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THE GRACE OF GOD
CONCLUSION
The gospel of our salvation is the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24). The salvation announced in the gospel of God is salvation by the grace of God. What is the grace of God? According to Eph. 2:4-5, the grace of God is the love of God in action to save man from death to life.
“2:4But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love which he loved us, 2:5even when were dead in our failures, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph. 2:4-5 ERS).
In these verses, Paul sets forth what God has done; but before he states that, Paul must explain why God has done what He has done. It is out of mercy, the riches of His mercy, that God has intervened. God has been merciful, when He should have been wrathful, if he is just God. But God is not a God of justice but a God of love. God is merciful because He is a God of “much love”. And this love of God is personal; God has acted “because of His great love with which He loved us”. And His love is not just for mankind in general, but personally for each individual, you and me, “He loved us”.
But before Paul declares what God has done, he reminds his readers of what their condition was; it is “when we were dead with reference to failures” that God acted. Paul focuses his readers on what they were before they were saved. Paul is reminding them of what they were saved from: death and sin. Paul is here referring to spiritual death rather than physical death. Spiritual death is the separation of a man’s spirit from God; it is the absence of fellowship and communion with God, of a personal relationship to God. Physical death is the separation of man’s spirit from his body when he dies physically. Both of these kinds of death came from Adam (Rom. 5:12, 14, 15, 17; I Cor. 15:21-22). All men are born spiritually dead and will die physically. In the opening verse of this section (Eph. 2:1-10), in verse one
(“And you were dead with reference to your failures and sins,”) Paul uses two different words in the Greek for sin: paraptoma and hamartia. The Greek word, paraptoma, which is translated “failure,” means literally “a falling besides,” hence “a false step, a blunder, a misdeed.” It is not the usual Greek word for sin, hamartia, which means “a missing the mark” nor the Greek word for a transgression of the law, parabasis, which means “a going beside, an overstepping,” hence “transgression” of the law (Rom. 2:23). To translate paraptoma as “transgression,” as in most modern English translations, is to give the wrong meaning. From the time of Herodotus (c. 484-c.425 B.C.), paraptoma refers to an accidental and unintentional wrong act; it means an oversight, an error, an untentional mistake. This word paraptoma occurs 21 times in the NT and all but five occurences are in Paul’s writings. It seems to be equivalent to hamartia (Rom. 5:20).
The relation between death and sin in this verse one as also in verse 5 is indicated by the dative case. The dative inflectional form of the noun in Greek language may express three different functions: the pure dative, the locative, and instrumental. The pure dative function expresses personal relation or reference. The personal relation does not seem appropriate, but the dative of reference may be applicable: “being dead with reference to your offenses and sins.” Death is related to sin, without specifying how. The locative dative function may express literal spatial or temporal location. These do not seem appropriate here, but there is a metaphorical use of the locative, which indicates logical limitations rather than spatial or temporal location, confining one idea within the bounds of another; it indicates the bounds within which the former idea, death, is applied: “being dead in your offenses and sins.” This seems to be the meaning adopted by most modern translations (KJV, RSV, NAS, NIV, etc.). (See Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 87-88). This is usually interpreted to mean that spiritual death is caused by their sins. But this interpretation is contrary to what Paul says elsewhere: “because of which [death] all sinned,” (Rom. 5:12d ERS), “the sting of death is sin” (I Cor. 15:56). For “in Adam all die” (I Cor. 15:22) and “sin came into the world through one man [Adam] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men” (Rom. 5:12abc). Since Paul does not contradict himself, this verse cannot mean that they are spiritually dead because of their sins. All men are spiritually dead, not because of their own sins, but because of Adam’s sin. Thus the dative case here cannot be the instrumental of Means or of Cause; it cannot mean “being dead by your offenses and sins.” But using the dative of reference here, the meaning seems to be that spiritual death expresses itself and operates in the offenses and sins of those who are spiritually dead.
