GRACE
Part
3
Last time we explored the relationship between grace and election and found
them to be inextricably linked. You cannot have grace without election, for the
election of God makes possible a relationship with Him that is not based on reciprocity.
In Romans 9-11 we see how grace, election and the
security of Jews and Gentiles are all tied together. God’s grace towards the
Jews, based on His election, is what
gives them the
assurance that His promises, made through the Old Testament prophets, will have
their fulfillment. This same grace, based on election, gives the Gentiles their
security.
This time let’s explore the relationship between grace,
love and faith. To begin, we will look at grace and faith.
GRACE and FAITH
As already seen, grace is God’s commitment to the sinner
without reference to reciprocity. Nothing in the object of God’s grace warrants
such a commitment.
In order for God to be gracious towards the sinner, He
has to have perfect knowledge. This is what the theologian calls omniscience.
It means that we will never surprise God. There will obviously be times when we
will disappoint Him, but we will never surprise Him.
It also means that God never walks by faith, for faith is “commitment
without knowing the outcome.” God, because of His omniscience, never commits
without knowing the outcome. The believer walks by faith as an expression of
dependence upon God. Actually, all people, irrespective of their race, religion
or station in life, must walk by faith. All must commit before knowing, whether
this means hoarding a boat to cross the lake or taking medication prescribed by
a physician.
Because grace requires perfect knowledge, the believer
is never called upon to emulate God’s grace. “Grace,” like so many
words, has more than one meaning. Thus we are to be gracious to one another, as
Paul exhorts in Ephesians 4:29:
Let no
corrupt communication proceed out of
your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister
grace unto the hearers.
This does not mean, however, that we are expected to
practice -the grace of God in our inter-personal relationships. God does not
walk by faith; we do. We do not practice Biblical grace; God
does.
GRACE and LOVE
Biblical grace is different than love. Not only is the
definition different; so also is the fact that I am to emulate God’s love, even
though I am not expected to emulate His grace. As Jesus Himself said in John
13:34:
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have
loved you, that ye also
love one another.
When we confuse love and grace, making the two synonyms,
it is easy to conclude that God does not love all people,
for it is certain that He does not bestow grace upon all people. Again, Jesus
said in John 3:16, that verse so familiar to us all:
For God
so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, hut have
everlasting life.
This “agape”
love that God
has for the world is not the same as His grace. All who are the object of His
grace are saved, and God does not save the world.
Failure to distinguish between love and grace results in
confusion on how to exercise discipline in the church. For example, in I
Corinthians 5 a professing believer was living in incest with his father’s
wife. Paul called for his expulsion from the fellowship. Two reasons were
given:
1. His own
spiritual well being. “To deliver
such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be
saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (I Corinthians 5:5).
2. To maintain purity in the
fellowship. “Purge out therefore
the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ
our passover is sacrificed for us” (I Corinthians5:7)
Thus in verse 11 Paul calls for his excommunication from
the fellowship:
But now I have written unto you not to keep
company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or
an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one do
not eat.
It is apparent from this passage that one who professes
faith in Christ, while at the same time living in unconfessed sin, is not to be
accepted by the believing community unconditionally and without reciprocity.
Such a person may be saved, but he is to be treated as a “heathen man and a
publican” (Matthew 18:17). He is actually to be treated more harshly than
the non-Christian in that as Paul says in I Corinthians 5:11, ‘With such an
one do not eat.”
This does not mean, however, that the believing
community rescinds its love. Quite the contrary. It is out of love that the
unrepentant sinner is disciplined.
Because none of us can see “the end from the beginning and from
ancient times
the things
that are not yet done” (Isaiah 46:10), we cannot commit
ourselves unconditionally to others. For example, there are things that I could
do which would force my wife to leave me. She may still love me, (as a matter
of fact she is commanded to love me), but this is not the same as unconditional
acceptance.
Further evidence of this distinction between love and
grace is seen in Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:44:
But I say unto you,
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which dcspitefully use you, and persecute you.
The word for “love” in this verse is ~ It is Christ-like to love my enemies, whether
they are believers or not. It does not follow, however, that the grace that God
shows to those in Christ is to be shown by the believer towards his enemies.
If this is not clearly understood, the conscientious
Christian will have difficulty determining what disciplining unrepentant sinners in the fellowship is
supposed to look like. I believe this is one of the reasons why there is so
little in the way of discipline, as outlined by I Corinthians 5, in the
church today.
As a hypothetical example, let’s take Joe, who is an
elder in his church. He has an affair with one of the women in the choir. They
decide to divorce their spouses and marry one another. Their friends in the
church plead with them to repent, but they refuse. After the divorce and
remarriage, Joe and his new bride return to the church and expect to be
reinstated. There is no remorse and no repentance.
The church is divided in its opinion regarding what
should be done. Some call for discipline as outlined in Matthew 18 and I
Corinthians 5. But others counter that Joe and his wife are to be
treated as God treats all of us, with grace. Grace, after all, is unconditional
acceptance without reference to performance. Those calling for discipline
appear unloving.
In reality disciplining them is the most loving thing
that can be done for Joe and his accomplice. Only then can they be assured that
their “Souls will be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (I Corinthians 5:5). The failure to
discipline is one of the most unloving things we can do.
If love, grace and unconditional acceptance are blurred
and made to appear as one, then Biblical discipline becomes impossible. When I
view grace and love as synonyms and seek to apply it to all people, I destroy
any form of temporal accountability. The sinner is free to continue in his
unrepentant state, assured that he has complete love and acceptance. This,
clearly, is not the teaching of Scripture.
Discipline is never pleasant. Most of us hate
confrontation. Yet, without it, people are deceived into believing that there
is no accountability for sin, when in reality there is. If they do not learn it
here on earth in the “school of obedience” they will pay a terrible
price when they stand in judgment before God’s tribunal.
Understanding the difference between grace, love and
faith may not guarantee the practice of church discipline, but failure to
understand will most surely confuse the process.
Yours
for a life of obedience,