God Loves… Himself

Acts 13:29 “When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. 30 “But God raised Him from the dead; 31 and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people. 32 “And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, 33 that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘YOU ARE MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.’ 34 “As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ‘I WILL GIVE YOU THE HOLY and SURE blessings OF DAVID.’ 35 “Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ‘YOU WILL NOT ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY.’ 36 “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay; 37 but He whom God raised did not undergo decay. 38 “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.

The preaching of the Christ and the Gospel and general preaching seem to be thought of as different things. Preaching the Gospel is thought to be preaching something particular about Christ and His work while preaching in general is thought to be preaching things in order for people to grow and mature. For example, preaching can be thought of as preaching Reformed truths that build people up. However, if all spiritual blessings are in Christ and there is no growth but growing in Christ, there is no preaching that should not be the preaching of Christ. I would argue that Gospel preaching is what all preaching should be. Believers need to hear the Gospel and how all things relate to the Gospel and the Gospel of Christ. It is Christ Himself who is good news to poor sinners whether they are believers or unbelievers. We see an aspect of this in John 1:10 where “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to be children of God.” One receives Christ Himself and He is the good news of the sinner.

The good news that Paul preached in Acts 13 was from the Old Testament, yes, but it was preaching Christ Himself. The resurrection is a doctrine, yes, but it is far more than a mere doctrine. The resurrection is about Jesus Christ Himself who was resurrected and it is about Jesus Christ Himself who is alive and is on the throne of the universe and is also at the right hand of the Father interceding for His people. We see that it is Christ who was raised and it is Christ who is the good news in verses 38-39 when Paul starts with the word “therefore.” It is not just that God made some promises to some people in the Old Testament, but it is Christ who is THE Promised One and it is Christ Himself who carries out the promises of God. It is in light of the resurrection of Christ that Christ is the living Savior and there is a Gospel of a living Savior and a living hope. Believing that Christ died for men does no good if Christ was not raised from the dead as well. If He had not been raised from the dead, we would have a dead Savior and not a living Savior of all hope.

Paul, however, did write a “therefore” and we do have a living Savior and it is a living Savior that must be preached if there is to be Gospel preaching. It is because Jesus Christ did not undergo decay and was raised by God that the Gospel can be proclaimed and that forgiveness of sins can be proclaimed to vile and wretched sinners. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not contained in history because Jesus Christ could not be contained in a tomb. There is forgiveness with Christ because He satisfied the wrath of the Father and that was declared when He who died for sinners was raised from the dead. He who had the sins of all who would ever come to faith put upon Him had to be raised if the wrath of the Father and the perfect justice of God was indeed satisfied. Here is meat and hope for the most mature of believers and here is the simple Gospel to sinners. Christ died in the place of sinners to the glory of God and His death fully satisfied the wrath of the Father and so the Father raised Him from the dead. Oh sinners, here is hope for you. Christ has been resurrected from the dead and all your sins have been taken away.

It is in the crucified and risen Savior that we can proclaim forgiveness of sins, but also it is through Christ that those who are in Him are freed from things which they could not be freed from while under the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses did not have hope for those who sinned with intent, but in Christ there is hope that God can work a true repentance in that heart. The Law of Moses had a repeated sacrifice, but in Christ He is the once and for all sacrifice. One the animal died, it had nothing more it could do. But once Christ died, He was resurrected and would never die again. He is the hope for sinners for all eternity. There is a living Christ to be preached and as such there is a living Gospel to be preached. Gospel preachers must not limit themselves to historical facts; they need to preach a living Christ who presently saves sinners. Gospel preachers must not just preach correct doctrine; they must preach the doctrines as truths of the living Christ. One can preach justification in a doctrinal and dry way, but Gospel preaching is about a living Savior who really and truly saves sinners as He pleases. A lecture gives dry information about facts, Gospel preaching is a living Savior speaking through men with life who preach a living Savior as if they know Him.

Acts 13:29 “When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. 30 “But God raised Him from the dead; 31 and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people. 32 “And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, 33 that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘YOU ARE MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.’ 34 “As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ‘I WILL GIVE YOU THE HOLY and SURE blessings OF DAVID.’ 35 “Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ‘YOU WILL NOT ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY.’ 36 “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay; 37 but He whom God raised did not undergo decay. 38 “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.

Preaching is a subject with as many opinions about what constitutes good preaching as there are preachers. Of course that is hyperbole, but there are many views. However, there are some teachings in the text above that we should take note of and then take to heart. While the subject is preaching, it would also include those who evangelize and those who try to live before others and shine the light of Christ on them.

