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Grace of God #3

Fred Coulter

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We go on with this tape in the series of Grace.  I would like to review just a little bit and to go over the meanings again.  The Greek word for grace is charis, or charitoos, or charite.  And it has the following meanings:

1)     Graciousness, attractiveness

2)     Thanks or gratitude

3)     Favor, grace, gracious care, or help or good will, the gracious intention of God.

4)     On the part of God the Father and Jesus Christ toward us or to us, the possession of divine grace as a source of blessings for the believer.

5)     A store of grace that is to be dispensed, a state of grace, or that is standing in God’s grace, a deed of grace worked by God in Christ.  A work of grace that grows more to more.

Now in discussing this the last time, it was also brought up that grace is the forgiveness of sin.  Now that is not a quite correct definition of grace.  Your sins are forgiven because of God’s grace.  So the act of forgiveness is the result of grace.  Grace itself does not mean just the forgiveness of sin.  Otherwise when you get to the openings of Paul where he said, “Grace be to you…”, is he saying “Your sins be forgiven to you…”, or is he talking about something of a broader meaning and a broader sense.  So we’ll see that it’s a broader meaning and broader sense.  And 1 Peter 5:10 shows that God is the God of all grace.  Then Jesus Christ is the only means by which the grace of God is mediated to men, through His birth, death, and resurrection and function as our High Priest in heaven.  What God has done and is still doing for man in Jesus Christ, His Son is God’s outstanding act of grace.

Now, this ties in with the scripture in John 14:6 where Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”  Now that narrows it down very, very specifically.  Why is that so?  Why do you think that that is so?  The reason that is so, and the reason that God has it narrowed down into the being of Jesus Christ is because no other being in all of the universe could qualify for that intermediary and for that sin sacrifice.  Only Jesus Christ.  That’s why it is not going to be through Mohammed, or Buddha, or Confucius.  It’s not going to be through any man or any movement.  It’s going to be through Jesus Christ and no other way.  And God is determined that that is the only way that it’s going to be.

Now continuing.  God the Father is the source from which grace comes to man.  Jesus Christ is the God ordained means by which the grace most effectively reaches man in his need.  Now we’re talking about grace before salvation.  Could God be merciful to someone who is not called for salvation?  Sure He could.  Could God answer prayers of people who prayed in sincerity to God?  Yes, He will, especially if they believe that there would be an answer.  And why is it, what would be one of the most important things that a person could do in time of crisis if they have neglected God or they have not really firmly believed in God but they somehow find themselves in a terrible straight and trouble?  What would be the most pleasing thing they could do?  Would it not be to call out to God?  Sure it would.  Do we not know of many cases of people who’ve been in circumstances like that?  And they’re not praying for salvation or eternal life.  They were just trying to live a little longer.  Maybe they’re just trying to prevent some catastrophe from coming on them, and they pray to God in belief and ask God to help them in those circumstances.  Well, God’s graciousness and mercy is so great that even though He is not calling them for salvation He’ll hear their prayer.  And when people get like that what is one of the first things they admit.  “Oh, I’ve been a miserable person.”  Is that not a type of repentance?  Sure it is.

Now it is not a call to salvation necessarily, but that’s why that God, being no respecter of persons, will help people like that.  Now, what they do from then on becomes another situation.  Obviously there comes a time that if, after God has helped them and rescued them and has done certain things for them, they turn their backs on God and just walk out and slam the door and do whatever they want, maybe the next time they get in those circumstances they’re not going to get the help.

Grace is quite the reverse of a reward for good conduct.  This is why it talks about in Galatians, that until Christ came we were kept under law.  And the law was a schoolmaster or tutor to lead us to Christ.  It’s the same thing with our children.  They need the kind of discipline that is by law.  You do this and you’ll get a reward.  You do the other and you’ll get a punishment.  This brings them to a maturity of mind, if it’s consistent through their lifetime, when they get old enough they will be able to make the proper choices.  But without the rudimentary black and white righteousness and sin, good and evil to really formulate what they need, when they get older they will have no discernment between right and wrong if you don’t.  Little children cannot be treated as adults.  You cannot sit down and reason with children as you do with adults.   Their minds have not developed enough. We’re beginning to see some of the results with our older children now, the results of that.  There are times when the best thing to say to children is “No” flat out, “Don’t.  Stop.”  And that is necessary.  You wouldn’t talk to an adult like that.  You would not talk to an adult like that.  You would say, “Would you please…”  Why, because they are old enough, they have comprehension enough.  The whole relationship is different.

