God Loves… Himself

Nothing in man doth precede or prevent the grace of God. The light and beams of grace do dispel the clouds of our sins. Not for our sakes, but for his Name’s sake he covereth our sins. It is God’s prerogative to free us from sin by grace, and to remove them far from us. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” {Ps.103:12} He only can remove sin against whom it is committed. He only can cast sin into the depths of the sea, who hath an ocean of grace in himself, in which he swalloweth them up. John Simpson {Perfection of Justification, 1648}

Acts 8:26 But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) 27 So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” 30 Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him…35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him. 36 As they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?” 37 And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” 38 And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him.

From the beginning of this passage until the end we see nothing but the sovereign grace of God (free-grace) working in and through the people. Did the angel of the Lord direct Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch because of a choice of the man’s will or because of sovereign grace? What was there about the man that would have him worthy or what does the text say that the man did to earn the angel of the Lord to send Philip to meet with the man? In other words, there was nothing in the man from the evidence presented that could be thought of a something that preceded the grace of God. Yet, we can also see that nothing was able to prevent the grace of God as well. God had decided to set His grace upon this man and He did so. His grace was free of conditions and it was freely set upon the Ethiopian eunuch. The man was converted by the grace of God and that alone.

What we see from the teaching of Scripture is the work of God and nothing as far as the work of the eunuch. The man did come to Jerusalem to worship, but there is nothing meritorious about that. We see the sovereign Lord directing Philip to a specific location in order to meet this man. When Philip came to the chariot, the man was reading the Bible (Old Testament). Philip preached Christ to the man. He did not preach morality and he did not preach churchianity, but instead he preached Christ. Jesus Christ does not save anyone but by grace alone and this eunuch did not move the Lord Jesus to die for him and purchase salvation for him because he was going to go to Jerusalem, but he went to Jerusalem because Christ was sent to die for the man and. The eunuch did not earn one thing, but instead God worked it in his heart to go because there was a Divine appointment that the man needed to be at. God saved this man to the glory of His grace and He saved this man on behalf of the name of Christ.

God did not save this man because he was baptized, but instead he was told that if he believed in Christ with all of his heart he could be baptized. If the man believed in Christ, then the man was already converted. But again, behold the freeness of the grace of God. It was by His sovereign order that this man was where he was when Philip “found” him and then preached Christ to him. It was by His sovereign hand that this man had been reading Isaiah and so in some way was prepared to hear the Gospel preached to him by Philip. It was by the sovereign and free-grace of God that the man’s heart was opened so that he might hear this Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was only on account of Jesus Christ that this man’s sin could be forgiven.

Here we see an encouragement to speak to others as God may indeed open their hearts. Here we see the glory of free grace in God seeking this man out, not the man coming to God on account of his free-will. God ordained this to happen; the man did not ordain this to happen. God chose to give this man grace; the man did not choose to give himself grace. God forgave this man’s sin on behalf of Christ rather than on behalf of the will of the man. The man who was in charge of the treasure of Ethiopia now became the recipient of the riches of Christ by grace alone.

Nothing in man doth precede or prevent the grace of God. The light and beams of grace do dispel the clouds of our sins. Not for our sakes, but for his Name’s sake he covereth our sins. It is God’s prerogative to free us from sin by grace, and to remove them far from us. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” {Ps.103:12} He only can remove sin against whom it is committed. He only can cast sin into the depths of the sea, who hath an ocean of grace in himself, in which he swalloweth them up. John Simpson {Perfection of Justification, 1648}

Luke 23:32 Two others also, who were criminals, were being led away to be put to death with Him. 33 When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left…38 Now there was also an inscription above Him, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” 39 One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” 40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 “And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” 43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

When examining certain beliefs or practical teachings, it is necessary to look at the theology that drives those beliefs or teachings. If we think in terms of cause and effect, every belief has a basis for it whether the person is conscious of it or not and every practice is the same way. It may be that the underlying cause is just that the person thinks that or that is what a person has come to believe, but that can be shown to the person. But when we begin to ask what the cause of faith in the criminal who was on the cross beside Christ, we have no real explanation other than free-grace. God found that man dead in his sins and trespasses and made Him alive because of His own desire to glorify His grace. God knew that the man was by nature a child of wrath but God made Him alive and a child of His own, a child of God. The man had a dead and unbelieving heart, but God made Him alive and gave him a heart that believed. This faith came from being united to Christ.