The first thing to note is that preaching is a witness. Paul is the one who is speaking what Luke wrote down above and he says (31) that those who Christ appeared to were the very people who were witnesses now. Of course there is no one alive in our day that saw the risen Lord in that time, but people can be witnesses of what the risen Christ does now. Preaching is not a mere lecture where the preacher is the dispenser of a series of facts, but instead preaching is a heart that has the risen Christ in it and the preacher speaks from that heart and in some manner is a witness. Every Sabbath day is to be a celebration of the resurrection of Christ and every true Gospel sermon is a witness to the historical Christ and the present Christ who is at the right hand of the Father. It is a dry lecture that pretends to be a sermon that does nothing but deal with facts of history.

Paul said that he preached the good news of the promise made to the fathers. The resurrection is not just a bare fact of history, though indeed it is a fact of history, but the resurrection is a fulfillment of the promise of God. Paul said that it was good news that this promise was fulfilled. So Gospel preachers should learn to look at the events of the New Testament as they relate to God and His promises. Paul said that this promise was to our children as well. In other words, the good news of the resurrection was one that would go on beyond those who were standing there. The resurrection was to be preached because the power of the resurrection was found in the promise of God and this resurrection guarantees the salvation of the people of God. Gospel preaching is not just being a witness, but it is being a witness of the faithfulness of God and admiring how He keeps His word. Gospel preaching also points to the continuing results of God’s promise and how that promise will always be true in Christ. The Gospel does not need to be made relevant, but it simply needs to be declared in a biblical way.

The Gospel of grace alone is by grace alone for several reasons, but one reason that the Gospel is of grace alone is because of the resurrection of Christ who was resurrected on the basis of promise. God never promised Christ as a result of a man’s goodness or holiness. God never promised Christ as a result of a man’s faith or foreseen faith. No man can have faith unless the power that raised Christ from the dead raises that man and gives him faith. The Son was promised in the Garden as a curse on Satan and the last thing that man had accomplished at that point was the fall into sin. God promised a Savior who would crush the head of the serpent. One way Christ crushed the head of the serpent was to die on the cross and then to be raised again never to die.

These plain truths from the text show us about Gospel preaching. The Gospel must not be preached as historical fact alone, but instead it must be preached as if Christ is still alive and is on His throne. The Gospel must be preached as if He is the reality behind all things. Christ must be preached as Lord and King of the universe and the only Savior. Christ must be preached as the fulfillment of promise and the promise that extends from the past all the way through eternity. It is no wonder that people find the resurrection boring (so to speak) when preachers preaching about it in such a boring way. God raised Christ from the dead and preachers should be raised from the dead so that they will preach this with life.

You ought to seek, wait, ask, and use all the means which God has appointed and afforded you, both secret, private and public, Rev.2:29, but God must make the means effectual. {Acts 16:14} And therefore, I must say it is not in me; I cannot draw you to Christ. That is the Father’s work alone. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” {Jn.6:44} But having exhorted you to seek Him in the use of means, there I must leave you to wait on God for the moving of his Holy Spirit where you must lie and continue like the poor impotent man at the pool of Bethesda for healing. And though as he did, so you may see many a lame, blind, deaf, dumb, naked, leprous soul get healing and go away rejoicing and praising God. And you remain still so impotent that you cannot get into the fountain set open for sin and for uncleanness, nor have any that can help you in that you may be cured. Yet, be not disheartened, as Christ came suddenly and unexpectedly and healed the impotent man after long waiting; so Christ will come according to His promise to your souls that seek Him. “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.” {Mal.3:1} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

Christ must be proclaimed in His Person, His offices, and in His works. Sinners must be driven to utter despair of all hope in themselves and any hope in anyone else but Christ. Sinners should be exhorted to use the means of grace and yet they must be told that God alone can make those means effectual. Sinners have to be left in the hands of God because it is God alone who can give grace. If grace comes from any other person or sinners can distribute grace to themselves, then it is no longer true grace. The sinner must get into the pool (taken from the illustration that Knolly uses from Scripture) in order to be cured, yet the sinner has no ability to get into the pool. The sinner is lame and has no power to do so. Yet the sinner must wait on God to come and command Him with effectual power to get up and get into the pool. Here is real hope for sinners. The hope of sinners must not be in their own power to get into the pool to be cleansed, but in One who can heal them so that they can get in the cleansing pool.

It may be that the poor, impotent sinner observes others go to the pool in their own power and appear to be healed, but if they go in their own power they are not going by the power of grace and true healing is only found in those who go by grace. Sinners often think that they can get up and go in their own power, but that is not true at all. They are deceiving themselves as to what they can do and as to having Christ. Yet one can also observe that some do go by the power of the Spirit and are washed clean and healed of their sins. This should not be a discouragement that God heals some and not you, but instead one should look and say that God does heal by grace alone. If God heals by grace alone, then He can heal even me the chief of sinners. Yes, I have sinned and have sinned with thirst and love for sin, but God has saved many like that in the past and will save many in the future. No matter how wicked I have been, there is a fountain for those who look to grace alone.