So it is, before God calls us, and in the process of calling us too, that we get this concerning the law and the commandments, and those are absolutely necessary, but the whole process is to put them in our minds and in our hearts and our inward parts so that we, as led by the Holy Spirit, can live the right way of life.  Exact same parallel with children.  The reason that we teach children that way when they are small, is so that when they grow up and they leave home they’re going to have some kind of responsibility about themselves knowing  what is right and what is wrong.  So too, it’s to lead us to Christ.  That’s why when we are led to Christ and we come under God’s grace, we do not have the liberty to go and live in sin.  Being under God’s grace and blessing and mercy we have the liberty to have annulled the law of sin and death within us in our standing before God.  As long as we’re in the flesh the law of sin and death is going to be there.  And the true day of redemption, if we will understand it correctly, which I’ll go through and bring in a subsequent study here, when you have repented and been baptized you have been saved from your past sins.   While you’re going God’s way you are being saved.  And when Christ returns you shall be saved from flesh because you’ll be changed to spirit.

The same way concerning the day of redemption.  When you have repented and are baptized you have been redeemed, correct?  While you are following Christ and walking in His way you are continually in a state of being redeemed.  The New Testament refers to the day of redemption, which has to do with the resurrection.  So redemption is not just a one-time act when you are baptized and repented of your sins.  It is the same as salvation.  It is ongoing.  Does not the sacrifice of Christ through the grace of God have to redeem us or buy us back when we sin?  Yes.  So it’s an ongoing efficacious thing that God is doing.

One’s acceptance with God is not something he can achieve by his own merit.  So that is by works.  But is chosen, called, and made accepted, forgiven and blessed with the Holy Spirit of God, made an error of eternal life, made the son of God as a gracious undeserved gift from God the Father through Jesus Christ.  So that really has a lot of meaning and I want to emphasize that again so that we can really bear down on that and it helps an awful lot.

Now I don’t know how you have been since we have started through this mini-series in Grace, but I know that the more I study on it the more it helps me.  And it helps me an awful lot because then I look to God to give me the strength to overcome.  I’m going to do the best I can, but I don’t have to go around and just literally beat my head against a stone wall and to do it by my works.  It must be the working of Christ within me to overcome it.  And when we lay it at that doorstep, and when we bring it to Christ, and when we ask God’s grace to be with us, to be upon us, it is something that happens in that state of grace that we are standing in, and it comes to us.  That’s why when we get into the blessings that are given, Paul opens the epistles and he said, “Blessing from God the Father and grace and peace from our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.”

When you ask for a blessing do you not expect a blessing?  Sure you do.  When you ask for grace, should we not also expect grace?  Yes.  And should we not have that help, which is a gift, it’s an undeserved thing.  We can’t find it within us.  I think this has been the whole problem in overcoming.  We’ve been looking to our resources within us for our own discipline that we work it up that we overcome a problem, and we go to God and say, “God, I’ve overcome this problem”, when it’s the other way around.  We go to God and say, “God, grant me your grace, grant me your help, grant me the strength and lead me out of this overcoming.”

How do you overcome?  Let’s go to 1 John 5:4.  Let’s see how we overcome.  Overcoming is not a work.  Overcoming is not a work that is human originated.  That’s why in overcoming sin we can have God lift from us, and why should we carry it around, we can have God lift from us that frustration and burden and vexation, which you’ve all experienced in trying to overcome something by yourself.  And there have been lust and temptations that you’ve had to fight, and you’ve fought them, and you’ve fought them, and you’ve gritted your teeth and you’ve asked God, “Well, why does this continue?”  Very simple, you haven’t put it under the grace of God and asked for God’s grace through faith to lead you out of it.