Titus 3:5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.

A person dead in sin cannot have faith in Christ while still in that sin because there is not faith apart from being united to Christ and Christ will not be united to a person dead in the filth and stench of sin. We can know, therefore, that a person must be cleansed and washed by the blood of Christ before a person can have faith. In Titus 3:5 above we see that it is in regeneration that a person is washed. This should cause the hearts of all who love Christ to leap and rejoice in His free-grace. There was nothing in them that would move God to save them, but God gave them Christ quite apart from anything they did or could do.

It is in regeneration that a soul has life and so such a soul can be a believing soul and have a true faith that flows from a union with Christ. Until a person is brought from the spiritual death of nature and given new life in Christ, there can be no living faith. Until a person is united to Christ who is life, there will be no true faith and no true life. The thief on the cross, therefore, was made alive in regeneration and his soul was washed and cleansed so that he would have faith. The thief on the cross was illuminated and the content of the words and Person of Christ were illuminated. He did not come up with a true faith in order to be saved, but instead He was regenerated and renewed I order that he might have true faith.

Can the will be free from its deadness without being made alive by free-grace? Can the will be free from its utter bondage to sin without being cleansed by Christ and in regeneration? The answers to these questions are all rather obvious when you look at it like that. What can be the cause of union with Christ and regeneration? It can only be God who does this and He can only be moved to do this by free-grace. As we look to the theology that must be true for a person to have true faith, we can only look to God and free-grace to give us those. As we look to a solid foundation on which our faith must rest, our faith either rests upon our free-will (so-called) or our faith rests upon the free-grace of our sovereign and omnipotent God. Only a faith that rests upon Him has a solid foundation.

Nothing in man doth precede or prevent the grace of God. The light and beams of grace do dispel the clouds of our sins. Not for our sakes, but for his Name’s sake he covereth our sins. It is God’s prerogative to free us from sin by grace, and to remove them far from us. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” {Ps.103:12} He only can remove sin against whom it is committed. He only can cast sin into the depths of the sea, who hath an ocean of grace in himself, in which he swalloweth them up. John Simpson {Perfection of Justification, 1648}

Luke 23:32 Two others also, who were criminals, were being led away to be put to death with Him. 33 When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left…38 Now there was also an inscription above Him, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” 39 One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” 40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 “And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” 43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

If we take a careful look at the text just above, it should strike us that the thief on the cross who was saved was saved by a free-grace that was totally apart from anything he did to move God to show him that grace. The argument that he could have just made an exercise of his free-will and made an act of faith is simply absurd in light of who this criminal was and in light of the biblical teaching on this subject. When Peter confessed Christ he was told by Christ that flesh and blood had not revealed that to him but the Father who was in heaven did this. That was why he was blessed. We simply cannot believe that the thief on the cross was blessed because he came up with the idea that Jesus was the Messiah and trusted in Him of himself.

Can the human soul make any decision for anything but out of self-love and enmity for God before it is regenerated? Any religious decision that the thief would have made before conversion would have been based on the same sinful self-love and self-centeredness that he based every decision on his whole life. This is to say that he could not have made any spiritual act toward Christ and so that act could not have moved God to save him. Not only that, but no spiritual act can move God to save a sinner either. Any spiritual act that a sinner (saved or unsaved) makes comes from God in the first place. The only thing that could have saved this thief on the cross was free-grace and nothing but free-grace.

