Doctrines of Grace, Judgment, Discernment, Discipline and Forgiveness

   It has been discussed in public forum of late the particular sin of a particular young man. As he is a public figure, his image and reputation have taken a beating. To begin this discussion, I would start by first differentiating The Law from civil ordinance. The Law of God as expressed in the Decalogue and interpreted by Jesus is incontrovertible, absolute, fundamental and at the same time impossible. Civil ordinance is by man for man, judged by man, enforced by man and punished by man. It has a purpose that in many respects parallels the Law, but takes far more specifics into account. Case law is another animal altogether and beyond the scope of this post. To discuss the doctrines of grace, one is entering into discourse concerning The Law of God.

   The doctrines of grace are a set of principles that were a response to a challenge by the followers of Jacob Arminius to the followers of John Calvin by those same followers of Calvin. We use the English acronym TULIP to abbreviate those doctrines, but this often seems to wash the discussion of any serious consideration. The mere mentioning of the word “Calvinist” shuts down the brains of many who would rather lose their eyes than read about anything as heretical as God’s grace. Nonetheless, that is where I will soldier onward with the post.

   In order to understand grace, you have to understand the problem. The problem is the fall, the fall of Adam, and the resultant inherited condemnation of all men under the Law. Many have said that this is not fair, that we should inherit the guilt of our fathers. Yet, examples of this are as plain in human history as our noses, and we still deny this basic tenet. Are monarchies fair? Ask the Romanovs, the children. The punishment for Adam's sin was death. God said that we have inherited this guilt forever (Genesis 3:17-19) for surely there are no true human immortals on this earth. Our faith is based upon a lifting of this curse by some mechanism. So, the first doctrine of grace is that all humans are born into sin without exception.

   Now, it comes to this, some people are saved by God for God. It should come to no one’s surprise that there are people in this world who are damned for all time. Without a doubt, Judas Iscariot falls into this category. In Matthew 27, Judas changes his mind and attempts to return the thirty pieces of silver. In the Greek, the word for changing your mind is different than that for repent. Thus, Judas is said to not have repented and is therefore condemned. If you accept that God, as the potter, has the right to make one vessel for one purpose and another vessel for another purpose, and that there are no conditions made by that vessel that can effect God’s purpose, then you are understanding the concept of God’s sovereignty.

   This next point is tricky, but it follows directly from the above. God has decided to save some of humanity for Himself. Which ones? Only He knows, but there is nothing any of us can do about becoming one of His vessels chosen for salvation. Again, this is a sovereignty issue. The manner of this salvation is of course not disputed: Christ came into the world to save sinners.

  If God has selected you for salvation, it is going to happen. There is nothing that you can do about it. It’s like catching chicken pox. One day, you will find yourself in the right place at the right time, and it just happens. Just like chicken pox, once you have been selected, you cannot be unselected. Why would God undo His own will? So, His grace is sufficient for His people, completely sufficient.

   Some of you are astute readers, and would have recognized these doctrines of grace for what they are without the benefit of their English acronym labels. But this is just pure logic from the pen of the Reformers. The doctrines of grace mean that God ultimately chooses His own people, and we do not hold the answers to who is on the roster. There are many side issues that happen along this discussion that I will not wander upon today, but when a Reformed person talks about grace, that person has a very high view of God’s sovereignty and a very humble view of his own merits.

   Which brings me back to this young public figure and the definitions of judgment and discernment. There is only one Judge, and I am not He. Judgment is coming, and God already knows the verdict. We are all guilty, yes, guilty. See total depravity above concerning the problem of sin. But some of us have an Advocate with the Father, one who has ransomed our salvation with His own blood. We have been reclaimed from the refuse heap, saved from damnation, selected for eternal life. Judgment is not a human thing in this context.

   Discernment is another matter. We are charged to discern between right preaching, right theology and that other gospel that is not really the gospel at all. Not all people are equally equipped in this matter, and many should avoid that playing field entirely. Because the penalty for wrong shepherds are steep indeed according to Paul’s letters to Timothy. With leadership comes great responsibility. Discernment is the realm of wisdom, the application of reason and knowledge to the arena of faith. Discernment is about interpretation and hermeneutics, a fertile ground for disagreement even amongst biblical scholars. Yet, it doesn’t take a PhD to recognize some obvious failings of doctrine.