For those who know their inability to love God and have their deepest belief/faith to be in Christ, the good news is that God can give them a new heart that loves Him and has Christ as their deepest belief/faith. How discouraging it is for sinners to know that they must believe (have faith) and yet know their inability to do so and hear the words of preachers tell them what they must do. How encouraging, on the other hand, it is for sinners to hear the preaching of free grace. Yes, it is true, that they cannot do what they must do in order to be saved. However, if they know to look to free grace there is great hope in the God who can make the means effectual and who can be gracious to whom He will be gracious. He has power and He can overcome any will to make it willing.

Sinners are not left without hope in the Gospel of grace alone. The preaching and exalting of Christ should leave them without any hope in themselves, but the hope in self must be stripped away in order to hope only in Christ. Sinners should use the means and seek the Lord in those means as the means cannot do one thing to make the means effectual, for that is the work of the Lord alone. Using the means does not put God under and obligation to save sinners, but instead using them shows sinners their own wickedness and His sovereignty. Gospel preaching is a means and preachers must see that with an increasing clarity. Gospel preaching is not just to show what a good speaker a man is or how educated he is, but it is to show forth the wonders of God in free grace. How sinners should despair of all help and all hope but Christ. Behold the kindness of God in saving sinners in Christ Jesus. Behold the wonders of God displayed in the Gospel of free grace. Behold the majesty and glory of grace on display in this glorious Gospel. Sinners must see this free grace in the preaching or they will not behold the Gospel at all.

You ought to seek, wait, ask, and use all the means which God has appointed and afforded you, both secret, private and public, Rev.2:29, but God must make the means effectual. {Acts 16:14} And therefore, I must say it is not in me; I cannot draw you to Christ. That is the Father’s work alone. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” {Jn.6:44} But having exhorted you to seek Him in the use of means, there I must leave you to wait on God for the moving of his Holy Spirit where you must lie and continue like the poor impotent man at the pool of Bethesda for healing. And though as he did, so you may see many a lame, blind, deaf, dumb, naked, leprous soul get healing and go away rejoicing and praising God. And you remain still so impotent that you cannot get into the fountain set open for sin and for uncleanness, nor have any that can help you in that you may be cured. Yet, be not disheartened, as Christ came suddenly and unexpectedly and healed the impotent man after long waiting; so Christ will come according to His promise to your souls that seek Him. “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.” {Mal.3:1} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

No one can draw a person to Christ but the Father. No one can make Christ beautiful and glorious in appearance to those who hate Him but God alone. No person can drag himself or make himself go to Christ and lay down all things at His feet. No person can study enough or pray enough to make Christ beautiful to himself. All of these things are the work of God and totally beyond the work of the human will or power. Should we preach in such a way as to leave men in their own hands thinking that they can dispose of themselves as they please? Oh no, if we are to preach Christ crucified and the free grace of the Gospel we must preach in such a way that men know that they are in the hands of God and that He alone can save them. There are only three places that men can be left. They are left in their own hands, the hands of others, or the hands of God. Gospel preaching does not leave men in their own hands and it does not leave men in the hands of any human being or any group of human beings. Instead, it leaves men in the hands of the God of all grace and mercy. No one else can help a poor, dead soul obtain life.

This is a vital point. Gospel preaching must leave sinners in the hands of God because only God can save sinners. Gospel preaching must leave sinners in the hands of God because only God has grace to save and only if He saves by grace alone is the Gospel of grace alone and Christ alone. Gospel preaching must give sinners no hope but in Christ and the grace of God found in Him. Gospel preaching must leave sinners no hope in themselves or anyone else but Christ alone. As long as sinners are left with the slightest thing that they can do to help themselves, they will take it. Unregenerate sinners will do anything to keep the slightest bit of control for themselves. Yes, sinners must go to Christ, but the Father must draw them to Christ. In the context of John 6:44 (given by Knolly above), we are told (v. 45) what that drawing includes. It includes the Father’s teaching sinners because all who are taught of the Father will go to Christ. This must instruct sinners how they are to go to Christ. They must be instructed of the Father. This should instruct us how Gospel preaching should be done. Men are to be left for God to draw.

This is assuredly a lot different than the vast majority of preaching in the modern day (as of 2015). Men are told what to do and they are never told that they cannot do what must be done. They are not left in the hands of God who alone can teach them and draw them to the Son. They are not told that they have no power to go to Christ and that God must do this drawing. They are not told that they are unable to do anything spiritual unless they are regenerated, so men think that the final decision is in their own hands and it is up to them when to do so. This is a terrible delusion for as long as men think that they can come to Christ whenever they want they will put it off until a better time or until they are finished with their sin. Gospel preaching that stresses grace alone will always leave sinners with God to save them by grace alone rather than leaving things in their own hands and wills.