Can the human soul have love for God before it has a regenerate heart and the Holy Spirit in it? What, then, could this soul do to move God to save it? But again, and knowingly repetitive, what decision or choice can a soul make before regeneration and apart from the fruit of the Holy Spirit that would move God to save it? The soul has nothing but enmity toward God and no love at all. How would that thief on the cross and that soul which hated God without the smallest bit of love be able to move God to save it? Can anything but free-grace save such a wretch or any wretch from the human race? Of course not, there is utterly no way. The salvation of any soul is by the free and sovereign grace of God. Why do men want to wrench some of the credit away from God? It is because they want to control their own salvation and trust in their own work of faith.

Could the will be free from its utter bondage to sin without being cleansed by Christ and in regeneration? But the will is not free and instead it is in utter bondage to sin, self, and the devil. The soul must be delivered from the bondage of sin, self, and the devil before it could even possibly be thought to be free, though of course the will is never free from its mind, nature, and affections. It is the soul as a whole that must be made free before any soul would love God. There must be a new nature before there can be a new love. The love for self and sin as a reigning principle must be taken away and the love of God must dwell in the soul. This is to say, once again, there is nothing that can precede and there is nothing or prevent the grace of God. The true and living God cannot be moved apart from Himself to save sinners. God saves sinners to the glory of His name and based on the work of Christ that He was sent to do and carried out for the glory of God. Sinners must die to self and look to Christ alone. This dying to self and looking to Christ alone is something that only free-grace can do. The thief couldn’t do it.

Nothing in man doth precede or prevent the grace of God. The light and beams of grace do dispel the clouds of our sins. Not for our sakes, but for his Name’s sake he covereth our sins. It is God’s prerogative to free us from sin by grace, and to remove them far from us. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” {Ps.103:12} He only can remove sin against whom it is committed. He only can cast sin into the depths of the sea, who hath an ocean of grace in himself, in which he swalloweth them up. John Simpson {Perfection of Justification, 1648}

Luke 23:32 Two others also, who were criminals, were being led away to be put to death with Him. 33 When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left…38 Now there was also an inscription above Him, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” 39 One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” 40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 “And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” 43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

In the last posting (Free Grace 34) I tried to point out that there is nothing but free-grace that could save this man as there was utterly nothing else that could be argued as to why this man was converted. But of course there is one thing that can be argued, though I don’t think that it is a real argument at all. Some would argue that the man simply made a choice of his own free-will and so God saved the man because he had faith. Perhaps one could even say that the vast majority of people who say they believe the Bible and the Gospel in our day would make that argument. I can only say that it is a terrible argument to make as it makes faith out to be a work and so the criminal is then said to have saved himself by one work, or at least contributed to his own salvation by that one work.

We can respond by simply asking those people where that faith came from (God’s gift or man’s work) and what is the biblical teaching on what is the purpose of faith. While this has been dealt with previously, it is good to look at it from a real life example and especially a biblical example. What would move God to save this man because the man came up with faith? What is it about faith that would make it of such a quality thing that it would move God to save the sinner who comes up with it? God demands perfection in salvation and as such there is no righteousness acceptable to Him but that of Christ. So can a man come up with a perfect faith and as a result of that one perfect act of faith God is moved to save the man? How can this be?

We must look at this and think through this issue. If there is a faith that can come from a human being that can come from the human being apart from grace, which clearly a will that is free is free of grace, then that human being is not saved by Christ alone and is not saved by grace alone. If a human being is partially saved or can do something to move God to save him that another does not do, then the doctrine of election is overthrown and man is sovereign. Of course the very concept of a will that is free also implies that the will is free of sin or free of depravity at that point to. If the will is not totally free of depravity at the point of faith, then how can the act of faith move God to save the sinner? If the will is free, then it is not only free of depravity and of grace but also of the regenerating power of God.

