READING: Ephesians 2
TEXT:“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Ephesians 2:8 - 10 NIV.
There are many matters of which total ignorance and complete indifference are neither tragic nor fatal. I am sure that there are few of us here this evening who would be able to explain in detail all the processes by which a brown cow eats green grass and produces white milk. However, our inability to describe the process doesn’t spoil our enjoyment of the milk! Many of us are very ignorant of the workings of Einstein’s theory of relativity, expressed as E = MC2 - so much so that if someone were to ask us to explain it we would have difficulty. Not only are we ignorant of Einstein’s theory, we are quite indifferent to it! Yet our ignorance and indifference are neither tragic nor fatal.
However, there are some matters where ignorance and indifference can be both tragic and fatal. One such matter is the answer to the question, “What is a biblical Christian?” In other words, according to the Scriptures, when does a man, woman, boy or girl have the right to the name “Christian”? Now one must not make the assumption lightly that he or she is a true Christian. A false conclusion after all, can be tragic and fatal. So it is of vital importance that we understand what the Bible teaches concerning this issue. I therefore want to set before you this evening four strands of the Bible’s answer to the question, “What is a biblical Christian?” According to the Bible, a Christian is a person who has faced realistically the problem of his or her own personal sin.
One of the many things which distinguishes the Christian faith from the other religions of the world is that Christianity is essentially and fundamentally a sinner’s religion. When the angel announced to Joseph the approaching birth of Jesus Christ, he did so in these words, “21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21). The apostle Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 1:15, “15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst.” The Lord Jesus Christ himself says in Luke 5:31-32, “ 31 It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” A Christian is someone who has faced realistically the problem of personal sin.
When we turn to the Scriptures, we find that each one of us has a two-fold personal problem. On the one hand, we have the problem of our sin and, on the other hand, the problem of our wicked hearts. If we start in Genesis 3 and begin with the tragic account of man’s rebellion against God and his fall into sin, then trace the biblical doctrine of sin all the way through to the Book of the Revelation, we see that it is not oversimplification to say that everything that the Bible teaches about this doctrine can be reduced to these two fundamental categories - the problem of sin and the problem of a wicked heart.
What do I mean by “the problem of a sin?” I am using this terminology to describe what the Scriptures set before us as the doctrine of human guilt because of sin. The Scriptures tell us plainly that we were sinners long before we had any personal existence upon the earth: “ 12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12).
When did we “all” sin? We all sinned in Adam. He was appointed by God to represent the entire human race. When he sinned, we sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. That is why the apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” Man was created without sin in the Garden of Eden; but from the moment Adam sinned, we too were charged with guilt. We fell in him in his first transgression and we are all part of a race that is under condemnation.
Furthermore, the Scriptures teach that after we are born, additional guilt accrues to us for our own personal transgressions. The Word of God teaches that, “20 There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20); and every single sin incurs additional guilt. You see, our record in heaven is a marred record. Almighty God measures the totality of our human experience by a standard that is absolutely inflexible. This standard touches not only our external deeds but also our thoughts and the very motions of our hearts - so much so, that the Lord Jesus said that the stirring of unjust anger is the very essence of murder, and the look with intention to lust is adultery -
“22 … I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ’Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ’You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell…”
“28 … I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:22,28).
God is keeping a detailed record. That record is among “the books” which will be opened in the Day of Judgment.
The Bible tells us in Revelation chapter 20 and verse 12 that apostle John “12 … saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”
In these books He recorded every thought, every motive, every intention, every deed and every dimension of human experience that is contrary to the standard of God’s holy law, either in failing to measure up to its standards or transgressing against it. All of us have this problem of sin – something of which we are all guilty. We have real guilt for real sin committed against the true and the living God. This is why the Scriptures tell us that the entire human race stands guilty before Almighty God -”19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.” (Romans 3:19).
Has the problem of your sin ever become a burning, pressing, personal concern? Have you faced the truth that Almighty God judged you guilty when Adam sinned, and holds you guilty for every single word you have spoken contrary to his holiness, justice, purity and righteousness? He knows every object you have touched and taken contrary to the sanctity of property. He knows every word-spoken contrary to perfect, absolute truth. Has this ever broken in upon you, so that you are awakened to the fact that Almighty God has every right to summon you into his presence and to require you to give an account of every single deed contrary to his law? But this problem of a bad record is not our only problem. We have an additional problem – the problem of a wicked heart. The Bible teaches that the problem of our sin arises not only from what we have done, but also from what we are.