I hope that we understand that because I know for myself, I understand it more and I can be more relaxed, and I can be more relaxed around people.  Why?  Because when you have it in God’s grace and you know that God is going to do it then you don’t have to be looking at other people with a view of judging them for something that they are doing, which you may or may not like, or what you may or may not agree with, or what you may or may not think is sin.  Just lifts that whole burden from you.

And this is the atmosphere that has been lived under too long in the Churches of God, that you go into a congregation and once you come past the niceties and the introductions and the friendships and you start getting down into the human nature element of it, what do you find?  You find just exactly what I said.  You find pickiness, the looking, the judging, the criticizing.  Why does that exist?  Because people are not pointed to the grace of God through faith and they too much want to overcome themselves without God.  And when you strive to overcome so much on your own, what do you do?  You transfer that to other people in a sense that you’re going to be critical of them for two reasons.       

1)     Because you’re looking for faults.

2)     So you will feel better and can live with your own problem.

Where as we need to just wipe the slate of all that and overcome with God’s Spirit through grace.

1 John 5, let’s just begin in verse 1.  “Every one who is believing that Jesus is the Christ [and that’s an ongoing sense, as we know] has been begotten from God [or out from God the begettal has come]: and every one that loves Him that begat [that is loves God the Father] loves him also that has been begotten of Him”  (1 John 5:4, paraphrased).  So then how do we then maintain the love?  I think we’ve had some experience of that here.  We maintain the love for each other because we are not doing the things that I just mentioned that causes the problems.  We are not trying to live someone else’s life.  What we’re trying to do is love God and live within His grace and love each other.  And that’s the most encouraging thing that we can do.  That’s why in the time we’ve been here we haven’t had any internal strife.  We haven’t had any of those problems.  And if we continue in God’s grace and in this kind of thing he’s saying we won’t have it.  Not because we’re better, but because Christ is greater than all.

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments.”  So there is commandment keeping right in it.  Has to be.  “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not [burdensome] grievous.  For [all that have been begotten] whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world…”  Notice it says “all”, and we overcome the world.  How do we overcome the world?  “…And this is the victory [which overcame] that overcometh the world, even our faith” (vs. 2-4).  How are we saved?  By grace have you been saved through faith.  And that’s how you overcome.  And that’s why if you really go to God with this attitude in sincerity and repentance and love and understanding, God is going to begin to let this grace come to you in a more abundant way and you are going to see a lot of the problems, and mental things, and temptations begin fall away.  They won’t be rooted in there like the core of a carbuncle.  If you’ve ever seen a carbuncle and the core, it’s about as long as my little finger and goes about that deep and it is so sore, and there’s nothing you can do.

Same way with human nature.  Human nature can not overcome human nature.  It has to be God’s Spirit, and it has to be by faith.  Why not just place it before God, ask for His grace and mercy, and His Spirit to lead you in it and be happy and thankful in the grace of God, and I guarantee you that if you have faith and believe in God, then those things will begin to melt away.  Just like a carbuncle, if you lance it and you get out the core there’s going to be a little scar there.  So the problem or temptation, or thought pattern may come back from time to time, which then you can easily identify it and again go to God and ask for repentance and forgiveness, but it’s not going to be that just hanging in there in every thought and every moment.  It’s going to be like taking that core of that carbuncle out.  And that’s how you can overcome with faith.  And it makes the job a whole lot easier.

For example, if a person has a hard time with swearing and cursing.  Or maybe they used to swear and curse a lot before they were converted, and you can’t isolate yourself from the world.  You cannot go in orbit.  So you go out and work and what happens?  You find yourself around people who swear and curse.  And what’s the next thing that happens?  Mentally you start doing the same thing.  Correct?  You don’t want to but you do.  Now, if you set about to say, “Boy, I’m not going to do that again”, and you force yourself to not do it, I guarantee you’re going to continue doing it.  Why?  Because you haven’t laid it before God to let Him do it for you.

Now if you have not experienced that kind of overcoming through God’s grace then try it.  You’ll like it.  God will like it.  And it makes life a whole lot easier and happy and contented because you can give all the credit to God.  That’s why it says, “By grace are you saved through faith, not of works lest any man should boast.”  And that’s how we are saved.  So that’s very important for us to understand as we continue in this mini-series in Grace.  And I know for sure, after going through this time that I’m going to be giving more sermons based upon that.

