Underground Exiles

Let me start this post by saying that I am categorically not denying that the doctrine of Eternal Security can’t be misused.  I think it can be, and horribly so.  The reason I believe so many people misunderstand and misteach the doctrine of eternal security, is because they screw up on teaching what salvation is and means.  If you get salvation wrong, then you are going to get eternal security wrong by extension.  To illustrate what I mean, look at it like this.  If you pollute a stream at its head, then it’s going to be polluted downstream, too.   If you mess up what salvation is, you are necessarily going to screw up what it means to be eternally secure.  If you want to get salvation right, first and foremost, you have to go to the Bible, which declares that its central message is the good news of salvation from sin and death.

Contrary to popular belief, salvation isn’t a single act, but instead is provided by God for believers in three distinct stages.  As well, there are pre-salvation acts by God that are incredibly important for understanding the salvific process.

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Freedom is at the heart both of God’s grace, and who God is.

When God reveals Himself to Moses, He virtually defines Himself as an absolutely free giver of grace. In Exodus 33.18, Moses says to God,

“Please, show me your glory,”

God’s first reponse to this prayer is to give Moses a verbal revelation that precedes the visual one. In effect, what God says is, Here is my glory: “I will be gracious to whom I would be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”¹

When God says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,” he means: I am free in showing grace. If you were to ask, “Who are those to whom you show grace,” the answer is: “Those on whom I show grace.” In other words, God doesn’t look outside His own will for an impulse to move his grace. Ultimeately grace is not constrained by anything outside of God Himself.

Right at the very heart of God’s self-revelation is the declaration that He is free in the way He dispenses His grace. And this freedom belongs to the very essence of what it means to be God. God is gracious to whom He will be gracious. He is not limited by anyone’s wickedness. He is not ever trapped by His own wrath; His grace may break out anywhere He pleases. And this is a great encouragement to the worst of sinners to turn from futile hopes and trust in God’s grace…

1. Exodus 33.19, ESV, emphasis mine. [↩]

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.

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The more that I look around at the state of the church and the state of my nation, I’m coming to a few realizations that are all inter-related.

The first is that the United States is sliding further and further towards becoming a secular, post-Christian society. This statement, of course, is more true in the Northeast than the South, and is more true in urban, than suburban and rural areas.

Canada, our northern neighbor, gives me a pretty good idea of where the United States will find itself in 3 generations(give or take). In the census in Canada in the year 2000, what I found was that roughly only 8% of the population were evangelical Christians. To put it in plain speech, only 8% of the population believes that the Bible is true, hell is hot, and forever is a long time. In addition, the number of Catholics was down from the previous censuses, and Protestants were down from previous censuses. You can directly attribute much of this to the greater influence of Europe on Canadian society.

Interestingly, however, the number of people with no spiritual preference was up, paganism was up, witchcraft was up, and previously almost dead, the number of people practicing native Canadian Indian spirituality was also up.

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