When Adam sinned, he not only became guilty before God, he also became defiled and polluted in his nature. This defilement is described for us in Jeremiah 17:9: “ 9 the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jesus speaks of it in Mark 7:21: “ 21 For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts…”; and then goes on to describe all the various sins that can be seen in any newspaper on any given day - murder, adultery, blasphemy and pride. Jesus said that these things rise out of an artesian well of pollution, the human heart. Notice carefully that he didn’t say, “For from without, by the pressure of society and its negative influences, come forth murder and adultery and pride and theft” That is what our so-called sociological experts tell us. They say it is “the condition of society” that produces crime and rebellion; Jesus says it is the condition of the human heart.
Each of us by nature has a heart that the Scriptures describe as “desperately wicked,” a fountain of all forms of iniquity. Romans 8:7 assert, “ 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” Paul does not say that the sinful mind, that is, the mind that has never been regenerated by God, has SOME HOSTILITY; he tells us clearly “ the sinful mind IS HOSTILE to God.” The disposition of every human heart by nature can be pictured as a clenched fist raised against the living God. It is the inward problem of a bad heart - a heart that loves sin, a heart that is the fountain of sin, a heart that is at war with God.
Has the problem of your wicked heart ever become a pressing personal concern to you? I am not asking you whether you believe in human sinfulness. You might agree that there are such things as a sinful nature and a sinful heart. My question is have your sins and your bad heart ever become matters of deep, inward, pressing concern to you? Have you known anything of real, personal, inward consciousness of the awfulness of your guilt in the presence of a holy God? Have you seen the horribleness of a heart that is “ … deceitful above all things and beyond cure?”
A biblical Christian is a person who has in all seriousness taken to heart his own personal problem of sin. The degree to which we may feel the awful weight of sin differs from one person to another. The length of time over which a person is brought to the consciousness of his bad record and his bad heart differs. These are many variables, but Jesus Christ as the Great Physician never brought his healing virtue to those who did not know themselves to be sinners. He said, “ 13 …for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13). Are you a biblical Christian - someone who has taken seriously the problem of their sin?
A biblical Christian is also someone who has seriously considered the divine remedy for sin. In the Bible we are told repeatedly that Almighty God has taken the initiative in doing something for man, the sinner. The verses some of us learned in our youth emphasize God’s initiative in providing a remedy for sin: “ 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.”; “10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”; “ 4…because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive…” (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10; Ephesians 2:4,5).
A unique feature of the Christian faith is that it is not a religious self-help scheme where you patch yourself up with the aid of God. Just as surely as it is a unique tenet of the Christian faith that Christ is the only Savoir for sinners, so it is also a unique tenet of the Christian faith that all of our true help comes down from above and meets us where we are. We cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps; God in mercy breaks in upon the human situation and does something that we could never do for ourselves.
When we turn to the Scriptures, we find that God’s divine remedy has at least three simple but profoundly wonderful focal points:
First of all, God’s remedy for sin is bound up in a Person. Anyone who begins to take seriously the divine remedy for human sin will notice in the Scriptures that the remedy is not in a set of ideas, as though it were just another philosophy, nor is it found in an institution, but it is bound up in a Person: “ 16”For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son”; “ 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (John 3:16; Matthew 1:21). Jesus himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.
The divine remedy for sin is bound up in a Person, and that Person is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ - the eternal Word who became man, uniting a true human nature to his divine nature. Here is God’s provision for man with his sins and his bad heart, a Savoir who is both God and man, the two natures joined in the one Person forever. If your personal problem of sin is ever to be remedied in a biblical way, it will be remedied only as you have personal dealings with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the uniqueness of the Christian faith: the sinner in all his need, united to the Savoir in all the fullness of his grace - the sinner in his naked need, and the Savoir in his almighty power, brought directly together in the Gospel. That reality is the glory of God’s Good News to sinners!
Secondly, God’s remedy for sin is centred upon the cross upon which Jesus Christ died. When we turn to the Scriptures we find that the divine remedy in a unique way is centred upon the cross of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist uses the Old Testament image of the sacrificial lamb when he points to Jesus and says, “ 29 Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
Jesus himself said, “28…the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” “ (Matthew 20:28). True preaching of the Gospel is so much centred in the cross that Paul states that it is the message of the cross. The preaching of the cross is “18…foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. “ (1 Corinthians 1:18). When Paul came to Corinth - a centre of intellectualism and pagan Greek philosophy - he did not follow their prescribed patterns of rhetoric but said that he “2 …resolved to know nothing while he was with them except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
The cross is not to be thought of as an abstract idea or a religious symbol; the meaning of the cross is what God has declared it to mean. The cross was the place where God, by imputation, heaped the sins of his people upon his Son. On that cross a substitutionary curse was borne by the savoir. Paul put it in this way, “ 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us… “ (Galatians 3:13), and “21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. “ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
The cross is not a nebulous, indefinable symbol of self-giving love; on the contrary, the cross is the monumental display of how God can be just and still pardon guilty sinners. At the cross, God, having imputed the sins of his people to Christ, pronounces judgment upon his Son as the representative of his people. There on the cross God pours out his wrath unmixed with mercy until his Son cries out, “ 46 …My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46). At Calvary, God is demonstrating in the visible world what is happening in the invisible, spiritual world. He shrouds the heavens in total darkness to let all mankind know that he is plunging his Son into the outer darkness of the hell that your sins and my sins deserve.
