ECHOES OF THE REFORMATION

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1 I. Salutation and Scripture Reading ECHOES OF THE REFORMATION Part 2: Salvation by Grace Alone Ephesians 2:1-10 Sunday, November 5, 2017 By David A. Ritchie And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:1 10, ESV). Let s pray. Heavenly Father, we worship you and thank you this day for your amazing grace. It was when we were still sinners that you sent Christ Jesus your Son to die for us and, by his blood, reconcile us to yourself. May your Holy Spirit illuminate our hearts to rightly marvel at this truth. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus our Savior. AMEN. I. Introducing Augustine of Hippo and the Doctrine of Amazing Grace There once was a young man who was born in a small, forgotten town. His mother was a devoted Christian, but his dad never took religion too seriously. As he grew up, he went to study in the big city where excelled in both academics and sin. He was so brilliant that he became a college professor who taught philosophy and rhetoric before he was thirty. His scholarship opened doors for him to teach in the greatest schools in the greatest cities of the world. Like many highly educated intellectuals, he viewed Christianity and the Bible as crude and foolish. But his career found him near a local church where a famous preacher taught the Bible. So he decided to attend church once again and see what was so special about the famous preacher. At once the young man was astonished at the messages he heard. The preacher opened up the words of Scripture and explained them in a way that the young professor had never heard before. For the first time, he seemed to understand the intellectual beauty of the Christian faith in a way that made the gospel seem plausible. From the great preacher s sermons, the professor found himself learning Christian theology, church history, and even how the Christian faith compared and contrasted with the teachings of popular philosophy. This fascinated the young man, because he, after all, was a scholar of philosophy and the great ideas of the world. 1

2 In particular, the young man began to be moved by the writings of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. In Paul, the young scholar saw a mind that as bright and brilliant as greatest philosophers. However, he also saw a concept taught by Paul that was nowhere to be found anywhere else in philosophy the concept of amazing grace. When the young man began to read and study the Bible for himself, he began to understand that God himself is the highest good and the most ultimate joy and that only divine grace could enable one to have a right relationship with God. And so it would happen that this young man named Augustine became a Christian. He was baptized by the great preacher Ambrose of Milan at the age of thirty-two. And he went on to become perhaps the most important theologian of Christian history St. Augustine of Hippo (Show Image of Augustine). As it is very recently now the five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, we have been studying the history and key doctrines of the reformation. Now, Augustine of Hippo was not a Protestant Reformer. In fact, he lived about a thousand years before the Reformation ever happened. However, I bring him up because the ideas and writings of Augustine were crucial to the reformation, especially as it is related to the crucial doctrine of Salvation by Grace Alone. After all, the reformers did not view reformation theology was not a novel theology that no one had ever thought before. Rather, the reformers thought of reformation doctrine as a recovery of the central truths of the gospel that had been forgotten and obscured. And the truth of grace is central to Christianity. The gospel itself is described in the New Testament as the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24, ESV). And what is grace? This is worth writing down and remembering: Grace is God s unmerited favor and love. Grace sounds like a good idea. But everything in us tends to go against it. We are gravitationally pulled toward a spirituality wherein we believe we can perform for God and earn his love through our efforts. Augustine, however, believed and taught defended grace as Christianity s greatest idea. Today, I want to spend some time exploring the doctrine of salvation by grace alone. And my hope in doing so is that this truth and the other truths we are examining would not just be about studying a reformation that happened five hundred years ago. But, rather, I pray the Spirit of God would illuminate these truths so profoundly that they cause a reformation in our hearts and lives. II. The Text So without any further ado, I would like to walk through Ephesians 2:1-10, which is one of the most powerful passages on salvation by grace alone in the Bible. We will look at three ideas: 1.) The Necessity of Grace, 2.) The Cause of Grace, and 3.) The Effect of Grace. 1.) The Necessity of Grace. Many modern people would say that human nature is fundamentally good. But the Bible would say that human nature outside of Christ is fundamentally dead: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:1 3, ESV). You were dead ; yes, this means you. This is the true spiritual condition of all humankind. And we must understand the reality of our spiritual condition outside of Christ before we can understand the 2

3 reality of grace. The theological term for this spiritual condition of death is total depravity. Total depravity doesn t mean we are all as bad as we can possibly be. What it does mean is that we are spiritually dead and radically unable to perfectly righteous. Now, our self-centeredness and depravity can adopt both self-destructive forms (addiction) and respectable forms (ruthless ambition in career 0r wanting our kids to succeed at all costs), but its end is bondage and death all the same. Our condition outside of Christ is that we are enslaved to the influence or of the world, the influence of spiritual temptation, and the sinful desires of our heart that lead us all toward rebellion against God. Augustine illustrated this principle with an illustration from his own life. He tells the story of being a little boy who played in the neighborhood with his friends. One day, as they were out and about, they saw a pear tree that belonged to a man in the neighborhood. They climbed up into the tree and picked every single piece of fruit. They took a few bites. They threw some of the pears across the road. But mostly they left the fruit to rot on the ground. Later in life, when Augustine though back upon this memory he realized something dark about this seemingly innocuous act of childhood vandalism. He had not taken the fruit because he was hungry. Nor did he take the fruit because there was something extraordinarily special or attractive about those pears. He took the fruit for no other reason than it was the wrong thing to do. It was the sinfulness of sin that drew him to this act. And as such, Augustine interpreted this moment in his life as a time in which he too participated in the original sin of Adam and Eve, who ate the forbidden fruit in the garden. It is a sin, if we are honest with ourselves, which we have all participated in as well. This natural and unavoidable inclination toward a rejection of God s lordship is total depravity. This doctrine of total depravity is more than relevant in today s world. Modern, secular people can t make sense of the recent Vegas shooting. We want there to be an exclusively external cause: poverty, lack of education, political or religious ideology. But the truth is darker. Our nature is spiritually dead. We are broken, outside of Christ. This is the part of the doctrine of grace we don t like to think about. We don t think we re that bad. 1 We would like to imagine we could be good enough to do something for God. During Augustine s lifetime, there was a British monk named Pelagius who taught man is basically good that Christ saves us by simply being a good example for us to follow. To teach salvation was a type of miracle was ridiculous and irresponsible, though Pelagius. God helps those who help themselves. Pelagius was popular in his day. It is my conviction that Americans in general and West Texas, in particular, are by nature Pelagians. We think salvation is when we pull ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps. Against Pelagius, Augustine we are dead outside of Christ, but by the extravagant grace of God, the redeeming work of Jesus Christ makes us new. Augustine taught salvation is not a work of man, but a work of God. He once wrote, the only thing of our very own which we contribute to our own salvation is the sin from which we need to be redeemed. 2 But the purpose of acknowledging this dire state is not to rub our noses in our failure in order to shame us. Rather Scripture calls us to understand the gravity of our need so that we would be astonished by God s mercy. As one commentator says, The past is recalled not because the emphasis 1 Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), Augustine of Hippo paraphrased in Henry Chadwick, Augustine of Hippo: A Life. (New York: Oxford Press, 2009),