Poor and helpless sinners are those that God has revealed how poor and helpless they are. These are those who will be content with nothing but Christ alone and they will be content with nothing but a grace that is free of all taint of merit and ability from them. Poor and helpless sinners know that they cannot add one thing to this glorious Gospel of Christ and His grace and that they have no ability to come to Him unless He draws them. These sinners know their own hearts to that degree because God Himself has taught them. These sinners may not have theological education and they may not have much education at all, but when God teaches their hearts that they have no merit and no ability, they know that for a fact and cannot be convinced otherwise. They are left to grace alone and they want nothing else either.

You ought to seek, wait, ask, and use all the means which God has appointed and afforded you, both secret, private and public, Rev.2:29, but God must make the means effectual. {Acts 16:14} And therefore, I must say it is not in me; I cannot draw you to Christ. That is the Father’s work alone. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” {Jn.6:44} But having exhorted you to seek Him in the use of means, there I must leave you to wait on God for the moving of his Holy Spirit where you must lie and continue like the poor impotent man at the pool of Bethesda for healing. And though as he did, so you may see many a lame, blind, deaf, dumb, naked, leprous soul get healing and go away rejoicing and praising God. And you remain still so impotent that you cannot get into the fountain set open for sin and for uncleanness, nor have any that can help you in that you may be cured. Yet, be not disheartened, as Christ came suddenly and unexpectedly and healed the impotent man after long waiting; so Christ will come according to His promise to your souls that seek Him. “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.” {Mal.3:1} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

There are some very important points for Gospel preaching in this paragraph. It is important for those who preach the free grace of God in salvation to constantly set forth Christ in the fullness (as far as finite man can) of His work and glory. In doing so we must set forth the impotence and inability of man to do one thing to save himself or to merit anything toward salvation. But since God works through means or uses means to bring men to Himself, we should point men to the use of means. However, there is a very fine line right at this point. The use of means can never merit or make salvation by anything other than the will and grace of God alone. These are the means that God uses and so men should use the means even though using those means never earns the slightest merit and man does nothing but sin in using those means.

What must be said is that in accordance with the preaching of a free and sovereign grace (the only kind of grace there is in reality) men are to use means, but the use of means is no guarantee that God will use those means to save a person. Using the means has no power or efficacy in them because God alone can use them with power. There is no power in preaching to save sinners unless God makes it powerful in the heart. There is no power in prayer or Bible study unless God enlightens the eyes and gives power to the soul. No evangelist and no preacher has the power to save a soul and no human being can do one thing to change dead heart into one with life. I would argue that Gospel preaching recognizes that fact and so preaches in such a way where sinners see that they are dead and that God alone can make them alive.

Can a sermon make a person alive and respond with faith? No, only God can do that. Can a prayer move God enough so that He will make a person spiritually alive? No, only God can move Himself. If a prayer could move God to save sinners then He would be responding to sinful prayers and salvation would not be by grace alone. Can reading the Bible move God enough to save sinners or can reading the Bible change the sinner by itself? No, no, and a thousand ties no. God alone can raise dead sinners from their spiritual death and give life to them. Can faith raise sinners from the dead? No, only God can raise sinners from the dead and true faith comes from a living heart with spiritual life and only God can give that. Gospel preaching, then, must not point sinners to exercise faith themselves and it must not point sinners to anyone or anything but God alone. Gospel preaching must lift up Christ and His work and it must point to the deadness of sinners and their inability to do one good thing. Gospel preaching will exalt Christ and lift Him up, but it will also seek to crush the pride of man. Gospel preaching will point men to use the means of grace but it will always point to God as being the only One who can make those means efficacious. In doing that Gospel preaching constantly lifts up Christ because He alone is the true object of true faith. When Christ is preached those that God gives faith to are drawn to Him.

While some stress the preacher, the real issue is the God of the preacher, the preaching, and the hearing. It is true that God uses preaching, but He makes the preacher and the preaching as well as gives the hearing. God uses preaching because He uses foolish means as the world views things. It is not just a matter of standing up and preaching a few things about Christ, but it is about the message being centered and focused on Christ even when He is not mentioned. The glory of God’s grace is manifested in and through Christ and the freeness of His grace should be manifested in and through Christ. Regardless of how conservative or even how true the doctrines the preacher preaches, they are not preaching Christ if free grace in Christ is not exalted. Regardless of how many times Christ is mentioned in a sermon, apart from exalting the free grace of God in Christ and the glory of Christ in saving sinners quite apart from all merit they have, the Gospel is not being preached.