More sermons on…have you ever wondered what it means to be spiritually minded, or to be spiritually minded is to be life and peace but to be carnally minded is death?  You can see the difference in overcoming?  A carnal mind cannot overcome a carnal mind.  Therefore any works that we do as a human being cannot be sufficient.  What is our spiritual battle.  We war not against what?  Flesh and blood?  But against principalities and authorities and wicked spirits in high places.  That’s where all the sin comes from.  That’s why when you’re driving down the road and every thing’s nice, Bam, you get an evil thought come through your head.  Where do you think it comes from?  Prince of the power of the air.  You’re not going to overcome that with just your own mental efforts.  You need the power of God, it’s a spiritual battle.  So if we put all these things in that perspective and realize that it is the spiritual power of God, why life is going to be a whole lot better.  Not that we’ll be richer.  Not that we’ll have better things physically and materially, because that’s not what we need.  We may want it but that’s not what we need.  We need to overcome and be led by God’s Spirit.

Now, the grace of God is like an all encompassing umbrella, which includes faith, and salvation, and mercy, and redemption, and justification, repentance, love, the laws, the commandments of God, forgiveness and blessings, etc.  It’s an all-encompassing thing.  Let’s keep that in mind.

Let’s pick up where we left off last time.  What does the Grace of God do for us?  Now I’m going to list nine things that the Grace of God does for us in a fantastic way, and gives us privileges, and blessings.  Now privilege is something that is given.  It is a gift.  You don’t earn a privilege.  You earn a wage.  Privilege is something that is given so it is a gift.

Let’s go to Hebrews 2, and here is the act of grace by God.  And when we know and realize that it was God Himself Who came as a human being for one specific purpose.  Hebrews 2, and it reveals a little bit about the overall plan of God.  Let’s pick it up here in verse 5.  “For not to the angels did He subject the habitable world which is to come [that is the Kingdom of God as it comes on the earth], of which we speak; but one fully testified somewhere saying, What is man, that You art mindful of him, or the son of man, that you visitest him?  You made him a little lower than some of the angels [or, for sometime a little lower that the angels, as it should read], and You did crown him with glory and honour …” (Heb. 2:5-7, Berry’s Greek Interlinear, paraphrased).  Let me tell you, is it not an honor and glory to be made in the image of God, where God said, “Let us make man in our image, male and female.  Let us make him after our likeness.”  And then the whole thing of salvation is that we become like after the God kind.  And God gave us what?  Dominion over the earth.  Dominion over everything that is here.  And it is true, what one thing can we say that man has not been able to have dominion over, except his own sins?  Mankind, sooner or later, because of being made in the similitude of God, given a creative mind, is able to do such fantastic things.  So we have been crowned with honor and glory.

“…And did set him over the works of Your hands; and you did subject all things under his feet” (vs. 7-8, BGI, paraphrased).  Now that is a prophetic as well as current statement.  A lot of the things that God says are current and prophetic.  It is current because everything that is on the earth is under the hand of man, whether for good or whether for evil.  Whether we take care of ourselves.  Whether we destroy the environment.  It’s under our hand.  But also the word panta means “all things including the universe”.  And now man even in his fleshly form is on the brink of getting into the universe.  And if he were not limited by flesh, guess what would happen?  Yes, we would conquer other galaxies and go into the universe this very day.  So it is prophetic that that’s what it will be.

“For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that was unsubject to him.  But now we do not see yet all things subjected to him. But we see Jesus, Who for a little while was made lower than the angels on account of the suffering of the death” (vs. 8-9, BGI, paraphrased).  Now if you have your Greek Interlinear you can take a look at that statement and you will notice that it is not just death.  It is the death.  And when it talks about death in relationship to a Christian and a relationship to salvation it is talking about the death.  Now what is the ultimate death?  The second death in the lake of fire.  And from that there is no resurrection.