   In the realm of men, we have civil laws. We have social responsibilities. We have actions and consequences. In civil law, we in the West begin from a very different starting point. Go back to the third paragraph: God starts from the position that all of humanity is damned. Humans in our civil undertakings start from the opposite premise that all of humanity is innocent. If you do not recognize that this is a vastly different playing field, then you will be doomed to misunderstand judgment in the two contexts. Humans judge humans according to civil ordinances and social standards. Actions have consequences in this realm. An infringement of the civil law should have a commensurate judgment and punishment. In this way, men judge men.

   No one is suggesting that our young public figure should escape civil justice, far from it. God instructs us to respect the laws of men for a reason, namely, he fully expects us all to mess it up from time to time. We are all inheritors of the fall, after all. In addition, the world is made up of vessels chosen for salvation and those who were not. Both the Law and civil law applies to all of us, but the civil law is something that we ourselves can police and enforce.

  Let me introduce another word here: discipline. Discipline is not just punishment. Punishment is the result of an adverse judgment. Discipline involves correction. Our responsibility as Christians is to discipline our own. This means that we should come alongside each other and help them to correct their errs and assist in creating patterns of behavior that best resemble those set forth by The Law as explained by Christ. Let me emphasize not the correction, but the coming alongside portion of that definition. Do you think that publically ridiculing this young man has any place in the sort of discipline that I am describing?

  I need to introduce one last term: forgiveness. Recite the Lord’s Prayer right now. Go on, I’ll wait. “…forgive us our sins (trespasses) as we forgive those who sin (trespass) against us." (My apologies to those who use “debtors” in this place.) So, according to the Lord’s Prayer, and many other places besides, we have an obligation to forgive. We have an OBLIGATION to FORGIVE. This is not an option for Christians. Why? Because judgment under the Law of God is not our province. We must forgive, that is our province.

   Finally, coming back again to our young public figure. Let us walk through a full and appropriate response to his actions. First, under civil law, he is innocent until proven guilty. Once adjudged guilty, he will be punished. Second, under social convention, our standards are not as high. He has already been adjudged unworthy of his position as a public figure and accordingly punished. As Christians, our obligation is to forgive him his sin. As Christians in his local Christian community, those involved must also exercise discipline, to come alongside the young man and redirect his actions, showing him the way and assisting him in developing habits worthy of his calling as one of Christ’s own.

   There are certainly nuances and what if games to play, but this should be sufficient discussion of this topic to allow for a more successful discernment of the issues at play in this discussion. 

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The Grace of God

This is such a simple phrase, and yet, it can be spoken in conversation where each person who hears it, understands it to mean something completely different. Using the constructs of the relationship between God, man and sin developed in the last few posts, let us see how Grace would fit into each model.

The first model we labeled Pelagian.  The key identifying feature was the denial of original sin. Since Adam’s sin was not imputed to mankind, man is capable of working his way to salvation. In this model, there is not much need of grace; in fact, I cannot see that there is any need of grace. Grace becomes nothing more than some amorphous idea of blessings. We receive grace when we receive blessings from God.

The next model is at least more interesting. In this semipelagian system, we do start with original sin in principle.  However, after Easter, all the slates of mankind are washed clean.  We are capable of making that first move towards God.  Grace then is everything that God does after we have turned towards Him.  Or maybe Grace is what Jesus did to cleanse the slates of mankind.  Perhaps it is both.  It still depends upon us, though.  All and all, this idea of grace is not all that different from the first one.  God doesn’t really do anything without an invitation.  That’s not very gracious, is it?

As we turn the corner in essentially the same place as the last two posts, we will start to see a more interesting idea of Grace.  Both the Arminians and the Roman Catholics use the term prevenient grace.  Since I am neither, I might not get these two sections right.  Understand their usage to be similar in context, but different in application.  Let’s see what that means.

The Arminian view of the sin problem is that all men are dead in sin from birth.  This is the position of the imputation of original sin to all of mankind.  The Arminian insists that man is not capable of choosing God unless the Holy Spirit gives the gift of prevenient grace to an individual.  This gift of prevenient grace essentially cleanses the free will of man who can now respond to God and cooperate with God’s grace.  There is often some disagreement whether some percentage of cooperation means semipelagian rather than Arminian, but my understanding is that the issue is not quantity but cooperation.  As long as we receive prevenient grace, we are free to cooperate with God for our salvation.