You will say to me, alas, here is my misery, to wit, although God propounds Christ upon gospel terms to poor sinners to me among others, I have no power of myself to receive Christ and to believe in Him and accept of Him. True, it is not {as I said} in him that wills, or him that runs, but only in God who shows mercy. {Rom.9:16} It is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe. Which must be put forth in your hearts to make you believe also according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. {Eph.1:19,20} And you ought to wait on God in the diligent use of means until the day of His power come upon you and then you shall be a willing, a believing people. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” {Ps.110:3} I may exhort you to repent of your wickedness, profaneness, &c., as Peter did in Acts 8:22, but God alone must give you repentance unto life. {Acts 11:18} It is my duty to preach the gospel to you and to exhort you to seek Christ, Acts 17:22,27, but it is the mere mercy and free grace of God to drive you to Christ, which nothing, but His everlasting love can move Him to do. {Jer.31:3} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

The greatness of the work of God in giving sinners faith or raising them from the spiritually dead and giving them life is far greater than the whole human race could work in one soul much less any soul coming up with faith on its own. In order to preach the good news of Christ to sinners and of their need to have faith in Christ in truth, one should set forth the true nature of where faith comes from. True faith can only come when it comes in accordance with the working of His mighty power. True faith cannot come from the human being who has no power in the spiritual realm. God alone must do the work or it will not be done. God must work faith in the soul because the soul has no other place to obtain faith. Should people be told this truth or not?

Knolly writes that “you ought to wait on God in the diligent use of means until the day of His power come upon you and then you shall be a willing, a believing people.” Here is an evangelism that a preacher can preach the freeness of grace to sinners and it includes telling sinners where faith comes from. It is telling sinners that they have no ability to believe and that their faith must come from God that we are driving them to look to God alone for faith and for saving grace. It is in declaring that God is free to give sinners faith as He is pleased to do so that the Gospel is declared freely. It is in declaring how unable that men are in obtaining faith that they are driven to an utter emptiness and knows his own inability and so he will not look to self but to God for all things.

In declaring to men that they have no ability but that God has all ability to give men faith that men will seek the Lord using the means that He has set out. Preachers are only free to preach the glory of grace and the glory of Christ when they show that God alone can give faith to sinners. Preachers have no need to stop and offer Christ if they are preaching Christ as it is in preaching Christ to sinners that God breaks sinners and offers Christ as He is pleased to do so. This is not to say that preachers are not to plead with sinners to seek the Lord, because they should proclaim Christ and tell sinners to seek the Lord. Instead of offering Christ to those they have no idea how broken their hearts are, preachers are to trust Christ to save those whom He calls. As sinners must not look to themselves for faith but instead look to God for faith, so preachers should preach in a way that shuts sinners up to God to give them faith. As sinners must look to Christ alone for salvation and the faith that grace comes through, so preachers are to preach in such a way to point sinners to Christ alone.

Look how free preachers are to preach the Gospel and exhort sinners to repentance when they point the sinners to God who alone can grant them repentance. Instead of speaking to sinners all of the time as if all depended on them and as if we must talk them into it, preachers must preach in such a way that sinners will look to God for true repentance that leads to life. If indeed the Gospel is of grace alone, then sinners must be taught to look to God to save them by grace alone and that includes faith and repentance. Preachers must preach the Gospel of grace alone and exhort sinners to seek Christ by using the means, but they must preach Christ in such a way that sinners will look to Christ alone for saving grace. God does not save sinners because they seek, but because He will be gracious to whom He will be gracious. God does not save sinners because of some act of their own will, but He saves sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace. God does not save sinners based on anything they can do and that is precisely what preaching free-grace stresses. God does not save sinners because they believe or because they repent, but sinners repent and believe because God saves them. Preaching is either of free grace and of free grace alone or it is grace mixed with the act of man and that is to make grace no longer to be grace.

You will say to me, alas, here is my misery, to wit, although God propounds Christ upon gospel terms to poor sinners to me among others, I have no power of myself to receive Christ and to believe in Him and accept of Him. True, it is not {as I said} in him that wills, or him that runs, but only in God who shows mercy. {Rom.9:16} It is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe. Which must be put forth in your hearts to make you believe also according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. {Eph.1:19,20} And you ought to wait on God in the diligent use of means until the day of His power come upon you and then you shall be a willing, a believing people. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” {Ps.110:3} I may exhort you to repent of your wickedness, profaneness, &c., as Peter did in Acts 8:22, but God alone must give you repentance unto life. {Acts 11:18} It is my duty to preach the gospel to you and to exhort you to seek Christ, Acts 17:22,27, but it is the mere mercy and free grace of God to drive you to Christ, which nothing, but His everlasting love can move Him to do. {Jer.31:3} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

The world is full of deceptions based on the foundation (false) that man must be free and that it is man who must move toward God in some way. We cannot imagine the true notion of free grace and how God saves sinners quite apart from any merit or worth that they have. God saves sinners for the glory of His own name and to the praise of the glory of His grace. God saves sinners because of who He is and not because of anything in the sinner or what the sinner can do. One reason this is so hard to get across to people is because of the fall man is so focused on himself as the reason he does all things and he cannot imagine that God is moved within Himself to show mercy and save sinners by grace alone. Even among those who claim to hold to this glorious teaching it is common for something less than grace alone to creep in.