Jesus hangs on the cross like some guilty criminal; for him society has but one verdict: “Away with him” “Crucify him” “Hand him over to death” - and God does not interfere. In the theatre of what men can see, God is demonstrating what he is doing in the realm where we cannot see. He is treating his Son as a criminal. He is causing Jesus to feel in the depths of his own soul all of the fury of the wrath that we deserve.
Third, God’s remedy for sin is adequate for all men, and it is offered to all men without discrimination. Before we have any felt consciousness of our sin, it is very easy to think that God can forgive sinners. But when you and I begin to have any idea at all of what sin is, our thoughts are changed. We see ourselves as little worms of the dust, creatures whose very life and breath are held in the hands of the God in whom “ 28 …we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28).
We begin to take seriously that we have dared to defy the God who consigned angels to everlasting darkness when they rebelled against him. We confess that this holy God sees the full extent of our foul, corrupt human hearts. Then we say, “O God, how can you be anything other than just? If you give me what my sins deserve, there is nothing for me but wrath and judgment! How can you forgive me and still be just? How can you be a righteous God and do anything other than consign me to everlasting punishment with those angels that rebelled?”
When we begin to feel the reality of our sin, forgiveness becomes the most stubborn problem with which our mind has ever wrestled. It is then that we need to know that in a Person, and that Person crucified, God has provided a remedy adequate for all men and offered to all men without discrimination. If any conditions were placed on the availability of Christ we would say, “Surely I don’t meet the conditions; surely I don’t qualify.”
The wonder of God’s provision is that it comes in these glorious terms: “1 Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” (Isaiah 55:1); and “ 37 …whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37).
Can you see the beauty of the free offer of mercy in Jesus Christ? We do not need God to step out of heaven and tell us that we, by name, are invited to come; we have the glorious offer of mercy in the words of his own Son, “ 28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. “ (Matthew 11:28).
There are only two divine demands on us: Just two - REPENT and BELIEVE. Of Jesus’ earliest ministry it is recorded, “14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1:14-15). After his resurrection Jesus told his disciples that, “47 …repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).
What are the terms for obtaining this divine provision? We must REPENT and we must BELIEVE. Although it is necessary to discuss these as separate concepts, we must not think that repentance is ever divorced from faith or that faith is ever divorced from repentance.
True faith is permeated with repentance, and true repentance is permeated with faith. They are so intertwined with one another that whenever there’s a true conversion you will find a believing penitent and a penitent believer.
What is repentance? The definition we find in the Shorter Catechism is an excellent one: “Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension (that is, laying hold) of the mercy of God in Christ, does, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience.”
Repentance is the Prodigal Son coming to his senses in the far country. Rather than remain at home under his father’s rule, he had asked to receive his inheritance early and left home for a far country, where he squandered it. Reduced to misery through his sins, he came to himself and said, “ 17 ’How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’“ (Luke 15:17-19).
When the Prodigal Son recognized his sin he did not sit there and think about it, write poetry about it, or send telegrams home to Dad. The Scripture says, “ 20 So he got up and went to his father…” (Verse 20). He left those companions who were his friends in sin; he abhorred everything that belonged to that life-style and turned his back on it. What was it that drew him home?
It was the confidence that there was a gracious father with a large heart and with a righteous rule for his happy, loving home. He did not write saying, “Dad, things are getting rough down here; my conscience is giving me fits at night. Won’t you send me some money to help me out, or come and pay me a visit and make me feel good?” Not at all! He didn’t need just to feel good; he needed to become good. So he left the far country.
It is a beautiful picture in our Lord’s parable when he says, “20 …But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Verse 20). The Prodigal did not come strutting up to his father, talking about making a decision to come home.
There is a notion today that people can walk up an aisle, pray a little prayer, and do God a big favour by making their decision. This has nothing to do with true conversion. True repentance involves recognising that I have sinned against the God of heaven, who is great and gracious, holy and loving, and that I am not worthy to be called his son. Yet when I am prepared to leave my sin, turn my back upon it and come back meekly, wondering if indeed there can be mercy for me, then - wonder of wonders! - The Father meets me, and throws his arms of reconciling love and mercy about me. I say, not in a sentimental way but in all truth, that he smothers repenting sinners in forgiving and redemptive love.