Paul reminds his readers in verse 5 again of what their condition was; it is “when we were dead with reference to failures” that God acted. We were spiritually dead and that death expressed itself in our failures. It is from death that God has made us alive. How? It is “with Christ” that we are made alive. It is with the resurrection of Christ we are made alive. His resurrection is our resurrection. And this is because His death was our death. Even though Paul does not say it here, it was because Christ entered into our death and died our death, that we have been made alive with Christ in His resurrection. He did not die instead of us, but for us and on our behalf; His death was not a substitution, but a participation (I Cor. 5:14-15). Christ participated in our death that we might participate in His resurrection. We died “with Him” because He died “for us,” and we have been raised “with Him” because He was raised “for us.” It was not only from physical death that we were made alive with Him, but it was also from spiritual death that we were made alive with Him. In the future, we will be physically raised together with Him, if we die physically before He comes (I Thess. 4:14-17; I Cor. 15:51-53). But here in verse 5, Paul is speaking of that which has already happened for him and his readers. They have already been made alive spiritually with Christ. And this salvation from spiritual death to spiritual life is by the grace of God.
And this grace of God is God’s love acting for our salvation. The parallelism between the phrase in the last part of verse 5 (“By grace you have been saved”) and the phrase in verse 4 and in the first part of verse 5 (“God…out of the great love with which He loved us…made us alive together with Christ”) shows us that the grace of God by which we are saved is God’s love acting to make us alive with Christ. That is, this salvation is salvation from death to life with Christ. And since this salvation from death to life is by the love of God, then the grace of God that saves us is God’s love in action to save us. Now God’s love in action to save us is more than just His favor. Therefore, the grace of God is more than just His favor. That is, the grace of God that saved us from death to life is God’s love in action, not just His favor. Because He loves us, He has acted to save us from death to life by His grace.
Note that Paul here in these verses says nothing about salvation from sin; this has puzzeled many commentators because they view Christ death and resurrection as dealing primarily with sin. Now this section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians makes clear that in Paul’s thought the primary reason for Christ’s death and resurrection was to save mankind from death to life, both spiritually and physically. And since all men have sinned because of death (Rom. 5:12d ERS; etc.), they are saved from sin to righteousness because they are saved from death to life. Thus, implicit in Paul’s statements about being made alive with Christ is the salvation from sin, which sins and failures were described in verses 2 and 3.
“2:1And you being dead with reference to your failures and your sins, 2:2in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 2:3Among whom we all then conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the wishes of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, as also the rest. 2:4But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love which he loved us, 2:5even when were dead in our failures, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” (Eph. 2:1-5 ERS)
This salvation by the grace of God stands in opposition to salvation by works; salvation is not by the works of the law (Rom. 3:20; Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5; etc.). Paul contrasts this salvation by grace with salvation by works in Eph. 2:8-9.
“2:8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, 2:9not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 NAS)
A salvation by works is earned; it is merited.
“4:4Now to the one who works his wages is not reckoned according to grace [as a gift] but according to debt [something owed since it was earned] 4:5But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.” (Rom. 4:4-5 ERS).
The works that are supposed to earn salvation are more than just good works (good deeds or acts); they are meritorious works; they are good deeds that earn salvation. Each good work is regarded as having a certain quantity of merit attached to it; when the good work is done, the merit is imputed or reckoned to the account of the person performing the act. Correspondingly, each evil or bad work is regarded as having a certain quantity of demerit or negative merit (penalty) attached to it so that the demerit is reckoned to the account of the person doing the evil work (sin). At the final judgment each person’s account is balanced — the merits and demerits are weighed against each other. If the merit outweighs the demerit, that person is saved — he has earned eternal life. If the demerit outweighs the merit, that person is condemned — he is punished eternally for his sins. This merit scheme underlies and is implied by all teaching that salvation is by works. The Bible very clearly teaches that salvation is not by works ( Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5).
“3:4But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for man appeared, 3:5He saved us, not on the basis of works which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit,
3:6whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 3:7that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7 ERS).
Salvation is the gift of God, given by His grace and received through faith. Man cannot be saved by his meritorious good works; he cannot earn salvation by his works. This is the clear and explicit teaching of Scripture. Salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works are mutually exclusive and opposing ways of salvation.
“But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” (Rom. 11:6 NAS)
Now, if we ask why man cannot be saved by his works, that is, what is the reason that man cannot earn salvation by his meritorious works, the usual answer given to this question is that apart from God’s grace man is not able to do good works by which he can earn salvation. Man, it is usually said, is not only not able to do good works, but he is able only to sin apart from the grace of God.
Now, the curious implication of this answer is that if a man were able to do good works — able not to sin — then he could earn salvation and be saved by his meritorious works. This implication is made explicit in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church since the time of Augustine in the early fifth century, that by the grace of God, which is infused into a man at his baptism, and renewed by the sacraments, he is able to do good works by which salvation (eternal life) may be earned. Accordingly, salvation is ultimately and fundamentally by works even though the grace of God makes possible the meritorious works.