Now, since Jesus Christ was God Who took on human form and He was the Son of God, and He’s called in some places in the New Testament the Son of Man and that actually refers back to Daniel 3, and Daniel 7, which is saying God Himself.  God Himself.  We find in Titus 2 and 3 that Jesus Christ is called The Great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.  When He died that was the death.  You can’t have any greater death than the death of God.  That’s greater than just a human death because of the significance of Jesus Christ, which we’ll get into a little more before the Passover. 

So, “…on account of the suffering of the death He is crowned with glory and honor so that by [the] grace of God…” There it is, charity, “…by [the] grace of God…” That is the act of grace in having Christ come and live and die and be resurrected.  “…So that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone” (vs. 9, BGI, paraphrased).  Now notice that the definite article in the Greek “the” is not there.  You go back to the place that we just referred to before and it is called TOU QANATOU, which is “the death”.  You come down here and it says that “for everyone He might taste death”.  So therefore, as it is applied to each of us it is applied to our own death.  Now that is a fantastic thing.

Let’s go back to Romans 5 and go through the book of Romans in a little more detail, and let’s see the sequence of things as they come along.  And I hope that we are all experiencing…  I know I am as I study, and I try and study New Testament Greek every day, and that’s helping me be able to understand more and put it together.  But here in Romans 5 we see the whole sequence of events and how great that it is.  And when we come to take the Passover this year let’s hope that we can have a greater insight into the death of Jesus Christ and what He has done.

Let’s begin in Romans 5:1.  “Having been justified therefore by faith, peace we have toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand…” So we’re standing in this grace.  It is a condition.  It is the very basis of the relationship that we have with God.  It is with grace.  Now it’s very interesting that you get into some of these other scriptures and when it says that we can come before the Father with boldness, that actually means that we have access into the presence of God the Father.  And that can only be done through Christ and through grace because why?  No man can come before God and live.  But we have, spiritually, access to God the Father through this grace in which we are standing.  “…And we boast in the hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:1-2, BGI, paraphrased).  See, not what we can do.  Not in how great we are, but in the hope of the glory of God.

“And not only [so], but also we boast in tribulations…” I’ve often wondered, and through the years I think I’m beginning to understand a little more now how you can be happy in a trial.  I have yet to meet someone who’s in a terrible trial that is happy, saying, “Great, I’ve got another trail.  That’s marvelous.  Hurray, thank you God.”  No, because we’re to pray, “Deliver us from temptation.”  But why can we boast in trials or tribulations?  Because God will deliver us from them, #1.  And #2, He will teach us something with it of lasting, eternal, spiritual value.  That’s why.  So that’s why it says we boast in tribulations.  And I think Paul wrote this after he was an apostle for some 20 years so he didn’t come by it right away.  When he was struck down off the horse on his way to Damascus he wasn’t very happy.  He was not boasting in that trial.   “…Knowing that the tribulation works out [or brings on] endurance…” (vs. 3, BGI, paraphrased).  In other words that trial coming through its full circuit is working out endurance.  Now the King James says patience, but it’s endurance.  And patience and endurance are very synonymous.

“…And the endurance proof…” God is testing us with these things.  That’s why we can boast in a trial.  Why?  Because God is testing us.  Many times people will think of a trial that will come, “Well God, if you send this trial, I am ready.”  That’s boasting and God isn’t going to send that trial.  Another one is going to come that you don’t think of.  And the major trials that occur other than your knowledge of your own stupidity ahead of time, they come as a total surprise.  Isn’t that true?  Yes.  But we can be thankful for it because God is testing us and proving us.  It works proof.  “…And the proof hope…” And once we rely on God we can have more hope.  “…And the hope does not make ashamed, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which was given to us: for when we were still without strength Christ in due time died for [the] ungodly” (vs. 4-6, BGI, paraphrased).  Now that’s a tremendous thing to do, and I think that we’re going to grasp a more full significance of this as we get down toward the Passover time.

“For hardly for a just [man] is one willing to die; for on the behalf of the good [man] perhaps some one even might dare to die; but God commends His own love to us that while we were still being sinners Christ died for us” (vs. 7, BGI, paraphrased).  Now Christ also had to do that in faith.  Did Christ have faith?  Yes, He had faith.  And He had to die in faith knowing, as He told His apostles there on the Passover night, He said, “Blessed are those who believe on the things that you say about Me.”  And remember Jesus said, “I pray for not only these, but those that shall believe on Me through their word.”  So Christ had to die in faith knowing that His sacrifice would be in perpetuity for all time, for all ages, of all mankind.

