Salvation By Grace Alone and The Judgement Of Our Lives According To Our Works
Page 5 ⇦ Previous
Conclusion
What I am saying to you in these series of messages is that both poles, both at the same time, and both completely received in our hearts as the truth of God. I believe because the scripture teaches me, that my salvation from beginning to end is the work and the gift and the achievement of God alone: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But I believe as well, that my life will be judged and my place in heaven will be determined. What does means, I don't have the foggiest idea. But that it is so, I don't doubt. My place in heaven will be determined by the measure of the faithfulness I had shown to God in the course of my life in this world.
I cannot resolve the tension created between those two facts. It is certainly a striking juxtaposition of truth. The fact that we don't often hold then together, and that most of the time, we allow one of them to slip away, is proof enough of how striking a juxtaposition of truth this is.
But then, C.K. Chesterton says that that was the point. "A paradox is truth standing on its head to get the tension". And that is our tension: Salvation by grace and judgement according to works.
When you stop and think about it, I think that you will realize that there should be no difficulty in believing that both of these things are true. I am a sinner. I know that I can't save myself. I know that I can't contribute anything to my salvation. I realize that if my salvation depended in even the smallest part on my achievement, I would be lost and lost forever. But I am a Christian, I am a child of God. I know my heavenly Father takes seriously the life I live in this world. And because of His perfect justice, I know that He will inevitably note and reward a greater or lesser faithfulness. And I can see very clearly and very easily how the two of these two doctrines together make for the Christian life I want to live.
On one hand, I want to be perfectly humble before God and live in the awareness of my terrible need, my utter hopelessness in myself and the infinite immensity of the debt I owe to God and His grace.
On the other hand, I want to be zealous in performing my duty as a child of God, as a servant of God, as a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ; I want to demonstrate my love to the heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour, I want to be obedient to the law of my Master.
And this doctrine: the judgement of my life according to my works wonderful helps me, spurs me on to that end. I want the one truth and the other. I want them both. I want a life that both together can create. I never want my reliance to the grace of God to make me lazy or careless in my devotion to him, but I never want my Christian service to the least degree to diminish my absolute sense or my sense of absolute obligation to the grace of God and the infinite debt I owe to His love.
The prospect of giving an account makes it serious than it otherwise might not be because our salvation is suspended as completely as it is on the grace and the gift of God. "It is very easy" as one Christian writer put it, "to spend one's life labouriously doing nothing much at all.
If you are going to answer for your days and nights, for your deeds, your sins and your acts of righteousness, your obedience and your disobedience to God's law, you won't be careless about your life. You will take it with deadly earnestness as we should.
I don't want there to be in my heart or the heart of any of you, any thought that we have somehow in one way or another contributed to our salvation; or that our rewards when we get to heaven (that's what the bible calls them, 'rewards') will be our own achievement for without the Lord Jesus Christ, we can do nothing.
If we live an obedient and faithful and righteous life, it will be because God is crowning His own gifts in us. And in heaven, when we open finally at last, sinless eyes, washed clean; those of us who will rule 10 cities and those of us who will rule 5 cities, and those of us like me who, perhaps, won't rule any city at all, will say with tears of joy that it is enough to be here, "Soli Deo Gloria".
Africa needs men and women in the leadership of the Church, who are absolutely committed to the gospel of God's free grace, and absolutely committed to the Christian life as always and everywhere a life of obedient service to God. Not one, not the other. Both, always, at the same time. Amen.
Prayer
Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you for those texts, like this one, in 2 Corinthians 5, that upset us and that startle us and force us to think about things we find it so easy to think about. When we read this, we realize how true and right it must be. We pray Oh God that you would write these truths upon our hearts as surely as you write upon our hearts the truth that we are saved by grace through faith. Hear and answer, Oh God we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Page 5 ⇦ Previous
Conclusion
What I am saying to you in these series of messages is that both poles, both at the same time, and both completely received in our hearts as the truth of God. I believe because the scripture teaches me, that my salvation from beginning to end is the work and the gift and the achievement of God alone: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But I believe as well, that my life will be judged and my place in heaven will be determined. What does means, I don't have the foggiest idea. But that it is so, I don't doubt. My place in heaven will be determined by the measure of the faithfulness I had shown to God in the course of my life in this world.
I cannot resolve the tension created between those two facts. It is certainly a striking juxtaposition of truth. The fact that we don't often hold then together, and that most of the time, we allow one of them to slip away, is proof enough of how striking a juxtaposition of truth this is.
But then, C.K. Chesterton says that that was the point. "A paradox is truth standing on its head to get the tension". And that is our tension: Salvation by grace and judgement according to works.
When you stop and think about it, I think that you will realize that there should be no difficulty in believing that both of these things are true. I am a sinner. I know that I can't save myself. I know that I can't contribute anything to my salvation. I realize that if my salvation depended in even the smallest part on my achievement, I would be lost and lost forever. But I am a Christian, I am a child of God. I know my heavenly Father takes seriously the life I live in this world. And because of His perfect justice, I know that He will inevitably note and reward a greater or lesser faithfulness. And I can see very clearly and very easily how the two of these two doctrines together make for the Christian life I want to live.
On one hand, I want to be perfectly humble before God and live in the awareness of my terrible need, my utter hopelessness in myself and the infinite immensity of the debt I owe to God and His grace.
On the other hand, I want to be zealous in performing my duty as a child of God, as a servant of God, as a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ; I want to demonstrate my love to the heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour, I want to be obedient to the law of my Master.
And this doctrine: the judgement of my life according to my works wonderful helps me, spurs me on to that end. I want the one truth and the other. I want them both. I want a life that both together can create. I never want my reliance to the grace of God to make me lazy or careless in my devotion to him, but I never want my Christian service to the least degree to diminish my absolute sense or my sense of absolute obligation to the grace of God and the infinite debt I owe to His love.
The prospect of giving an account makes it serious than it otherwise might not be because our salvation is suspended as completely as it is on the grace and the gift of God. "It is very easy" as one Christian writer put it, "to spend one's life labouriously doing nothing much at all.
If you are going to answer for your days and nights, for your deeds, your sins and your acts of righteousness, your obedience and your disobedience to God's law, you won't be careless about your life. You will take it with deadly earnestness as we should.
I don't want there to be in my heart or the heart of any of you, any thought that we have somehow in one way or another contributed to our salvation; or that our rewards when we get to heaven (that's what the bible calls them, 'rewards') will be our own achievement for without the Lord Jesus Christ, we can do nothing.
If we live an obedient and faithful and righteous life, it will be because God is crowning His own gifts in us. And in heaven, when we open finally at last, sinless eyes, washed clean; those of us who will rule 10 cities and those of us who will rule 5 cities, and those of us like me who, perhaps, won't rule any city at all, will say with tears of joy that it is enough to be here, "Soli Deo Gloria".
Africa needs men and women in the leadership of the Church, who are absolutely committed to the gospel of God's free grace, and absolutely committed to the Christian life as always and everywhere a life of obedient service to God. Not one, not the other. Both, always, at the same time. Amen.
Prayer
Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you for those texts, like this one, in 2 Corinthians 5, that upset us and that startle us and force us to think about things we find it so easy to think about. When we read this, we realize how true and right it must be. We pray Oh God that you would write these truths upon our hearts as surely as you write upon our hearts the truth that we are saved by grace through faith. Hear and answer, Oh God we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Page 5 ⇦ Previous