The glorious Gospel of grace alone is completely and totally of grace and grace alone. There can be no merit, no ability of man, no power of man, and no choice or act of the will of man that moves God to save a sinner. These is a verity that must not be moved from and there must not be an attempt to balance it out with something called the responsibility of man. The sovereign grace (the only kind of grace that there is) does not need balancing with anything regarding the ability of man. Man is obligated to God, yes, but man has no ability to do anything spiritual or saving. Man is obligated to God, but that does not mean that man can fulfill those obligations. We can also say that man is obligated to look to God alone for faith and do what He does in the strength of grace. Away with free-will and the ability of man so that the wonders and fullness of God’s grace may be declared.

The Scriptures are so clear that “it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Rom 9:16). When preachers “preach” in a way that men look to themselves or anyone else instead of the mercy and grace of God, those preachers have moved away from grace alone. Yes, it is very easy to do and so many fall into the trap of various forms of legalism. But again, it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs. I am not sure how much clearer that could be said. What salvation depends on is the mercy and grace of God and nothing of what man is or does. There is nothing that can depend on the man because all depends on God alone. There is nothing that depends on the will of man because it all depends on the will of God. There is nothing that depends on the man who runs and works, but instead it all depends on the grace of God who gives Christ to run and work all for His good pleasure and He has left no meritorious good works for man to do.

Yes, to certain ears this will sound like hyper-Calvinism in which the sovereignty of God is stressed and the responsibility of man is denied. Yes, to certain ears this will sound like antinomianism. However, this is not a denial of the obligation of man to live totally upon Christ and to do all he does by grace. This is not a denial that man must be holy, but instead it is saying that holiness comes from Christ and out of love for God that is given to man as a free gift. It is a denial that man can be holy apart from Christ and apart from His working holiness in man. It is a denial that a man can have any holiness apart from that which is given to him by God and that there is any merit in the holiness of man in any way. This is an assertion that man is completely dependent on the grace of God for salvation and that man can do nothing apart from Christ at any point. This is an assertion that it is Christ who lives in His people and it is the divine life that moves in us to do and to work as He pleases. This is an assertion that the Gospel of grace alone must not be turned into sanctification by works, but instead the believer is to feed and live upon Christ all his days by grace alone. Preaching must stress this at all points in order to be Gospel preaching.

You will say to me, alas, here is my misery, to wit, although God propounds Christ upon gospel terms to poor sinners to me among others, I have no power of myself to receive Christ and to believe in Him and accept of Him. True, it is not {as I said} in him that wills, or him that runs, but only in God who shows mercy. {Rom.9:16} It is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe. Which must be put forth in your hearts to make you believe also according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. {Eph.1:19,20} And you ought to wait on God in the diligent use of means until the day of His power come upon you and then you shall be a willing, a believing people. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” {Ps.110:3} I may exhort you to repent of your wickedness, profaneness, &c., as Peter did in Acts 8:22, but God alone must give you repentance unto life. {Acts 11:18} It is my duty to preach the gospel to you and to exhort you to seek Christ, Acts 17:22,27, but it is the mere mercy and free grace of God to drive you to Christ, which nothing, but His everlasting love can move Him to do. {Jer.31:3} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

Here we see a vital important point, even the crux of a main issue, and that has to do with the ability or power of those hearing the Gospel of Christ and the Gospel of grace alone. The soul that hears with the external ear something of the wonders of Christ and the Gospel has no power to turn his or her fleshly heart in to a spiritual one. The soul that hears the wonders of Christ with the external ear has no power to receive Christ and has no power to believe and accept Him. This is very clear in the Gospel of John 1:12-13 (just below).

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

In the text (just above) it reads that God has to give the right to become children of God. The word for “right” is exousia which is perhaps better translated as “power” or “authority.” This certain brings to mind Romans 1:16 where the Gospel is said to be “the power of God for salvation.” The words men speak is the message of the Gospel, but the Gospel is about a God and a Savior who is the power itself of salvation. The power of the Gospel is God Himself in action carrying out the message of the Gospel. This is missing from the vast majority of “Gospel messages” in our day. For some reason we think that the power of the Gospel is in our message, but our message of the Gospel is about a God of all power and all sovereignty who must work the message at His good pleasure.