It was this teaching that the Protestant Reformers opposed. They rejected the idea that grace was something infused into man to make it possible for him to earn salvation. Grace, said the Reformers, is God’s unmerited favor, and salvation (eternal life) was a gift to be received by faith. But, they said, that eternal life was earned by the active obedience of Christ during His life on earth. This “merits of Christ” is imputed to the believer’s account when he first believes in Christ. Thus salvation is still ultimately and fundamentally by meritorious works. It is true that they said that it was not by our works and it was a gift received by faith. But salvation was still by works — not by our works but by the meritorious works of another, Jesus Christ. Christ by his active obedience earned for us eternal life. It is a vicarious salvation by works. This explanation of salvation like the earlier Roman Catholic explanation mixes grace and works, which Paul says cannot be done or grace will no longer be grace ( Rom. 11:6). And as it turned out in the history of Protestantism, this strong dynamic concept of God’s grace as God’s love in action is reduced to the weak idea of grace as unmerited favor. The Protestant Reformers had redefined grace as unmerited favor to counter the Roman Catholic explanation that by the sacraments the grace of God makes possible the meritorious works by which salvation (eternal life) may be earned. But later Protestants interpreted this concept of grace as unmerited favor as having only legal changes in the believer’s relation to God. This concept of grace has been called “cheap grace” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship, chapter 1.
Salvation is not by meritorious works, not because a man is not able to do them, but because God does not deal with mankind on the basis of the merit scheme. As Jesus made clear in his parable of the householder (Matt. 20:1-16), God does not act toward us on the basis of our merit but on the basis of His generosity. And because God does not treat mankind according to their desserts, but according to His love, He often puts the least deserving before the more deserving. “The last will be first and the first last.” (Matt. 20:16; 19:30; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30)
The Apostle Paul in opposing salvation by works refers to meritorious works as “the righteousness of the law” (Rom. 10:5; Phil. 3:6, 9) and as “the works of the law” (Rom. 3:20; 4:2-5; Gal. 3:2, 5, 10). The Mosaic law was legalistically considered to be the standard by which the merits of good works can be determined. Very soon after the last of the O.T. prophets, Malachi, the Jewish teachers developed an idolatry of the law. They began to trust in the law (Rom. 2:17). The law became an absolute standard to be obeyed. Obedience to the law subtly took the place of obedience to God. Keeping the law became a meritorious work that could earn God’s favor and blessings. Eventually there evolved the idea that one’s eternal destiny depends upon the amount of merit or demerit that one accumulates during one’s life-time. This whole scheme of merit with its absolute standard of the law is what we mean by legalism.
Jesus and the early apostles, particularly Paul, opposed this Jewish legalism. Paul combated these Judaizers’ attempts to put Christians under the Mosaic law. When we realize the covenant nature of the law, we can see why this was not possible. Since the Christian’s relationship to God was already established in the New covenant, it could not at the same time be established under the Old Mosaic covenant. Then it must be that what the Judaizers were trying to do was to make the law in an absolute sense necessary for a right relationship to God. This is not just the Mosaic law; it is legalism. And Paul refused to allow it.
Even though Paul’s opposition to the Judaizers in the early church effectively stopped the entrance into Christianty of the Jewish legalism (see the Letter to the Galatians), this did not stop another form of the legalism from creeping into Christian thought and practice some 200 years later. In this later form of legalism, the rationalism of the Greek philosophers had been wedded to the legal philosophy of the Romans developed by such earlier writers as Cicero (1st century B.C.). This rationalistic legalism crept into Christian theology by way of a 3rd century lawyer and Christian apologist, Tertullian, and since the time of Augustine (5th century) has formed the basis of most Roman Catholic and Protestant theology. The law is legalistically considered to be the standard by which the merits of good works can be determined. This is a distortion of the Mosaic law and is a characteristic of legalism.
The doctrine of the sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology by Augustine in the early fifth century A.D. to explain why man can not save himself by his meritorious works. Instead of denying that salvation has anything to do with meritorious works, Augustine assumed that salvation is by meritorious works and he taught that since the fall because of his inherited corrupt or sinful nature, man cannot do meritorious works to earn salvation apart from the grace of God. The grace of God infused into man’s will by the sacraments enables him to earn eternal life. But Augustine assumption is wrong. According to the Scriptures ( Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 4:4-5; Titus 3:5), salvation is not by meritorious works; eternal life is not earned by meritorious works, and the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary to deny that man can save himself. According to the Scriptures, man cannot save himself because he cannot make himself alive, not because he cannot do meritorious works. The law cannot deliver one from death or sin, neither can the law produce life or righteousness ( Gal. 3:21). There is no salvation by the law.