The Roman Catholic view of grace and prevenient grace is significantly more complex.  This is a very elaborate system of quantification and calculation concerning sin and grace.  The best place to start is at the beginning.  Prevenient grace has a similar meaning as in the Arminian system.  Once we have received prevenient grace, we are now ready to cooperate with God.  The Roman Catholics look at sin as having a quantifiable badness, that I’m going to call anti-grace for our purposes.  For each sin, you have to repent and then do penance of a particular value of grace to compensate.  Both sin and grace have quantifiable effects on your righteousness.  It’s sort of like a bank account.  When you are overdrawn at the time you die, you go to purgatory to work out your debt so that you can enter heaven.

Now, with the Roman Catholics, we need to introduce a new concept: the means of grace.  To some, this concept is going to sound off the wall, but it is actually very Biblical.  We receive Grace through specific means as outlined in scripture.  Now, the Roman Catholics extend the means of grace to other means as given through tradition.  Let’s look at specific examples.

The Bible discusses Word and Sacrament.  The Roman Catholics have seven sacraments, all of which have some value in dispensing grace.  Word means prayer in this context.  So, once prevenient grace has started the process, we can receive infusions of packets of grace through any of the sacraments, particular Holy Communion, and by saying prayers.  In the Middle Ages, Rome introduced monetary opportunities as well.  By gifting to a specific papal cause or project, you can receive an indulgence that is a quantifiable packet of grace.  There are also things called plenary indulgences that sort of wipe the slate clean again.  These are given for particularly large services to the church.  Pilgrimages to specific locations are often tied to indulgences as well.  Saying prayers also earns grace.  Say 5 Hail Mary’s and 7 Our Father’s, and that will be penance for that little sin you just confessed.

This was not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of the Roman Catholic system of grace, merely an introduction.  Let’s move on to the last system, one that looks at grace as the gas that makes us go.

The last system in which we have a monergistic salvation, where God does all the work, we need a lot of Grace.  By Grace, we are given the gift of faith.  By Grace, we are now able to do good works that actually glorify God.  By Grace, we are sanctified.  By Grace, we receive absolution for our repented sin.  Everything good we accomplish is by Grace alone, to the Glory of God alone.

So, it’s clear that we need a lot of Grace in this system.  How do we get it, and is it quantified in the same way as in Roman Catholicism?  The means of grace are identified by scripture alone: Word and Sacrament.  In this case, Word means the preached Word as per Paul in Romans 10.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:14; Romans 10:15-17 ESV)

There are only two sacraments in the Protestant world, Baptism and Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper.  Therefore, we receive Grace when we go to church, say the confessional prayer (and mean it), receive absolution, listen to the Word read and then listen to the Word preached (correctly, we hope) and then receive Holy Communion.  That earns us a full recharging of Grace so that we can run around loving our neighbor to the glory of God until the next time we receive Grace through these means.  No, this is not a similar quantified system.  God and His Grace are infinite.  We always get a full tank of Grace through any means of Grace.  The Grace can last as long as it needs to last, but we run better with frequent replenishments.  Weekly or more hearing of the Word read and preached and weekly or more Communion are the optimal situations. 

Now, we have been beating around the bush for a couple of posts.  In the next post, we are going to start looking at some key definitions.  We are going to learn the language of Christianity.

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Hebrews 2

After careful thought, I decided that I needed to go backwards and get us caught up to the present.  Next week, we are entering into a key point of the book, but perhaps without the background necessary to understand the argument.  Hebrews builds an argument in much the same way as the Book of Romans.  Perhaps no two other Books in the whole of the Bible build up momentum and construct an argument with such tightness and clarity as these two.  Therefore, we need to continue from where we left the story.

The first word of chapter 2 is therefore.  Already, we have to start looking back into chapter 1 to see the antecedent of therefore.  Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is the Messiah, and much loftier and greater than the angels.  Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.  As we finish the first paragraph, the question that must be asked is: what is the topic?  The topic is salvation.

