A few people have contacted me recently and asked if I could share the introduction to my new book ‘God’s Grace Apart From Law’, so I have added the intro below for those interested in reading it. The whole book is a conversational journey through the first 3 chapters of Paul’s epistle to the Romans.
The New Covenant is the awakening of God’s divine way of the Spirit, established at its appointed time through the finished work of his Son. Paul was convinced of this new era of grace, and, in a way that perhaps only Paul could do, he explained how all things found their reality in grace; and how all things are achieved through the power of grace. Grace was not merely a nice word to Paul; it was the very nature of God. It was to Paul, and remains true for every generation, the all encompassing power of the Almighty.
Some, in Paul’s day, thought ‘grace’ was a word thrown around in Christian circles to excuse someone’s failings; Paul understood it as the very essence of the empowered Christian life. The message he shared, when we search for its foundations in Scripture, is evident. However, in Paul’s day it was, and still is to this day, a revolutionary message that many in the church simply couldn’t bring themselves to accept. They preferred to dismiss Paul, and his understanding of the gospel, as one not worthy to be listened to. That is a sad situation indeed, for God called Paul specifically so the church could and would embrace the message he shared. While it was Jesus’ unique ministry to establish the reality of grace for all of us, it was Paul’s unique ministry to explain the reality of grace in words we, as the church, could grasp.
In fact, at least once after his resurrection, Jesus needed to speak directly to one of his early disciples to clarify that, indeed, it was God himself who had appointed Paul as his ‘chosen instrument’ to bring the reality of the gospel message to the world. The Apostle Paul, as the unique instrument chosen by God, was given the revelation of God’s good news directly into his spirit, as Paul himself testifies about in his letter to the Galatians:
I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:11-12
If Paul received this message of good news that he so passionately preached directly from Jesus, then it’s certainly a good idea to take hold of the gospel that Paul preached and embrace it, love it and live in it. This is, in fact, the very reason Paul was given such an amazing revelation of the gospel in the first place; it was for the benefit of the of the body of Christ. In fact, even the Apostle Peter, who walked with Jesus for three years, and was closer to Jesus in his earthly ministry than anyone else, encouraged the Church to listen to Paul’s message.
Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. 2 Peter 3:15-16
The reason Paul preached the gospel so passionately was so Christ’s body, his church, would be find their promised rest in it. According to Paul’s own testimony, towards the end of the book of Acts, it was his divine mandate to preach this wonderful good news:
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace. Acts 20:24
Everything Paul did was, in one way or another, connected to this one goal: to testify to the gospel of God’s grace. We see Paul doing this in all his letters, but nowhere does he lay out the nuts and bolts of gospel of God’s grace as systematically as he does in his letter to the Romans. Why did Paul do such a thing? Was it to prove to the world that he was a wise and learned scholar? I doubt anyone would conclude that. If fact, I don’t think anyone would judge Paul’s motives as self-gratifying. On the contrary, it seems evident that Paul wouldn’t have found any personal satisfaction in being known for his academic credentials. His boast was not in what he knew, but rather, in the profound reality that he was known, and loved, by God. It was this reality that consumed his attention; he found his peace in the grace of our great God. Paul didn’t seek to identify himself as a theologian; rather, he identified himself as a child of God radically set free ‘in Christ’.
Paul doesn’t give us the impression, through his life and letters to the early church, that he was interested in theories of God. To Paul, the gospel wasn’t a theory. He lived his life out of a revelation of Christ. He lived with a foundational belief that the good news of God’s grace was a profound and living reality in his life; a reality so glorious that it made everything else pale by comparison. He didn’t get caught up in side issues. He fought passionately to keep the focus of our faith upon the glorious reality of the person of Jesus and the new creation life that was given through his death and resurrection.
He lived to proclaim the greatness of Christ and the power of his perfect finished work on the cross. He lived to keep the church focused on Jesus, and he knew the only way that would function was when the church was firmly grounded in the good news of God’s grace. This is the same task we endeavor to do today; to keep our hearts focused on Jesus and our spirits founded in his grace. We too can live with the understanding that God’s grace is not a theory or a doctrine; it’s a profound and glorious reality. It’s good to know that our lives are not based on lifeless theological words. They’re based on the living Christ, on his person and on his reality.