The sinful nature is not needed to explain why man cannot save himself by the works of the law, because the law was not given by God for salvation. God gave the law, not for salvation from sin, but for the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:19); that is, to show what should be man’s right personal relationship to God and to his fellow men (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:37-40). This knowledge does not save man but only shows man what he ought to be but it cannot make him to be that. Salvation is only through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, not by the law and by human self-effort (the flesh). Jesus Christ is the life, and he who has Him has life and is alive to God (I John 5:11-12).
Neither is the sinful nature needed to explain the struggle and defeat in Romans 7; the Christian cannot live by the law any more than can he be saved by the law. The law cannot produce righteousness because it cannot make alive; as the Apostle Paul says in Gal. 3:21:
“Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” (Gal. 3:21)
The law cannot make alive to God; that is, the law cannot produce a real personal relationship to God of love for God and trust in Him. Only a real personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit can produce righteousness, that is, the right relationship to God and to his fellow man. To try to live the Christian life by the law isolates the Christian from God (spiritual death) and the human self-effort (by the flesh) to live up to standard of law results in failure and sin. As right and good is the law, God did not give the law as a means of salvation nor to live the Christian life by it. So all attempts to do so will fail, as Romans 7 shows. The sinful nature is not the cause of this failure but the wrong use of the law. Romans 7 shows what happens when the law is used wrongly. The solution to this problem is not to try harder, but to abandon this wrong use of the law. And to turn to God’s way of the Christian life; that is, to walk according to Spirit (by faith), and not according to the flesh (human self-effort) (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:25).
One of the implications of Augustine’s doctrine of the sinful or corrupt nature of man is that salvation is entirely the work of God (monergism), since man, because of his sinful nature, is totally unable to do good works in order to earn salvation by them. According to Augustine, not only is the salvation by the grace of God the work of God but so is faith, since salvation is “by grace through faith” ( Eph. 2:8). According to Augustine, the faith that receives the grace of God is also the work of God. This monergism totally eliminates the human will from any part or place in salvation. Augustine understood the human will, not as a choice between sin and righteousness, but choice according to one’s nature: the choice of sin if one’s nature is sinful, the choice of righteousness if one’s nature is good and righteous. So accordingly all men’s choices are sin because their nature is sinful. And the grace of God must enable the will of man if he is going to do meritorious works to earn his salvation. This efficient grace is received through the sacraments.
Furthermore, in Augustine’s teaching, grace is reduced to something that enables the human will to do good works so that it can earn salvation. These views of Augustine concerning salvation follow from his view of human nature as sinful or corrupt. The Calvinist Reformers denied this view of grace and sees grace as the unmerited favor of God in which God gives to the elect the righteousness or merits earned for them by Christ’s active obedience. That is, God in Christ has earned for them the salvation that they themselves cannot earned because of their sinful nature. But the Calvinist is wrong; righteousness is not merit but right personal relationship to God through faith ( Rom. 4:4-5). And God puts man into this right personal relationship to Himself by His grace, not by vicarious meritorious works earned for them by another. And Calvinist is also wrong in their concept of the grace of God. In order to deny the Augustine’s teaching, in which grace is reduced to something that enables the human will to do meritorious good works so that it can earn salvation, the Calvinist defined grace as unmerited favor. But the grace of God is not the unmerited favor of God, but it is the love of God in action to save man from death to life.
“2:4But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love which he loved us, 2:5even when were dead in our failures, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph. 2:4-5 ERS).
Calvinism’s view of salvation, as was the Augustinian view, was monergistic, that is, God alone is active in salvation. And God alone is active in salvation because they believed that since man’s nature is sinful and man does what his nature is, then all the acts of man are sinful and man cannot do any righteous act to earn salvation. Therefore, God alone must earn it for him by the grace of God through the sacraments. Calvinism, denying the Augustinian view that God does these meritorious acts by the grace of God that man receives from God through the sacraments, asserts that God alone does these meritorious acts through the active obedience of Christ; Christ has earned salvation for us. God alone is active in man’s salvation. Not only is salvation the work of God but so is faith, since salvation is “by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:8). According to the Calvinistic doctrine of irresistble grace, the faith that receives the grace of God is also the work of God. But the phrase in Eph. 2:8, “and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God”, refers to salvation and not to faith. In the Greek of this verse, the demonstrative pronoun translated “that” agrees in gender (masculine) with the verbal participle translated “have been saved”, and not with the noun translated “faith” which is feminine.