Let us pause for a moment and consider salvation.  Remember the audience to whom the writer is speaking: believing and converted Jews.  Throughout the whole of this epistle, it is vital to remember that audience.  Because of that audience, the writer will make some assumptions, assumptions that we should perhaps clarify.  Salvation is not about the here and now, in this present evil age.  Salvation is not about these Last Days, after the revelation of God’s redemptive plan through Jesus Christ and His Incarnation, Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension.  Salvation is about the result of these events upon our verdict on Judgment Day, after the Second Coming of Jesus when He will gather his sheep and separate the wolves.  This whole argument, then, will be about the end game.  This book is about Salvation.  Keep that in mind.  When we come to passages about works, remember that those passages have this vital assumption in mind.  We are talking about Salvation first, and works second.

Look now at verse 5.  What is the meaning of the world to come?  This phrase will filter back into the argument later in the letter, so let us be sure to understand it now.  We are talking about the world after the Second Coming, when the elect are resurrected and living with Christ in His Eternal Kingdom.  The world to come is not this present world in these Last Days in which we currently live.  This is a vital point.  The writer is setting up this contrast intentionally.  This is the contrast that we have discussed in the past concerning the types and shadows of the Old Covenant, Mount Sinai, the original covenant people (the Jews), Israel, Jerusalem, Moses and the Law, with the fulfilled and fully realized counterparts in the Age to come, the world to come, where each becomes their real selves, the New Covenant, Mount Zion, the new covenant people (believers in the promise of salvation through the redeeming work of Christ), the full and complete Israel with its adopted members, the heavenly Jerusalem discussed by John, Jesus and the Gospel.  I have tried to maintain parallel construction of that last sentence so that you may see clearly the types and shadows of the old juxtaposed with the fully realized new.  This is what the writer of Hebrews is doing in this book.  He is setting up this vision of our future.  Why?  We will come to that eventually.

Psalms 8 is directly quoted in the next few lines.  What is meant by the line you made him for a little while lower than the angels?  Again, what was the antecedent argument to our current argument?  Jesus is much in every way superior to the angels.  But now, for a little while, He is lower than the angels.  This is a direct reference to Jesus condescending to become incarnate through Mary as fully human.  The reason for this will be discussed again shortly, but it is important to understand the direction of the argument.  It sounds a bit like the Gospel of John.  In the beginning was the Word, and now He has become incarnate.  Why?  This passage is about Salvation, so there will be a link developed soon in verse 9. 

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  So, the writer is making a direct connection between Grace and death.  Look at that again.  By the Grace of God, He might taste death for everyone.  It cannot fail to be obvious to even the casual reader that has to be some benefit or purpose behind the death of Jesus.  There is Grace involved, and Jesus is dying for everyone.  Why?  Yes, the writer is going to help us out with that.  Remember, this is going to be about Salvation.  What is Salvation?  Salvation is about getting the sheep verdict on Judgment Day instead of the wolf verdict.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.  That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers

Now, if you are like me, this verse was akin to being whacked with a 2 x 4 across the head.  This is the whole point of chapter 2, so let’s break it down.  The first He in this passage is referring to God the Father.  Notice that the writer says for whom and by whom, and yet he does not say through whom.  Through whom is the second person of the Trinity and that is also the second He of this passage.  Who are the many sons to glory?  Look in the mirror.  We are talking about the elect, the believers, the sheep, all those who will be saved on Judgment Day.

I don’t know how to draw any more emphasis to these next two phrases than I have already, but focus now.  I’m going to move the antecedents back into the phrase for clarity.  Watch this.  For it was fitting that God should make Jesus, the founder of their Salvation, perfect through suffering.  Why?  What’s up with that?  Jesus is the founder of our salvation.  Founder means the one who founds or establishes.  So, we have several implications here.  There was no salvation before Jesus.  That’s tricky, but we will deal with the Old Testament patriarchs soon enough.  There is no salvation without Jesus.  This one is not as clearly implied here, but it is the logical flow from the first point.  The founder becomes the foundation, the first born from the dead.  That is the idea that we will be developing later.  Keep hold of that thought.

Now, the second part of that phrase is more difficult.  God makes Jesus perfect through suffering.  This is NOT saying that Jesus was not perfect before.  This is discussing salvation.  Remember the difficult question from earlier.  How does Jesus dying involve Grace?  Purpose.  There must be a purpose.  Jesus is being made a perfect sacrifice.  We have to connect all of the dots.  Remember again that the audience for this letter already know the Old Testament.  They know about the sacrifices and the roles of the priests and the relationship between all these things and the people of Israel.  When we get farther into this epistle, that statement is going to seem odd.  But for now, remember that the types and shadows are known to this audience.  The writer is connecting the dots for them.  So, the issue is that Jesus became incarnate in order to be made a perfect sacrifice.  Now, what’s this about suffering?