Paul’s exemplified how receiving the understanding of God’s way of the Spirit and being able to express it to others has no correlation with one’s intellectual capacity to express theological concepts with large and complicated religious words. Other preachers of Paul’s day purposely slandered him because he refused to speak in academic terminology. Paul didn’t find this an insult, but rather he was pleased that his message could be presented to all people, regardless of their education. Like Paul, we can also be encouraged that we don’t need to get caught up in using big theological words and quoting other academic works. Through the help of the Spirit Paul managed to share the most profound revelation in all of eternity in a way that his listeners, from the farmers to the ruling class, could understand.
Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace. For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. 2 Corinthians 1:12-13
Unfortunately, when a Christian tries to fit Paul’s letters into the theology of a mixed covenant of law and grace then it not only becomes difficult to understand Paul’s letters, it actually becomes impossible. Paul often described how other preachers of his day were determined to make Christians submit also to the Jewish law. These preachers taught the importance of specific Old Covenant laws as a continual requirement for Christian living in order to receive God’s covenant blessings. Although Paul makes reference to this group in many of his letters, he addresses them the most pointedly in his letter to the Galatians. He directly challenged their false gospel. According to gospel of God’s grace, that Jesus gave Paul to preach, a Christian is not under the law, nor is God blessing or cursing a Christian depending upon their obedience to a written code.
These other preachers, alternatively, were preaching a contradictory message. They were actually trying to convince the church it was through following certain Old Covenant laws that they would be blessed and considered obedient in God’s eyes. It is important to point out that these preachers were not simply Jewish teachers who had rejected Jesus and were trying to discredit Christianity or seeking to convert believers to Judaism; on the contrary, they were very much part of the body of Christ, or, at the very least, presented themselves publicly as active Christian teachers. However, they had a determined zeal to keep some of the laws found in the Old Covenant part of the New Covenant. They preached about Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection; but when it came to the important foundation of the gospel being grace alone, apart from law, instead of preaching the truth of the New Covenant of grace apart from law, they went on their way and preached their own distorted message of mixture anyway. Because of this, they ended up actually preaching a different gospel than God ever intended to be preached. This resulted in the churches in Galatia, and elsewhere, believing in a different Jesus. No longer the Jesus who was gave to them because of his love for them, but now the Jesus who was even stricter than Moses, watching and waiting for obedience to Old Covenant laws as his motivation to give his blessings. No longer the Jesus they connected directly with through the Spirit, but now a Jesus who expected them to submit to mediators, these mixed covenant preachers, who enforced an unquestionable ‘spiritual authority’ over the church.
For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. 2 Corinthians 11:4
Paul went to extreme measures to highlight just how significant and devastating this false teaching was, going so far as to say that it was actually disabling the grace empowered life within them.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. Galatians 5:1-4
Although Paul specifically mentions circumcision in his example, the same can be said for any Old Covenant law that a Christian tries to religiously follow today. The bottom line is, if you want to follow one of them, then you must be prepared to follow all of them. Of course this is impossible, but that is the point. We should not be religiously holding onto the observance of any Old Covenant laws, nor should we submit ourselves to those determined to yoke us to them.
What we need to remember is that we, in Christ, are new creations who live out of the very DNA of love. We live not by legalistic rules, but by a Spirit radically alive within us. This means that anything that is of love we will naturally desire to walk in. We don’t kill, because we love. We don’t steal, because we love. It is love, and not laws, that motivates our actions as New Covenant believers. This love can be trusted, for it is founded in the Spirit of the divine God living in us. There is a difference, however, between actions of love, and obligations of law. When we fail to understand the difference we live our lives in guilt, instead of in our true inheritance of grace. God doesn’t desire for you to live a mixed life of guilt and grace. He desires you to be truly free, alive and active in his grace alone.
When a Christian sits under a mixed covenant teaching for long enough, and as Paul says, “puts up with it easily enough,” they can, like the Galatians’ churches, truly start living in confusion and never grasp the reality of their God given right to find their rest in his grace. Instead, they find themselves on a religious performance tread mill and end up spending their time striving to receive from God based by what they do, instead of freely receiving everything from him based on his love.7 The foundational truth of the New Covenant is one of grace.
