Saved Through Grace
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10).
“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phi. 2:12,13).
THERE are apparent - not real, only apparent - contradictions in the Book of God, just as there are apparent contradictions in the book of Nature, which is also the book of God--apparent contradictions in the Bible, the Book of God, as there are in Nature, another Book of God.
There are not, however, as glaring apparent inconsistencies, discrepancies, contradictions, in God's Book that we call the Bible as in God's Book we call Nature. There is no such glaring seeming contradiction in the Bible as we see in nature when winter, having related its icy grasp upon our land, when the buds are swelling, the flowers bursting forth in beauty, the leaves fluttering in the breezes of spring, turns back, like a wounded bear growling harshly, and breathes the breath of death upon all nature, so that the buds and flowers, the prospective fruit and the little tender twigs and branches are covered with frost, and it seems that vegetation is dead.
But man does not deny the existence of God and refuse to accommodate himself to the circumstance~ confronting him, decline to plant or cultivate or look for a crop, because of this apparent contradiction or inconsistency in nature. But if a man is disposed to reject God, reject Christ, the Holy Spirit, the apostles, prophets and inspired evangelists - -in other words, reject the Bible, wishing to live the life condemned by the Bible--it is an easy matter for him to find something in the Book of God that he can construe into a contradiction and furnish a pretext for refusing to be a child of the living God, a pretext for refusing to become a Christian and live the Christian life.
We have one of these apparent contradictions suggested in the two passages of scripture quoted at the beginning of this lesson--an apparent contradiction between the doctrine of justification or salvation by works, and justification or salvation by grace. The apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesian Christians, wrote: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them;" and the very same writer, writing to the same class of people--Christians-- guided by the same Spirit--the Spirit of the living God--on the same subject--the subject of salvation--wrote to the Philippian brethren: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
There is, however, no contradiction here. The apostle Paul was evidently considering the subject from two distinct points of view. When writing to the Ephesian brethren, he was considering it from the divine point of view, considering the procuring of salvation by the grace of God, through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. This precludes the barest possibility of the works of man in any sense, hence precludes the possibility of man's boasting of having in that sense procured his own salvation. But, when writing to the Philippian brethren, he has under consideration the accepting of salvation in God's appointed way, involving the absolute necessity of obedience on the part of man.
The human race was in a lost and ruined condition. Generations were being born ant buried in the dim twilight of the Old Testament revelation, before the brighter light of the New Testament had been given, before the world had seen the light of the two harmoniously blended by divine grace. A sacrifice was needed - was just and merited, to meet the demands of outraged law, but man could not furnish that sacrifice. A man might have been offered for his brother man, but that sacrifice would not suffice, being human, not divine. All the men of one generation, one man excepted, might have been offered for the salvation of that one, but the sacrifice had not been sufficient, being a human sacrifice only. If all the angels in space had been immolated upon some broad altar in the highest heights of creation, and the worlds had been drenched in gore and left to drip with the blood of the angelic sacrifice, that had not been sufficient, since it had been an angelic, and not a divine, sacrifice.
In the fullness of time, Jesus, the Eternal Word, divine as God himself, who had dwelt with Jehovah from all eternity, seeing our hapless, hopeless, helpless condition, flew to our relief. He came to this world, became the Babe of Bethlehem, the Man of sorrows, and suffered and died upon Calvary's cruel cross, to bring salvation to the sons and daughters of men. It was from this point of view the apostle Paul was considering salvation when he wrote: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
But notwithstanding this system of salvation had been procured by grace and offered to a lost and ruined world without money and without price, man must accept it, showing his appreciation of it by his appropriation of it, to enjoy the blessings purchased by the blood of Christ through divine grace; and it was to this Paul had reference when he wrote: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
Now, if man could have devised a plan of salvation, and after studying it, had devised a complete and perfect system to save men, then the salvation of men saved by and through that system had not been by divine grace, but, if by grace at all, by human grace; and if any man, following that system and living according to it, had been saved, he had been saved, not by grace divine, but by human grace. Just so, if we accept any human system of religion invented by man, as a substitute for the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and are saved, we are saved, not by divine grace, but, if by grace at all, by human grace. In that case we are saved by works, by human works, from beginning to end, leaving God, Christ and the Holy Spirit entirely out of it. So, if we would be certain to be saved, saved in God's appointed way, saved by grace divine, let us accept God's teaching: hear, believe and obey the gospel, and, having been thus born into God's family, God's church, the church we read about in the Bible, live in harmony with divine directions given to God's children in the New Testament, and when we enter into that rest that remains to the people of God we can give God the glory and attribute our salvation to grace divine.