I don’t know how many have been watching the series, “Shogun” on TV.  If you’ve watched part of it, whatever, it’s a pretty bloody movie showing Japan.  They were lopping off heads, and stabbing, and committing suicide, and the only penalty for breaking a law was death or crucifixion.  You know, that is the letter of the law - swoosh.  I don’t know if that’s the impression you got from it, but boy I sure did.  And I thought man, I wouldn’t want to live there.  And a woman.  You talk about women’s liberation.  A woman in Japan was nothing.  Just worth no more than a piece of paper that a man could chattel her with.  And if he didn’t like his wife he had the right to kill her.  The sacrifice of Christ is going to have to apply to those lives too.  Yes, it is.  Christ died for the ungodly.  If we were without sin we would not need Christ.  That’s why it says in 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  That’s why we need a Savior.  So that’s tremendous what He did.

“Much more then, having been justified now by His blood, we shall be saved by Him from wrath” (vs. 9).  And how is that?  That is by grace.  And he gets into all the rest of it.  Chapter 6 and 7 he’s talking about grace.

#1.  Christ died for all by the grace of God.  All - not just some, not just for the Jews, but all.  And there are some wretched societies that are going to need an awful lot of salvation.  And they need an awful lot of help.

I don’t know if you read in the paper about the native society in New Caledonia?  Sometimes it’s good to get your paper and read sections E, and F, and G, just before you get to the classified ads.  The San Jose Mercury has E section, and they give little reports and some of them are very revealing.  They wouldn’t dare put it on the front page.  But how many saw the movie, “Sky Above and Mud Beneath”?  They showed the natives in New Guinea.  And when I first saw that, I remember, let’s see, it was when we were down in Pasadena and it must have been about 1971.  And I thought, “Boy, this is kind of a bad movie, to show all these naked natives going around.”  And then it told a little bit about the country they live in.  They live in this jungle area.  They don’t have hardly any flat land.  The mountains go straight up.  It rains almost 300 inches a year.  With that heat and that humidity I know why they go around naked.  They couldn’t possibly keep a stitch of clothing on because it would just rot.  So all the do-gooder missionaries came storming down there, “Let’s dress these natives.”  So they put them on.  Next thing you know the clothes all mildew right off their back.  Too much rain.

When I saw that I thought, “Why did God put some people in an area like that?”  There’s no clean food, there’s no clean fish around.  And if they go in the ocean there are these sea snakes that will bite you.  And their greatest delight for a dinner is a nice fat, big grubby termite about the size of that thermos bottle right there, which they relish.  They can’t grow any food because there’s no flat land.  And when I first saw that I thought, “You know, God is kind of unfair to these people.”  I said, “Look at us.  We’re sitting here.  We have all of this and hey, we don’t have to worry about that.”  And so I just sort of watch that in the back of my mind.

Oh, one other thing that they had.  The only meat that they could have, they would shoot a monkey or a baboon, or eat a slug or a snail, or a lizard.  And the only domestic animal they had were pigs.  And the women would suckle the pigs on their own breasts.  And that was a great possession.  That’s why they did it.  What can you tame in the jungle, you know?  So they tamed pigs.  And I thought, “How gross.”  It showed this right on the film.  I though, “Sky above, mud beneath, that is true.  You have the sky above, it’s raining, and all you have is mud underneath.”  Now I know why that they have that kind of society.

In this article I read about New Guinea and New Caledonia.  Do you know what they do to the young boys?  At seven years old they separate them from their mothers.  They can no longer talk to a woman after that time and they put them through an enforced sodomy regime until 18 years old.  Of all the despicable, horrible things that you can do.  Therefore I would have to conclude God is just in giving them that kind of environment and society to live in.  And of course they used to be cannibals and brain eaters, and warriors and fighters, and things like this.  Just horrible, wicked, despicable people.  Now those people are also going to be covered under the blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ at the second resurrection, because God is not calling, nor can He call them today in that condition.  They worship demons.  They worship Satan.