We don’t receive good things from God based on our works; rather, we receive everything based on the perfect work of Jesus, the creator of the universe, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the one who created all things, and through whom all things hold together; and he is graceful. The eternal purpose of everything in the heart of God is found, and finished, in the life of Jesus, the sacrifice he made on the cross and the result of new life that comes out of that sacrifice. This is our reality. This is the gospel. This is the good news that could only ever be given through a pure act of God’s grace, for how could man ever earn such a blessing? It is for this reason that we don’t try to earn such a wonderful reality; rather, we rejoice in the gift of this precious good news. It is our inheritance in Christ: the good news of God’s grace.
Paul’s letter helped the early church then, and it continues to help the church today, to understand how God’s grace is more than to enough bring about God’s righteousness, obedience, and the Christ empowered life to every believer. Paul’s intention in writing this letter was to encourage the church in this wonderful reality of grace.
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Eric is the hyper volunteer of the church. He’s there to do anything, anytime. If there is something that needs to be done, Control calls Eric. He’s the ‘Mr Clean Up’ of the church. Most of the time that means cleaning the toilets or Pastor Moses’ car, but he’s also there to rescue snipers when their cover gets blown by new targets. He’s smooth – or so he thinks.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2
What does the Bible mean when it encourages us to ‘fix our eyes on Jesus?’ Does it mean we need to stare at a painting of Jesus that is hanging on a wall? Of course not, so what does it mean? Looking to Jesus is not about looking with your natural eyes, but with the eyes of your heart. To fix your eyes on him is to believe the reality of who he is. It is to believe what he has accomplished on your behalf on the cross. It is to see him in your heart as your loving redeemer. It is to communicate with him with complete assurance based on his finished work. The apostle Paul spent his entire life praying for, and encouraging, the early church to see Jesus with the eyes of their hearts.
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe. Ephesians 1:17-19
It is not enough to just see Jesus based on our own opinions and ideas; we need to give our heavenly Father the permission to reveal the glorious truth of his Son to our hearts and minds. We need to believe upon the fullness of Jesus. When Jesus walked the earth, some saw him as a good man, but that was not who he was. Some saw him as a prophet, but that was not who he truly was. Some saw him as a miracle worker, but even that was not who he truly was. Although all of these aspects were part of who he was, they were not who he truly was.
We need to accept that Jesus is not just a good man, he is not just a godly prophet and he is not only a miracle worker. Jesus is the Son of God! The only one who carried our sins and pardoned us freely. He is the one who has established a brand new covenant between God and mankind, not based on our works but on his grace! Until we accept the new covenant of his grace, we can never see the full reality of Jesus.
He is the one who, by his perfect atoning sacrifice, has made us holy and blameless in the eyes of the Father forever. He is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father and now lives to intercede for us. He is the image of the invisible God, the radiance of God’s glory. He is the one who completed the perfect finished work of the cross so that we may now be not only forgiven but also sanctified, justified and glorified! He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He holds the whole universe together!
Jesus is united to his church in Spirit and by his grace we have become his holiness and righteousness. He is the one who is able to make men perfect before God through his perfect atoning sacrifice upon the cross. When we see him for who he truly is, in all his greatness and glory, and believe with our hearts that it is true the result is that our hearts no longer hide from God; rather, our faith freely grants God permission into the deepest parts of our hearts to do amazing things in and through us.
(This blog post is an excerpt from my book “Look! The finished work of Jesus”. You can download a free copy here. or order a copy on Amazon here.)
Control is the mysterious person (or persons, nobody really knows) that is coordinating the high tech, secret church growth mission. Nobody has ever seen Control, but whoever it is, they spend every waking moment making sure everything keeps moving forward according to the master church growth plan. One of controls most trusted agents is ‘Mr Clean Up’ aka. Eric.
Every Christian has an individual testimony, a past that is truly unique. Our lives may indeed be different, but they are all knit together with a common thread. That thread is the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus has opened our eyes to a whole new reality; a heavenly reality. He has showed us a whole new way of understanding God and the relationship we have with him.