One of the marvelous things in this age of marvelous things is that any responsible soul has to be told that twice. If we are something in religion that the Bible says not one solitary thing about, how is it possible for it to ever be possible for us to know we are what God wants us to be? Do we know anything about God's will save what we learn from his Book? If we are Campbellites or Mormons or members of any other church not clearly revealed in God's truth, not named and commended by the Lord Jesus, how is it possible for it to ever be possible for us to know we are what, where and as God would have us be? As human works do no-t save, if we would have divine assurance of salvation, we must hear the gospel, believe the gospel, obey the gospel, and, being thus born into God's church, the church we read about in the Bible, the name, the nature, the nativity, the doctrine, the discipline and the destiny of which are all clearly revealed in the lovelight of God's eternal truth, stay there, be Christians, only this and nothing more, till heaven calls us home. We should never go off under the leadership of uninspired men, and be something the Bible says nothing about. If we have intelligence enough to be responsible in the sight of God, we have intelligence enough to understand and never forget that as long as we live. If we turn our backs on the Bible after learning this, and throw our influence to some earthly institution that opposes the church of Christ, and then expect God to save us, it will not be, to say the least of it, because of any promise found in God's book to that effect, for God has not promised salvation to us unless we obey the gospel and serve him. He does not promise salvation to man through works of men, but by grace divine.
In all ages, when God purposed to bless man, he required man to do something to obtain that blessing. It has always been thus. Always, in all his dealings with man, God has demanded obedience from man. Man must do what God says he must do to enjoy the blessing conditioned upon the doing of that thing, whatsoever it may be. To show that this is a universal law, that it has applied to man in all ages, under all dispensations, it is necessary to go back to the beginning.
God planted a garden eastward in Eden and placed Adam and Eve there to enjoy it. He placed over them a restriction. He forbade them to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that grew in the midst of the paradise they enjoyed. He told them the result of disobedience of that restriction that dying they should die. Death should be the result, because to break that commandment was to introduce spiritual anarchy into the universe, and anarchy has always been a curse wheresoever it has had an influence. It is necessary to obey law to be a blessing to self or to our human associates. Hence the man who wilfully violates law, or despises law, is to that extent a curse to himself and a curse to the community in which he lives, setting an example which, should it become universal, would wreck the peace of the world.
As long as Adam and Eve were obedient to God's requirements, they were, so far as we have right to believe, happy; but Satan influenced them to disobey, and an influence that leads men to disobey, whether it be the law of the land or the law of God, is the influence of Satan and is always against God and the human race. But Satan influenced Adam and Eve to disobey, and they fell, were banished from Eden, and, under the pressure of the edict "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," were wanderers on the earth till at last the earth furnished their bodies a resting place and their spirits went into the boundless beyond.
Sixteen hundred years after the drama of creation, the deluge enveloped the earth in an ocean without a shore, but one family was saved--Noah and his family. God tells us that "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God." But God made certain requirements of Noah and his family. He required Noah to build an ark, giving him the plans and specifications for it. Noah had to do that, or he and his family would have been swept from the face of the earth as others were. They rendered the obedience required, the general destruction came, but, borne upon the bosom of the waters to the place where the ark finally rested, they were saved by obedience,~ but saved also by divine grace. It was divine grace and power, exercised through works, that preserved the ark and saved them from destruction.
Coming down this side of the flood we find Abraham a conspicuous character, the "Father of the faithful and the friend of God." God required obedience of him. It matters not how sublime his faith was, it was not accepted 80 as to justify him until it was made a living faith by obedience. Hence James says: "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect~ And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God." (James 2: 21-23.) The sublime faith of Abraham was not imputed unto him for righteousness until he made it a living faith by offering up his son of promise on the altar, being willing to burn him to ashes because he believed God demanded it. The apostle Paul, writing of this, says: "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should afterward receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." (Heb. 11: 8-10.) And in the same chapter he says: "By faith Abraham, when he was tried? offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure." (Heb. 11: 17-19.) So, then, notwithstanding Abraham was the sublimest of the sublime, he was required to obey God just as other mortals are, God never, so far as the divine record shows, accepting his faith and imputing it to him for righteousness until he had demonstrated his faith by obedience.