As an aside, I don’t want to deal yet with the Trinitarian issues that scream out to us throughout Hebrews.  We have to assume the Trinity and know that we cannot separate the Trinity as we read Hebrews.  The arguments for the Oneness of the Trinity are not contradicted by Hebrews, but that is far too much to tackle while we are developing the Salvation theme. 

Suffering.  The writer continues.  Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.  OK, that makes it clear.  Suffering means to share in flesh and blood.  Another way of saying this is that life, by definition, involves suffering.  Or maybe that Jesus, being God and condescends to incarnation as flesh and blood is suffering relative to His original state.  But finally, the only way to defeat death is to die, and then resurrect his body.  To die from flesh and blood is to suffer the penalty of sin.

Slavery.  We are slaves to sin and death, the fear of death.  When Jesus overcomes death, He frees the believer from the fear of sin and death.  Notice that He doesn’t eliminate our sin or our death.  He frees us from the fear of the Wrath of God, which are the ultimate cause of our fear of sin and death.  Our bodies remain IN Adam.  We will have to die to Adam to be reborn in Christ, unless the Second Coming happens during our lifetime.  While spiritually, those true elect believers in the New Covenant are already dead to sin and reborn in Christ, bodily we must await the Second Coming.

Pushing on to the last passage, who are the offspring of Abraham?  To understand this, we must go back to Genesis 15 and understand two things.  First, based upon what is Abraham deemed righteous.  This is getting back to that question earlier.  If Jesus is the founder of Salvation, how are Old Testament people saved?  The answer is there for us in the Word.  He is deemed righteous based upon His belief in the promise of God.  Abraham knew that Salvation was beyond himself, and that it would require God’s mercy and grace.  Second, the promise of God to Abraham and his offspring gets to the notion of family.  There are natural members of his family, the Jewish branches, and there are the adopted members of his family, those Gentiles grafted into the family.  Sons through adoption are full inheritors of the mercy and grace of God through the Redeeming work of Jesus.  So, don’t forget that we are adopted into this family.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

My goodness, that is a mouthful.  Here, we are introduced to the term high priest.  This will also be developed later in Hebrews.  I keep pointing out that the audience is supposed to already understand the types and shadows.  They know what a high priest does.  The writer is connecting the dots.  Jesus is the New High Priest.  He is the First, Last and Only High Priest.  That is the revelation in redemptive history that has brought us into this period in time, these Last Days, the time between the First and Second Comings of Christ.

I want to focus my last thought for this post on the end of verse 17:   to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  I have spoken in great detail in the past about this word.  In some translations, the word is removed, changed, edited, discarded.  But here it is again.  Hilasterion must be translated in some way, and propitiation offers the most full and complete manner of understanding all that Christ accomplishes for us.  As the Great High Priest, Jesus not only washes away our sin, but He reconciles us to God.  Both parts of this are vitally important.  You cannot be saved if you are still in enmity with God.  There must not only be a cleansing of the sin, but a turning away of the Wrath of God from those elect who are Christ’s own. 

So when we get to the last verse, how does Jesus help those who are being tempted?  Does Jesus prevent us from sinning?  No, we are still born IN Adam, under the curse.  We still will fail in our efforts to keep from sinning.  Jesus helps us by becoming the Great High Priest, our Intercessor, our Only Mediator and Advocate.  When does this happen?  He intervenes for us on the Last Day, Judgment Day.  How is this relevant to us now?  Well, for that, we must wait for later chapters.

Therefore is used frequently in Hebrews.  The writer is building an argument.  We must keep straight the points of the argument as we go, so that we understand the full argument at the end.

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The Glass Orb and Amazing Grace

My friends, it has been a while.  Today will be long, so buckle in.  We shall begin with a parable of sorts.

Once upon a time, there was a man.  He saw that the creation of fire was a key point for survival for his people.  The stone merchant had a monopoly on flint sales while the forager guild had control of kindling.  Anyone could manage to get firewood, but getting them lit was problematic.  This man noticed one day that when light passed though a smooth rounded disc of glass, it focused light and made that spot very hot, eventually igniting anything flammable at the focal point.  He wedged the disc between two branches of a limb, and trimmed the limb to a staff.  He traveled to the village to share his knowledge with the people there.