In the world today, no-one’s true identity is more hotly debated than that of Jesus Christ’s. When he walked the earth 2,000 years ago the debate began and it has not ceased since, indeed it has only intensified.
The list of opinions on his true identity found throughout the Bible continues to mirror current opinions today. A small sample of some popular opinions includes:
* A mad man
* A good man
* A prophet
* A false prophet
* A miracle worker
* A con man
* A heretic
* A drunk
* A glutton
* A wizard
* A mere man
* A myth that never existed
Why does God allow mankind to believe such wild and totally inaccurate opinions regarding his Son? He does so because God is not a suppressor of opinions; he is a believer in freedom. It is in his nature to allow mankind the freedom to think and act apart from his leading if we so desire. Indeed, God is never going to force anyone to accept the truth regarding the identity and nature of Jesus. However, he does rejoice whenever an individual gives him permission to reveal this truth to them. It’s a revelation that he is pleased to give to anyone who opens their heart to receive it.
God does not create people with a cookie cutter. Like all great artists, he enjoys making each of his creations unique. He has created us all as individuals; indeed, all of us could write our own life story with confidence that it would be unlike anyone else’s. However, within our own unique biography, God still wants us to share one common chapter. It’s the chapter where we give him permission to reveal the true nature and identity of Jesus to our hearts.
Understanding the true identity and nature of Jesus does not take place in a single moment; it is an ongoing journey. God is not satisfied until we are truly free. It is the promise of freedom that Christ desires to fulfil in the life of every believer. That freedom is not only from sin, but also from the weight of religious obligations and expectations. In many cases the greatest challenge a Christian faces is not in letting go of sinful activity; it is in letting go of false religious mindsets.
Our new covenant with God is not based on religious traditions and obligations; it is based on faith in the finished work of Jesus. It is this faith that allows us to accept that we are saved by grace, born-again into grace and forever found in grace. God’s grace is not simply a point of salvation in our past, it is the very place where we now live!
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God
Romans 5:1-2
Religion will always try to sell you the lie that God wants to relate to you based on your ‘works’, but the gospel proclaims the truth that God actually desires to relate with you based on the finished work of his Son.
The life of Jesus completely interrupted mankind’s obsession with religious obligations, rituals and sacrifices. He put an end to the idea that we could reach God by our own efforts and good works. He revealed a better way—his way. It is the new and living way, and it is glorious! Sometimes, even as Christians, we can still cling to our old reigious mindsets that demand that we work for our provision, prove ourselves worthy and earn our place in God’s presence. We may not say these things out loud, but they remain in our sub-conscious and cause our faith journey to be heavy and burdensome. However, God, in his goodness, is always offering to take that burden off of our shoulders and replace it with the truth of our new covenant reality—the way has already been prepared for us.
The reality is that Jesus died not only for the forgiveness of our sins; he also died to establish a brand new covenant in which we could live. In this covenant there is not only forgiveness of sins, but also new life. It is a heavenly agreement, not based on mankind’s faithfulness, but on the perfect faithfulness of Jesus. It is eternally guaranteed, not based on mankind’s offerings, but on the perfect offering of Jesus. It is a personal relationship in which can God reveal himself as he truly is: the God of all grace.
Most of us, as followers of Jesus, understand the theory that we are loved, but it’s often possible to feel a much more tangible sense that we are somehow a disappointment to God or a chronic underachiever in spiritual disciplines. God’s heart is to bring us out of this religious mindset into the glorious freedom of his grace. The truth is we are radically loved.
What is it like for a sinner to stand in the presence of God?
To answer this question, I think it helps us to look at how sinners stood in the presence of Jesus, for he was the full representation of God on earth.
If we could ask the adulteress who was caught in the very act of sin, the prostitutes who were actively ‘working‘, the tax collectors who were knowingly extorting and stealing from their fellow Israelites, and all the other ‘sinners’ who Jesus ate and drank with, I’m sure they would say it was the most liberating feeling in the world.
