Underground Exiles

This post is really a final thought about, and extension of, my sermon series on the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. As I tried to articulate to the college crowd at H²0 over the last 6 weeks, the Law is what God demands; the Gospel is what God provides. Articulating this distinction is essential to understanding and living life in Christ.

The more I’ve mulled over the topic in my head, even after the series has been completed, the more I realize that I could have preached in that series for the rest of 2008 and not come close to exhausting all that the Bible has to say on this particular topic.

For the most part, I use the word gospel nearly interchangeably with the word grace. I do this because Paul repeatedly speaks of the gospel of God’s grace, with grace being the focal point of the gospel. When the Law demands, the Gospel provides, and what is provided by the gospel is grace! Grace which is unmerited and totally free, and grace and freedom is at the absolute heart of who God is.

We have to understand first that free doesn’t always equate unconditional. Many of God’s acts of grace are conditional. As and example of this, when Paul says,

“Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.”¹

he means that there is a grace that comes to those who love Jesus, but doesn’t come to those who don’t. This grace is conditional. And when James says,

“But [God] gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’”²

he means that there is grace that comes to the humble, that doesn’t come to the proud.

But don’t confuse conditional with earned. Earned grace is an oxymoron. The very meaning of grace is that the one receiving the grace does not deserve it, has not earned it. It is possible, however, to meet a condition for receiving grace and yet not earn the grace. The question I’m sure that’s racing around is your head is how?

The answer that needs to be stated over and over again is that when God’s grace is promised based on a condition, that condition is also a work of God’s grace. This guarantees the absolute freeness of grace. A good biblical example of this would be that repentance is the condition we must meet in order to receive the grace of forgiveness.

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out,”³

But repentance itself is a gift of God’s grace.

“Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life,”⁴

“God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,”⁵

John Calvin quotes the Early Church Father Augustine of Hippo in this regard:

“Man’s good will precedes many of God’s gifts, but not all. The very will that precedes is itself among these gifts.”⁶

God’s freedom is not reduced when He makes some of His graces depend on conditions He Himself freely supplies. Grace responding to grace is still grace…

1. Ephesians 6.24, ESV [↩]
2. James 4.6, ESV [↩]
3. Acts 3.19, ESV [↩]
4. Acts 11.18, ESV. Emphasis is mine; see also Acts 5.31 where God gives repentance to Israel. [↩]
5. 2 Timothy 2.25 [↩]
6. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), p. 306 [↩]