forth in the beauty and majesty of grace. When conditions are set forth that man can meet in his own power and will, that intrudes upon grace and as such it makes for something less than a pure grace which is no grace at all.
Perhaps some people don’t see the need for such a stress on grace, but that is inexcusable in terms of the Gospel of grace alone. However, we can also look at this in terms of Christ alone. All grace comes to sinners because of Christ and not because of themselves. All grace comes to sinners because of the works of Christ and not because of any works of man. The soul must not look to itself in any way for any reason or condition that it can meet in order to move Christ to give it grace, but instead it must look to Christ to give all blessings because He gives them of His sovereign grace. If grace is not sovereign, it is not grace at all. The Reformers taught that grace was sovereign because God alone can decide to give grace as He pleases and does not give it to men to dispense it as they please or to the degree they can work it up.
If there are no conditions that a soul can meet because of its depravity and because of God’s self-sufficiency, then grace comes to sinners with the basis specifically and clearly not on something they can do. But if the Gospel is what God does despite the inability and sinfulness of sinners, then the Gospel is all of grace and nothing but grace. The Gospel is all about the power of God and the complete lack of ability in man. The Gospel is all about the grace of God and the complete lack of works that a man can do. The Gospel is all about the grace of God and has nothing to do with the choice of man who would never choose God apart from the power of God working grace in a soul. There is nothing in the Gospel that reveals anything about the righteousness of man because there is nothing righteousness in man, for the Scripture (Rom 3:10) tells us that “there is none righteous, not even one.” Oh how men are so deceived and so blinded by the devil and their own hearts to put conditions on the Gospel rather than to point souls to Christ alone for grace alone.
God Loves... Himself 
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