11In
him we have obtained an
inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him
who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12so
that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his
glory. 13In him you also, when you heard the
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in
him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14who
is the guarantee of our inheritance until we
acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:11-14, ESV)
Gospel renewal is a work of the Spirit of God in the lives of his
people. It is all about the Holy
Spirit continually renewing the spiritual remembrance of our salvation.
The temptation from the outset would be for those who have theological training, and/or
have been believers for a long time, to zone out. Understand, we are not merely looking at “the
basics” here. The gospel is way more than “Jesus loves me” and “Jesus paid the
penalty for my sin so I can go to heaven”. Refuse to be satisfied with that! There is so much more!
So, what IS the gospel?
A number of different people have coined
great phrases to help us remember, including:
“The
heart of the Christian faith is Good News (gospel), not good advice,
good technique, or good behavior.” Tullian Tchividjian
Religion: I obey therefore I am accepted.
Gospel: I'm
accepted therefore I obey.
The
gospel is that when we believe in Christ, there is now“no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus” (Rom 8:1).
“…the good news that God has accomplished our
salvation for us through Christ in order to
bring us into a right relationship with him and
eventually to destroy all the results of sin in the
world.”[1]
The
Fall
Because of what happened in Genesis 3—The Fall—Adam and
Eve deciding they wanted to be like God, man was separated from God, man was
placed at odds with God. Try as he
might, man could not regain God’s favor in and of himself.
The
Problem: God’s Standard of Perfection
God set the standard for being accepted by him. God’s standard of righteousness is himself. He set the standard—the Law. That was his demand. Perfection. Jesus said, “be perfect as your Father
in heaven is perfect”. (Matthew
5) Now, it is important to see
that that is not a command—there is no way we could ever match God’s perfection
or even come close! No, Jesus is
saying that it is the Father who will
make us perfect. How does
that happen?
The
Solution
It happens when the righteousness of Christ is imputed or
credited to the one who believes.
Jesus did keep the Law perfectly. He did match the Father’s perfection. And that work by Jesus is credited to
you and to me when we believed. It
was God who not only demanded
righteousness and perfection, but it was God who provided that righteousness and perfection and he does so by
his grace—without any condition, without any “doing” on our part! Get that! That is
the gospel! That is the Good News!
God set the demand, and he provided the solution to the demand for you
and me, the ones who could never meet the demand.
In our text [Ephesians 1:11-14], Paul describes the gospel as the
word of truth. That word of
truth, he said, is the good news, the amazing news, of our salvation. It is the good news that we have been
rescued or saved from eternal damnation, it is the good news of what God has
done for us that we could never do for
ourselves. Get that—it is
something that has been done for us, done
on our behalf. The gospel is all
that was demanded by God and all that has been done for us by God that results in the inheritance that
has been promised to those who believe.
That inheritance is eternal life.
Notice what Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, and to us—the
gospel is what God has accomplished in Christ. Period.
*The inheritance we obtained—eternal life—is “in
him”
* It was his purpose—not ours—that caused
us to be predestined
* He works out all things according to the
purpose of his will
* Faith and belief are in Christ
* That belief is something that took place at a
particular point in time—the moment of our salvation—a single, successful,
effective occurrence
* As a result of belief, the Holy Spirit seals us—he
is the guarantee of our inheritance
At the risk of repetition, I say again, God
established the demand of perfect obedience, that is, he established the
requirement that had to be met to be accepted by him—keeping the Law—AND he
provided the means to satisfy that demand, the work of Jesus Christ during his
life, and the work of Jesus on the cross.
By that work, Jesus perfectly kept God’s Law during his life, and on the
cross, he paid the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf—both of which were in our
stead.
God’s
Wrath
In considering the gospel, we need to see that because we
are not able to keep the Law perfectly, we are cursed by it, yes, cursed by the
Law. Because of our failure to
keep it, we deserve nothing more than eternal condemnation, eternal separation
from God. We deserve the full
brunt of his wrath—his anger over sin, his judgment of sin, his eternal punishment
for sin.
At the same time, it is important to see that the curse of
the law we were under Jesus took upon himself in order to ransom us for and to
God. He drained the cup of God’s
wrath (think: Gethsemane) for those the Father would give to him and he drained
that cup completely. He bore the
entirety of God’s holy wrath for those who would believe. By draining that cup, Jesus set us free!
Peace
With God v. Peace Of God
Not only that, but because of what Jesus did on our
behalf, we have peace with God.
As a result of our having been saved, we are no longer at odds with
God. We have entered into a
relationship with him and the battle against him is over. Paul talked about this when he wrote to
the church at Rome: Therefore, since we have been
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans
5:1)
On the other hand, because we are in that relationship
with God, we can experience the peace of
God, “which surpasses all understanding” and “will guard your hearts and your
minds in Christ Jesus”. “The peace
of God” describes the inward rest (Spurgeon) we experience
because we have peace with
God. The peace of God is not something we do, nor is it something we can
adequately describe (M.
Henry), but something we experience
as a result of peace with
God, because we are in right relationship with him.
Despite the difficulty in describing the peace of God, Spurgeon took a stab at
it when he preached about it 135 years ago. He said,
It
“…is peace of conscience, actual peace with the Most High through the atoning
Sacrifice. Reconciliation, forgiveness, restoration to favor there must be—and
the soul must be aware of it—there can be no peace of God apart from justification through the blood and
righteousness of Jesus Christ received by faith (he’s talking about peace with God). A man conscious of being guilty can never know the peace of God till he becomes equally
conscious of being forgiven (again, he’s talking about peace with God). When his consciousness of pardon shall become as strong and vivid as
his consciousness of guilt had been, then will he enter into the enjoyment of
the peace of God which passes
all understanding![2]
That is the gospel!
Briefly: What is
grace?
Salvation
So we know that it is by God’s grace alone, through faith
alone in Christ alone that we are saved…but just what is this grace?
God’s
Favor, His Free Gift
It is God’s favor shown to us, it is his free gift to
us—and has nothing to do with us in any way, shape or form. It is God’s love shown toward us (not the other way
around) and not because we have in any way earned it or deserved it. God’s grace makes absolutely no sense
to us. Why?
Our
Default Mode
Because our default way of thinking causes us to believe we
need to earn it, that we have to do something to deserve it, that it
can’t just be because he loves us.
That is how we tend to live—thinking we have to do something to earn
God’s favor or to maintain God’s favor.
Unconditional
God’s grace is unconditional—there is no “if/then” to
it. It has nothing to do with our strengths
or weaknesses. In order to
continue in this grace, there are no demands, requirements, or conditions to
meet. Again, our default mode is
to believe that there has to be a means of balancing the scales in order to
receive and/or continue in this grace.
And that causes problems for some who will make the charge: “Cheap
Grace!” We will briefly discuss
that too.
NEXT: Roadblocks to Gospel Renewal
SDG
[1] Tim Keller, Center Church, 2012, p. 31
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