PART FIVE: THE GRACE OF GOD

We must never forget the context in which the grace of God is given: (1) We as sinners have merited only condemnation, death, and God's wrath and cannot by our good deeds either make up for our sins or meet the demands of the law necessary for justification or acceptance with God. (2) Christ took on human flesh and kept the law on our behalf, presenting his obedience to the Father in our place, so that we who look to Him in faith might have peace with God. "Grace" communicates the idea that salvation or justification is a gift from God in the context where we only have the power to merit God's wrath. That "grace" is unmerited favor speaks not of favor in some generic sense but favor, specifically, of the kind that justifies sinners, imputes righteousness to them so that God's power may be imparted by the Spirit to enable the saints to bring forth the fruit of righteousness.

This distinction between imputed and imparted righteousness is very important. Imputed righteousness stresses that our righteousness is based on something outside of us: what we did not and could not do for ourselves. God in Christ accomplished our righteousness for us. God gives us this righteousness through faith in Christ. Faith is not a work like any other work; it is empty handed. It receives the gift of salvation. The imputed nature of righteousness secures righteousness for Christians eternally because it stands complete and finished forever. By one sacrifice Christ has put away sin forever. There is no more consciousness of sin as separating us from God or condemning us before God. Sin does not have that power for those God has cleansed in Christ.

On the other hand, narrowing our concept of grace to a power that enables Christians from within, does make righteousness something that depends on what Christians do with that power. The finished work of Christ, in this case, is traded for a work for Christians to finish. It amounts to beginning with Christ for our salvation and ending with ourselves to complete that salvation.

The reason this is not good news is that even Christians have to deal with sin. And, too, how does one know when he has done enough by God's enabling power to stay accepted with God or to be accepted with God in the end on the day of judgment? What happens to a Christian's assurance of salvation in that case? How can there be such assurance? If the focus shifts to our doing and away from Christ's finished work, any confidence that one is saved and going to heaven disappears. We must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and His finished work on the cross.