But the father did not throw his arms around the Prodigal when he was still to be found in the pigpens and in the arms of prostitutes. Am I speaking to someone whose heart is wedded to the world and who loves the world’s ways? Perhaps in your personal life, or in your social life where you take so lightly the sanctity of the body, you reveal what you really are. Repentance after all is being sorry enough to quit your sin. You will never know the forgiving mercy of God while you still love your sins. Repentance is the soul’s divorce from sin, but it will always be joined to faith.
What is faith? Faith is the casting of the soul upon Christ as he is offered in the Gospel. “12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
FAITH IS LIKENED TO DRINKING OF CHRIST, for in my soul-thirst I drink of him. FAITH IS LIKENED TO LOOKING TO CHRIST, and following Christ, and fleeing to Christ. The Bible uses many analogies and the sum of them all is this: in the nakedness of my need I cast myself upon the Savoir, trusting him to be to me all that he has promised to be to a needy sinner. Faith brings nothing to Christ but an empty hand, by which it takes Christ and all that is in him. What is in Christ? Full pardon for all my sins!
His perfect obedience is put to my account. His death is counted as mine. The gift of the Spirit is in him. Adoption, sanctification and ultimately glorification are all in him; and faith, by taking Christ, receives all that is in him. “30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. “ (1 Corinthians 1:30).
What is a biblical Christian? A biblical Christian is a person who has wholeheartedly complied with the terms for obtaining the divine provision for sin. These terms are repentance and faith. I like to think of them as the hinge on which the door of salvation turns. The hinge has two plates, one that is screwed to the door and the other that is fixed to the jamb. A pin holds them together, and on that hinge the door turns. Christ is that door, but none enters through him who does not repent and believe.
However, there is no true hinge made up only of repentance. Repentance that is not joined to faith is a legalistic repentance. It terminates on yourself and on your sin. Likewise, there is no true hinge made up only of faith. Professed faith that is not joined to repentance is a spurious faith, for true faith is faith in Christ to save me not in but from my sin. Repentance and faith are inseparable, and “3 …unless you repent, you too will all perish. “ (Luke 13:3).
The unbelieving are named among those who “8…their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.” (Revelation 21.8). A biblical Christian is a person who manifests in their lives that their claims to repentance and faith are real. Paul preached that men should repent and turn to God and do works consistent with repentance (Acts 26:20). God intends that there should be such works:
“8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Paul says in Galatians 5 that faith works by love. Wherever there is true faith in Christ, genuine love to Christ will be implanted. And where there is love to Christ there will be obedience to Christ. “21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me… 24 He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” (John 14:21-24). We are saved by trusting Christ, not by loving and obeying Christ. However, a trust that does not produce love and obedience is cannot be true saving faith.
True faith works by love. True faith works by causing you to go back into your home and to obey your father and your mother, or to love your husband or wife and children as the Bible tells you to do, or to go back to your job to take a stand for truth and righteousness against all the pressure of your peers. True faith makes you willing to be counted as a fool and crazy - willing to be considered outdated - because you believe that there are eternal, unchangeable moral and ethical standards.
You are willing to believe in chastity and the sanctity of human life and to take your stand against premarital sex and the murdering of babies in mothers’ wombs. For Jesus said, “ 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38).
What is a biblical Christian? It is not merely one who says, “Oh, yes, I know I am a sinner, who has sinned and has a wicked heart. I know that God’s provision for sinners is in Christ and in his cross, and that it is adequately and freely offered to all. I know it comes to all who repent and believe.” That is not enough.
HAVE YOU REPENTED AND BELIEVED? And if you profess to repent and believe, can you make that profession stick - not by a life of perfection, but by a life of purposeful obedience to Jesus Christ? “21 Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21). In Hebrews 5:9 we read, “9 …he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” 1 John 2:4 says, “4 The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
CAN YOU MAKE YOUR CLAIM TO BE A CHRISTIAN STICK FROM THE BIBLE? Does your life manifest the fruits of repentance and faith? Do you possess a life of attachment to Christ, obedience to Christ, and confession of Christ? Is your behaviour marked by adherence to the ways of Christ? Not perfectly - no! Every day you must pray, “Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me.” But at the same time you can also say, “For me to live is Christ” or, in the words of the hymn, Jesus I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow thee.
A TRUE CHRISTIAN FOLLOWS JESUS. How many of us are true, biblical Christians? I leave you to answer in the deep chambers of your own mind and heart. But remember, answer with an answer that you will be prepared to live with for eternity. Be content with no answer but one that will find you comfortable in death, and safe in the Day of Judgment.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8 – 10).
AMEN