4 falls upon it, but in order to draw attention to God s mighty action in Christ. 3 Paul wants us to know, and Augustine wants us to know this truth: We are not bad people in need of resuscitation; outside of Christ, we are dead people in need of resurrection. Only when we understand the reality of our spiritual condition can we then rightly understand marvel that is salvation by grace alone. 2.) The Cause of Grace. After the bad news of Ephesians 2:1-3, Ephesians 2:4 contains the best news in the world: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4 7, ESV). Those who were once dead now made alive together with Christ. Those who bound by sin have now been raised up and seated in the heavenly places with Christ. Those who were once objects of wrath are now objects of God s kindness and love. Nothing could be greater than the contrast than what man is by nature, and what man can become by grace. 4 What on earth could cause this change? Do the causes of grace lie within man or within God? The Bible s answer is clear. Nothing causes grace except for the sheer goodness of God s character: the origins of God s saving initiative are to be found in his mercy (v.4), his great love (v.4), his rich grace (vv. 5, 7, and 8), and his kindness to us in Christ Jesus (v.7). The whole paragraph emphasizes that he acted on our behalf simply because of his own gracious and merciful character. 5 This is one of the most humbling truths of the gospel. It wasn t in your best moment that God loved you. It wasn t in your best moment that Christ died for you it was in your worst moment. God saved you when you were his enemy (cf. Rom. 5:8,10). We are like the prodigal son who asked for his inheritance and left his father to live a life of decadence and waste (Lk. 15). Only when he ran out of money and was eating pig slop did he come to his senses and desire to return home. He knew that he didn t deserve to live like a son anymore, but he hoped he would at least get to live like a servant. But when the prodigal was near his home, the father saw him from a far distance. Rather than cursing him or demanding penance, the father ran to the son, embraced him, placed his cloak around him, and threw a feast. This, Jesus says, is grace. This is the type of love your Father God has for you as his child. If you are far away from him today, there is nowhere so far that his grace does not reach. 3.) The Effect of Grace. Grace originates from God and is accomplished by God through and through. We can take credit for none of it: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8 9, ESV). 3 Peter Thomas O Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999), John R. W. Stott, God s New Society: The Message of Ephesians, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), O Brien,

5 However, grace does not suggest that good works don t matter. Grace is designed to transform us unto a new way of life: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10, ESV). Another way of saying this is that we are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. See the difference? Our good works are not the cause of grace, but they are a necessary effect of grace. If we try to earn salvation by good works we will always fail. But if we understand that Christ saved us when we could never save ourselves, good works become a way we worship God. As Klyne Snodgrass wrote on this passage: Surely proper application of this text starts with speechlessness, then moves to wonder and worship, and finally to obedience and service. 6 Amazing grace is meant to astonish us. When we understand the extravagance of God s love over against the filth of our sin, it should fill our hearts with a desire holy desire for God that overshadows our desire for sin. Augustine famously taught that sin was nothing more than disordered loves within our heart, and from disordered desires flow disordered lives. But when God makes us alive again, he does not simply make us slightly better people. He makes us new people with new hearts that desire what is true and good and beautiful. God doesn t seek to destroy or deny our desires. He rightly orders the loves of our hearts so that we may find our truest rest and joy in God alone. As Augustine wrote on the first page of his book Confessions: Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rests in Thee. 7 Grace is free, but not cheap. It was purchased at great cost. Our salvation was purchased with the most precious currency in the cosmos the very blood of the Son of God. Our sin was so great that it merited the death of Jesus. But God s love was so great that he willingly paid that price for us. May we never cease to be amazed by this grace. AMEN. Questions for Community Group Discussion 1.) Many modern people would say that human nature is basically good. The Bible, however, would suggest that, outside of Christ, human nature is basically dead (Eph. 2:1). Why is it so important to understand the reality of our spiritual condition outside of Christ in order for us to understand the reality of grace? 2.) According to Ephesians 2:4-7, what motivates and causes salvation? Do the causes of salvation lie inside of God or inside of man? 3.) Ephesians 2:8-10 teaches that we are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works? What does that distinction mean and why is it so important? 6 Snodgrass, Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. E. B. Pusey (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996). 5