Solomon, the wise man, says; "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." (Eccl. 12: 13, 14.) This is the conclusion of the whole matter drawn by the wisest man that ever breathed the breath of life. He wrote it at the end of a long, eventful life, when he was ready to drop his pen, to grasp it never more. Looking back over his life, thinking what he had seen and heard and known, and then, by the eye of faith, looking into the depths of the future, into which no mortal can look save by faith, he gave, in that last message, the substance of his wisdom and experience: "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man; for God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil."
But a wiser than Solomon, because more than man, the Man divine, the Immaculate Son of the living God, who became manifest in the flesh, said:
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 7:21.)
"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life" - save his life by being untrue to the truth - "shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." (Matt. 16: 24-27.)
This advice of our Saviour begins with something to be done by man and ends with his being rewarded according to his works.
Just before his ascension Christ said to his disciples: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 16: 15, 16.) This emanated from the lips of the Saviour just before his ascension, glorification, coronation. This is the commission under which all gospel preachers have preached from the establishment of the church down to the present time, and under which they are to preach till time shall cease to be, and this commission demands that man do something to secure salvation.
"Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say." (Luke 6: 46.) This applies to us to-day, just as it applied to those to whom the Saviour addressed it nearly two thousand years ago, if we are in the same condition they were then. It applies to any of us who claim Christ to be the Christ, who pray in his name as Lord and still refuse to do anything he requires us to do: and in the twelfth chapter and forty-seventh verse of the same book he says: "That servant, which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." This is contrasted in the next verse with one who in ignorance failed to do what his master required, and the Saviour said he should be beaten with only a few stripes.
"Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." (John 5: 28, 29.) That includes all of us who are responsible. All the teeming millions of human beings for all time "shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."
"Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth." (John 9: 31.) "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." (John 13: 17.) "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." (John 14: 21.) "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." (John 15:14.)
We, if we are rational, responsible beings, desire life eternal, and if we are trying to serve the living God, we hope to attain to life eternal. Well, the Saviour says, talking to the Father, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17: 3.) How can we know that we know Him? "Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him." (1 John 2: 3-5.) There is absolutely nothing clearer than that.
"Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." (Acts 10: 34, 35.)
"Who will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. For there is no respect of persons with God." (Rom. 2: 6-11.)
"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." (2 Cor. 5:10.)
"And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." (2 Thess. 1: 7-9.)
"Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." (Heb. 5: 8, 9.)
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1: 22-27.)
But we must become unspotted from the world before we can keep ourselves unspotted from the world. If you have a handkerchief that is soiled, you can never keep it clean till it has been cleansed. To keep ourselves unspotted from the world, we must first become unspotted from the world, and this implies obedience to the gospel.
"Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1: 22, 23.)
"Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James 4: 17.)
We must not only do what God requires alien sinners to do to become Christians, but we must then do what God requires Christians to do to enter into the eternal city of our God. Hence Peter says:
"And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1: 5-11.)
In the last chapter of the last book in the Bible, the Saviour says:
"Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." (Rev. 22: 12-14.)
This is the last chapter in the Bible and there are only twenty one verses in it. Hence the Bible almost closes with this assurance of the necessity of man's doing something to gain the blessings of God, as it almost begins with this assurance and as it speaks from beginning to end.
So, then, we should not condemn our souls by vainly imagining that God will save us by grace, our faith being a dead faith, not having been made alive by works. We must hear the gospel, believe the gospel, obey the gospel and live the Christian life. The Bible teaches, as clearly as it teaches there is a God, that if we hear the gospel, believe the gospel, honestly and sincerely repent of our sins, confess with the mouth that we do believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, be buried with him by baptism into death, and, having been raised up to walk in newness of life, then walk in newness of life: take the cross of Christ and bear it, take the name of Christ and wear it, walk in wisdom's ways, the blood of Christ shall cleanse us from all sin, the Holy Spirit will abide with us, Christ will love us and lead us, God will go with us through the dark valley of the shadow of death, and there, upon the golden happy shore, crown us with glory and honor and immortality, and fill and thrill our souls with bliss unspeakable, while the eternal ages come and go.
- T. B. Larimore