With the above paragraph in mind, we can look to verse 13 and see that people are born (again) or receive the new birth because of the will of God and His power rather than because of their birth or the will of any human being. Here is a Gospel that is all of grace and all of Christ. It does not tell sinners to look to themselves and their will for faith, but instead it tells them that it is all the will of God. The power to become a child of God can only come from the power of God and it cannot possibly come from the power of man because man has no power in the spiritual realm. The Gospel is not the good news that man can choose Christ from his own will, but that God saves sinners completely and totally by His own power and by grace alone and that they contribute nothing. It is not good news to a poor sinner who is wrestling with his own wicked heart and knows that he has no ability or power in the spiritual realm and as such has no ability to do anything but sin and then tell that sinner that he must choose Christ in order to be saved. It is not in the power of a poor sinner to change his own heart which is at enmity with God and love Him, so those who know their hearts know that they cannot exercise true faith.

In a very real sense the Gospel reaches to dead sinners who have no power and no ability and it tells them “but God.” It is God who can make sinners alive even when they are dead and even when they are unable to believe. God saves sinners by His grace and by His grace alone and so He has no need of the sinner to make a choice or decide to act according to his own will before He saves them. In fact, to the dead sinner who is aware that he is dead making a choice is not good news at all. In the eyes of God that sinner looking to himself for the power to choose is an act of idolatry. Gospel preaching will not stress the power and ability of the sinner, but instead it will press the sinner to see his total lack of power and total inability to give himself a believing heart. Gospel preaching will always point the sinner to grace alone, Christ alone, and the power of God alone to give a believing heart. Gospel preaching always points to the absolute freeness and ability of God to save sinners by Himself and for Himself.

Thirdly, God requires that those who do receive Christ shall depart from iniquity. “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his; and, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” {II Tim.2:19} “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” {Tit.2:11-14} And that they shall sell all, lose all, and hate all for the sake of Christ and take up the cross and follow Him. Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

While it may seem odd to many that part of Gospel preaching is that God requires those who receive Christ to depart from iniquity, this is the longing of a new heart. It can also be the desire of the one that God has put His hand on and is breaking the person and giving them a taste of the bitterness of sin, but in that case a person hates sin out of self-love rather than hating sin as sin and as against God. However, the Gospel includes the good news of how God gives people new hearts and they will turn from iniquity as a result of being new creations. The point is that no matter how free true grace is preached, it does not include lascivious people giving themselves over to sin and loving their sin as such.

The grace of the Gospel must be preached with great clearness and freeness to sinners. But it should also be preached as to what grace will do once a person has been captured and cleansed by grace. Those who love their sin and are not weary by it will not want to hear of a Gospel or a grace like that. Those people want a grace (which is not true grace at all) where they can be saved from hell but not from the love and power of sin. The Gospel is that God saves sinners by His grace alone, but the grace that saves is a grace that works in sinners and takes the love and power of sin from them. Christ Himself will cleanse the heart that He will dwell in and out of love for His own name He will cleanse those who bear His name.

The free Gospel of grace alone must not be diluted with any legalism and any form of anything that teaches us that grace is contingent on our fleeing from sin, because that makes grace no longer to be grace. But the glory of the grace in the Gospel and of the Gospel is that it gives sinners new hearts and new desires. It is grace that delivers sinners from the power and love of sin rather than sinners having to work hard to deny what they love in order to receive grace. Instead, and to be repetitive, sinners are not saved by being sanctified but they are saved for the purpose of being sanctified. Sinners are not saved from the law so that they can be sanctified by the law, but they are saved by grace so that out of the strength of grace they will love God and their neighbor and in doing that the law is fulfilled.

It is so hard to preach a free-grace and not be accused of antinomianism (anti-law), but it is even harder to preach the law and still preach free-grace. This is because the glory of grace is that it will work in a person to love and so keep the law, yet the law never works to produce free-grace. It is true that the law is preached to some degree so that men can see their inability and their sin, but the law will never work to produce grace. This is why, I think, Paul said he preaching nothing but Christ and Him crucified. He preached Christ and the cross in such a way that the law was exalted and honored as it reflected the holiness of God, but he did not focus on preaching the law other than as a way of preaching Christ.

Christ Himself must be preached in such a way that He is the sanctification of saved sinners. Grace must be preached in such a way that sinners become holy by grace and not by keeping the law. This is a balance that is very hard to keep, not so much because it is fuzzy, but because there are so many legalists (or one stripe or another) in the world. Saved sinners keep the law (imperfectly) because they have the life of Christ in them and because He is working in them by grace alone. We must never give in to the idea that sinners are saved or sanctified or assisted in those things by their own keeping of the law. We must never give in to the idea that free-grace promotes sin rather than promotes true holiness. As Ephesians 2:8-10 sets out, we are not saved by good works but are saved for good works. Good works and holiness come from grace and the life of Christ in sinners and nothing else.