Religious teachers seem to always preach in a way that evokes sinners to be afraid of God’s presence, as if God is an angry God, and a sinner has no right to stand in the holy God’s presence; but the reality is God’s presence is the place that he longs sinners to be. God is not so ‘holy‘ a sinner can not stand in his presence; God understands the only way a ‘sinner‘ can ever be free is by having the right to stand in his presence!
Jesus is our picture of God. He is the image if the invisible God, the exact representation of his being. Jesus loved. Jesus allowed ‘sinners’ to walk with him and drink with him; he even publicly invited himself over to have dinner with them, to the disgust of the religious leaders.
It’s sad that many preachers and religious teachers, those who want to speak on God’s behalf in this world, so often present God as one who is angry at sinners and judgemental towards them. Jesus however, presented God in a much different light; he presented God as a God of love and grace; a God who above all, loved, and loved passionately. Jesus knew that it was only through a person first encountering the true love of God that they can ever be free from sin. Love is powerful. Love can transform. Love trusts. Love never fails.
God loves.
Joyce is the church sniper. After the Front Door Guy sends the information to Control, Joyce moves in for the capture mission. She has an eagle eye and can spot a new target from across the sanctuary without a second blink. And she’s quick too; a true professional.
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“Love has a heartbeat that can never be permanently stopped. It can be attacked, knocked down and even crucified. At times it can seem like love has failed, but take heart, for Love never fails. God has shown us through the life of Jesus, the image of the invisible God, what happens when love dies – it rises again! Love is the DNA of God. Love is unstoppable. Love is at work. Love will succeed. Love is more than a feeling. Love is God.”
But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 2:13-14
Why is it so important to see the finished work of Jesus? It’s important because when we see all that he has done for us it allows us to truly rest in the radical love of God. It is in this place of resting in his love for us that the Spirit supernaturally shines that revelation into our relationships and into the world around us.
When you rest in the truth of how much Christ loves you, you find yourself starting to love others with the same kind of love. When you understand how much patience Christ has for you, you begin to have the same kind of patience for others. When you understand how much grace God gives to you, you begin to have the same kind of grace for others.
What is the greatest blessing we as Christians can receive? It is the blessing of knowing Christ and being found in him. He is so wonderful, just belonging to him is more than enough to live a peaceful and joyful life. God has so many gifts and so many blessings that he wants to give us as believers in Christ, but as great as they all are, they are incomparable with the blessing of simply knowing Christ Jesus as our Lord.
We can rest in Jesus and have hearts that proclaim: ‘Lord, you are enough for me!’ When God sees this to be the confession of our hearts it makes him smile, and I’m sure he says to us, ‘that really is wonderful, but I’m still going to give you all the rest of my blessings as well!’ The more we look to Jesus and believe in our hearts that he is more than enough for us, the more love increases in our hearts, we receive more peace and we overflow with more joy. When we see Jesus for who he truly is and declare, ‘Lord, my eyes are fixed on you, you are more than enough for me!’ the Spirit gets so excited that he can’t wait to fill us with the fullness of all of the likeness of Christ!
We, the community of God’s people, who believe in the perfect finished work of Christ, are the church. We each individually have the privilege of beholding Jesus and seeing him for who he truly is, the perfect one who through his perfect sacrifice has made us perfect forever in the eyes of God!
Look to him for who he is and by the Spirit of God be transformed. Each new day, as we look to Christ, we will discover more of the treasures, the glory, the power, the beauty and the majesty of Christ. We will also find ourselves coming together with thankful and joyful hearts, knowing the truth of his love for us with an ever increasing understanding.
You are a new creation. You are the holiness and righteousness of God. You are without blemish in God’s eyes. You are his beloved child. You are perfectly united with him. All of this has been accomplished by the grace and power and perfect atoning sacrifice of Christ, to whom you now belong. You are so loved and are now standing in the very place where God’s abundant provision of grace flows in your life. You are ‘in’ the Son of the living God!
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:1-2
Rejoice! You are living in a covenant relationship with the almighty God based on his divine faithfulness, his perfect finished work and his unfailing love! This is the reality of Jesus: He is everything, and you are everything to him. You are his treasured possession. You are his love. The simple gospel truth is actually the most profound truth anyone could ever know. You know it and you believe it. Now enjoy it.
You are radically loved.