As flame leapt from the wood under his glass, he looked round at the faces of the people.  Some faces displayed fear, of the fire, of the glass, of him.  Other faces displayed anger, particularly those of the merchants.  Still other faces displayed envy, for the eyes of those faces saw the power that the man possessed.  Of those who envied, there were those who thought the power was from the man.  Others thought that the power was from the glass.  Still others thought that the power was from the staff.  A few looked up and saw that the man was harnessing the power of the sun.  But only one received the knowledge of the man.  That man looked into the eyes of the first man and he knew the secret.

The villagers rose up against the man.  They killed the man, broke his glass, and burned his staff.  The merchants went back to selling.  The villagers went back to buying.  The envious attempted to reconstruct the event.  Some obtained fragments of the glass, but the fragments cast shadows as though they were rocks.  Others determined that the staff was oaken, and made many staves of oak, none of which produced a flame.

The second man went away.  He went to the beach and gathered sand.  He went to the blacksmith and taught him how to heat the glass to make it glow bright orange.  He took a ring of iron and dipped it into the molten glass and pulled up a ball of fire.  Turning the ring as the glass cooled, he made a smooth curved disc of glass, attached to the ring of iron.  The blacksmith welded the ring to a staff of steel for the man.  The man went to the village and changed commerce in that village for rest of time.

Where is the power?  That is the question that is relevant to us now, as it has always been.  Where is the power?  Is the power of God in the priest, deacon, bishop, pastor, parson, or hands of any man?  Is the power in the Holy water of Baptism?  Is the power in the ritual, the liturgy, the prayers, the confessions?  Is the power in our faith?  Is the power in our community?

The power is in the Word.  The Word was made flesh, and His name was Jesus.  We receive the gifts of the Spirit through the Sacraments and through the preaching of His Word.  We listen to His Word and we receive the Sacraments.  Through this, we are given the gift of the power of His Grace. 

Well, then, what does this power do?  Does the power make our lives better?  Perhaps.  Does the power light fires for us?  No, probably not.  Does the power solve our problems and give us health, wealth and happiness?  Do we live into the power?  Does the power change anything around us in this world?

The power is in the Word.  The power is the knowledge of who God is, who Christ is, who the Holy Spirit is.  The power is the knowledge of what Christ did for us, to reconcile us to God, a knowledge we receive through the work of the Holy Spirit.  The power is the knowledge of our doomed existence, and the gift of Salvation and eternal life through Christ and the resurrection of the body and prophesy of the second coming.  The power is in knowing, even before we believe, that the Word is Truth.

Today, we heard about the great deeds of another Saint in our morning homily.  He was a saint like so many of the others who did great things in the name of Jesus and His church.  We say to each other, what marvelous things he did, and wouldn’t it be great if another like him would come along in our day.  We aspire to emulate his works and minister and serve and to be that example to others.

We fail utterly to recognize the power.  The power is not in the works done by the saints.  The power is not in the greatness of the deeds of the saints.  The power is not of the saints.  The saints first believed the Gospel.  The works of the saints are in response to the Gospel.  Others, non-Christians, are capable of good works.  They are capable of strong community.  They are capable of faith, strong faith.  But this is not the distinction of our saints.  Our saints believed the Gospel.  They drew their strength from the Gospel.  Their actions, their works, their deeds are outflows from the Gospel.  The power is in the Word.  The Gospel is not incidental.  The saints did not say, “Of course, the Gospel” and proceed to do good works.  The saints did good works because of the Gospel.  They understood Grace.

Also today, we were reminded of our national legacy of institutionalized slavery.  Our Constitution actually contained language valuing a man as 3/5 of a human being.  The hymn “Amazing Grace” was written by John Newton, a man who was, at a point in time in his life, a slave trader.  Think of the words to that song. 

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

Reportedly, Newton was reading the book of Romans when he finally understood Grace.  While his vocation lent plenty of fuel to the idea of his damnation, how could he suddenly realize that he was found?  What did he suddenly see?  What exactly is this amazing grace?  If a slave trader can be suddenly found and see himself as righteous before God, what was this power contained in that amazing grace?

These are the questions I will explore in the next posts, on Hebrews 4-6.

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