Our preaching must always reflect these things, though all preachers are far from imperfect and their preaching needs the blood of Christ as well as the preacher’s open sins. There is no room for preaching anything but Christ and Him crucified to the glory of God, which is why we must preach and always preach a free-grace. A true and free-grace is never obtained by anything a creature can do, but instead all true good or spiritual good that a creature can do comes from free-grace. True holiness and true good works can only come from free-grace and we must never preach anything that contradicts that. Pleasing God can only come when God works this in us by free-grace, though this is rarely heard in our day either. The only kind of grace is free-grace as we can do nothing to move God to show grace to us or work it in us. This is the grace that must be our love and the focus of our preaching.

Secondly, God does offer Christ to lost sinners without respect to price or person. He invites them that have no money to come and buy wine and milk {that is to say, Christ} without price. {Isa.55:1} And anyone that will are invited to take Christ freely. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life {that is, Christ} freely.” {Rev.22:17} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

This particular part of Gospel preaching can be quite confusing as seen by how much people differ on this issue today. The concept of offering Christ is thought to be the distinction between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism. The majority in today’s world would say that unless one offers Christ as they define it then one is a hyper-Calvinist. They are free to use that term as they will, but perhaps they are too hasty in their generalizations. Whatever the designation or name one is called one must be biblical in the approach.

The first thing to note in what Knolly says is that God offers Christ. This is a very, very important point. Some of the older writers would say that the preacher is to preach Christ and not offer Him. They said this because we are commanded to preach Christ, not offer Him. If we offer Christ we have stopped preaching Christ and as such we stop doing what is commanded to do what is not commanded. But the point stands from the text itself. God offers Christ to lost sinners. So the least we can say (following Knolly) is that during Gospel preaching God Himself is offering Christ. But of course what it means to offer Christ is a thorny issue. Does it mean, as so many today say it does, to tell sinners that God loves them, wants them to be saved, and so He tells them to believe on Him? I would argue that it does not mean that. The Latin word for “offer” (offero) means to set forth, proclaim, bestow, exhibit and so on. I would argue that it is the Latin background that makes more sense than the modern way. I would also argue that in the context given by Knolly (seen in the next few posts in this series) that is how he means it.

If we take this seriously, we would have to say that no preacher has ever been commanded to offer Christ to sinners as if they could take Him of their own power and will. Is Christ really for men to offer in the modern way? Instead, when a preacher has been called by God and is preaching by the Spirit of God then we can say that God is speaking through that man. When the preacher is preaching Christ in truth and spirit, there is a sense in which God is offering Christ to sinners. Knolly goes on to say that “God does offer Christ to lost sinners without respect to price or person.” Once again, there are some very important points here.

The first point is that God offers Christ to lost sinners. In this context it has to do with sinners who know that they are lost. This is not only an important point, it is a vital point. Not all sinners see themselves as lost. As the context of Isaiah sets out, only those who have been broken to the point of seeing that they have no righteousness and no ability to do good are those that God offers Christ to. Those who cling to their own merit and their own ability to choose when they please are not really lost in their own minds. Those who think that they have any merit of their own or any ability to take Christ as they please have money to buy, yet it is those who have no money and not price that the text says are offered Christ. This is such an important point. Sinners must be at the place where they understand and feel themselves as lost before they will come to Christ. Sinners must be at the place where they understand and feel that they have no merit before they will truly come to Christ.

It is very true that all who truly want Christ are invited by God to take Him freely, but I would also argue that in His invitation there is the efficacious call. This is why preachers are to preach Christ and Him crucified as the core and center of all their preaching. It is in preaching Christ that God Himself offers and brings lost sinners to Himself. Preachers must learn to preach Christ in such a way that they deal with sinners and show them how utterly lost that they are and that they have no ability and no merit before God. But instead, preachers plead with sinners to come to Christ before they are lost sinners and before they have been broken from trusting in their own merits and abilities.

But there are sinners out there who are lost and who are poor and needy sinners and they are being overlooked by the preachers of today. They sit there without merit and ability with nothing to bring to Christ and they are told that they must believe, yet they cannot do so. But the preachers have stopped preaching Christ to them at that point and they are offering Christ. Oh no, sinners need to hear the wonders of Christ proclaimed and how He freely saves sinners quite apart from their merit or worth. Lost sinners and saved sinners must hear of God manifested in Christ and the glory of God in Christ. In a very real sense when preachers start offering Christ themselves they have stopped preaching Christ to the lost sinners and so God is not speaking to the lost sinners (as such). This means that the preachers are offering Christ in an unbiblical way to those who don’t see themselves as lost. The freeness and wonder of the Gospel is to those who don’t have money and without anything to hold to but Christ. Preachers must preach this Christ and never turn from preaching this Christ. Preachers must set forth this glorious Christ to the thirsty and the hungry because in setting Him forth in that way Christ will be seen as the bread of heaven and sinners will feed on Him rather than on their own merits and abilities.