We must fight to our dying breaths the notion that sinners are saved in some way other than sheer and perfect free-grace. Sinners are saved and sanctified based on the glory of God in Christ and that alone. There are no other reasons than God for why sinners are saved and sanctified. If we are not saved and sanctified by free-grace, then we are saved and sanctified by grace plus something we do. As we look at the thief on the cross who was crucified for his crimes and yet saved by free-grace alone, we must know that this is the pattern and the only way anyone can be saved and sanctified. We will always look to Christ alone and grace alone or we will look to self in some way to move God on our behalf. God can only be moved by His own name and glory and the name of Christ. If He is moved by another, then He is no longer holy. We give up free-grace at a terrible price.

Nothing in man doth precede or prevent the grace of God. The light and beams of grace do dispel the clouds of our sins. Not for our sakes, but for his Name’s sake he covereth our sins. It is God’s prerogative to free us from sin by grace, and to remove them far from us. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” {Ps.103:12} He only can remove sin against whom it is committed. He only can cast sin into the depths of the sea, who hath an ocean of grace in himself, in which he swalloweth them up. John Simpson {Perfection of Justification, 1648}

Luke 23:32 Two others also, who were criminals, were being led away to be put to death with Him. 33 When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left…38 Now there was also an inscription above Him, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” 39 One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” 40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 “And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” 43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

In considering the conversion and death of the criminal who was crucified with Jesus, we again look for what would have moved God to save the criminal. Matthew 27:44 says that both robbers were insulting Him. What we have, then, is a man who was a criminal and is said to have been a robber. We don’t know if he assaulted his victims or even killed some, but he was a criminal and a robber. While this man was on the cross he was insulting Jesus and mocking Him. This man was born dead in sins and trespasses and it would appear that he had been given over to sin during his life and appeared to be a fairly hardened sinner.

There can be no doubt at all in this case that there was nothing in this man and there was nothing that this man did to move God to save him. This man was a sinner by nature and a sinner by practice. He was not even an outwardly good man. Even after he was nailed to a cross himself he mocked and insulted the Lord Jesus. Was there anything at all that could have moved God to save him? One could argue that he still had free-will and so he chose to be saved. In light of the teachings of Scripture as a whole, we know that argument is simply impossible. A hardened criminal will not confess his sin unless by grace God opens his eyes to his sin. We know that Peter was told when he confessed Christ that he was blessed because flesh and blood had not shown that to him but the Father who is in heaven had taught him that. The criminal had nothing in him to move God to open his eyes to his sin and then to show him something of the glories of Christ.

How could this hardened criminal know who Jesus was apart from having his eyes opened and being taught this by God? How could this criminal have such a change of heart apart from his heart being changed? How could this criminal who was a hater of Christ and mocked Christ now turn to the Lord Jesus who was also hanging on a cross and ask Him to remember him when He (Jesus) came into His kingdom? The free-grace of God is our only answer to the questions. This criminal stood and stands as an example and wonder of free-grace. There is absolutely nothing good that could be said about this man and there is nothing that could make him more savable than any other, though in the eyes of moralists there may have been some who were worse. Behold the free-grace of God in Christ Jesus that saves sinners despite who they are and what they are and makes them trophies of Divine grace!

We can see how this man was brought to a realization of his own sin and what that sin deserved. We can see how he went from enmity toward Jesus to faith and submission to the Lord Jesus. We can see that he trusted in nothing of himself but simply looked to Christ, but not just looked to any Christ but he was looking to Christ who was on the cross and being crucified before his very eyes. God had to have opened his eyes to see that this Jesus was indeed the King of the Jews. This criminal went from mocking Jesus about that to believing Christ was the true King in an eternal kingdom and that while Christ was being crucified as a criminal. If a person cannot at least see the concept of free-grace in this, that person has a hardened heart. But for the rest, behold the wonder, glory, and beauty of free-grace! Behold the loveliness of a thrice holy God who saves sinners through Christ because of who He is and not for anything found in us sinners. Look to this free-grace alone and ask God to show you the nature of free-grace and the workings of free-grace. This free-grace will work in your heart to show you your sin, subdue your heart to Christ, and then give you a new heart and all of that quite apart from what you deserve. This grace has no cause found in you, but all is found in Him and His love for His own name and glory.