“2:8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that [salvation] not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, 2:9not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS)
Salvation is the gift which is received by faith, not earned by meritorious works. Even though faith is the act or choice of man, faith is not a meritorious work which can earn salvation.
But not only has the Biblical concept of sin been misunderstood by legalism but, correspondingly, the Biblical concept of righteousness as a right relationship with God through faith in God ( Rom. 4:4-5) has also been misunderstood as a keeping of the rules, a conformity to the law in thought, word and deed, a living up to the divine standard. Righteousness is misunderstood as moral perfection, that is, a conformity to the divine standard without exception, sinless perfection. Since man is created, according to legalism, under the law and for the law, man’s highest good and final goal is this moral perfection, this legal righteousness. To stand spotless and without blame before the law is thought to be man’s ultimate hope. This righteousness is often conceived in terms of merit; each good deed has a certain quantity of righteousness or merit associated with it. During the course of his life, a man acquires merit by his good works or demerit by his sins, transgressions of the law. At the final judgment these will be weighed in the double-pan balance of justice (dike). And justice will render to each impartially that which is due to him (he has earned it). If the merits outweigh the demerits, the man is legally declared righteous and legally entitled to eternal life and blessedness (he has earned it). On the other hand, if the demerits predominate, he justly deserves and receives eternal death, punishment, pain and suffering. In order for man to be saved, he must have this righteousness, this moral perfection. Thus man needs to be saved, not only because he is a guilty sinner, but also because he does not have this legal righteousness. This legalistic concept of righteousness is a misunderstanding of the Biblical concept of righteousness. The Biblical concept of righteousness is revealed in the story of Abraham. After God revealed His promises to Abraham, the Scripture says,
“then he believed in the Lord; and He [God] reckoned it [his faith] to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; see also Rom. 4:3 and Gal. 3:6).
Abraham believed the promises of God and his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.
“For what does the scriptures say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.'” (Rom. 4:3)
“… We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” (Rom. 4:9)
And Abraham’s faith was reckoned to him as righteousness because faith in God is righteousness, the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:16-22). Righteousness is not a quality that we possess, neither merit that we have earned or have imputed to our account, but a right relationship to God. Faith in God relates us rightly to God. A man is righteous when he is in right relationship to God. And faith in God, believing the promises of God, trusting in God is being in right relationship to God. The righteousness of faith is the opposite of sin; sin is trusting in a false god and righteousness is trusting in the true God. Just as man’s basic sin is idolatry, so man’s basic righteousness is faith in, allegiance to and worship of the true God from the heart; this is the righteousness of faith. It has nothing to do with merit just as sin has nothing to do with demerit.
Legalism also misinterprets the righteousness of God as justice, that is, as that principle of God’s being that requires and demands the reward of good work (comformity to the Law) because of their intrinsic merit (remunerative justice) and the punishment of every transgression of the law with a proportionate punishment because of its own intrinsic demerit (retributive justice). According to this view, for God to do otherwise He would be unrighteous and unjust. Absolute justice, which according to this legalistic point of view is the eternal being of God, is said to require and demand, of necessity, the reward of meritorious good works and the punishment of sin.
But the righteousness of God is not the justice of God, but is God acting to set man right with God Himself and is synonymous with salvation. Very often in the Old Testament it is the action of God for the vindication and deliverance of His people; it is the activity in which God saves His people by rescuing them from their oppressors.
“In thee, O Lord, do I seek refuge; let me never be put to shame; in thy righteousness deliver me!” (Psa. 31:1)
“In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline thy ear to me, and save me!” (Psa. 71:2)
“143:11For thy name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In thy righteousness bring me out of trouble! 143:12And in thy steadfast love cut off my enemies. and destroy all my adversaries, for I am thy servant.” (Psa. 143:11-12)
Thus the righteousness of God is often a synonym for the salvation or the deliverance of God. There is a difference between the righteousness of God in the Old Testament and that in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the righteousness of God is the vindication of the righteous who are suffering wrong (Ex. 23:7). God vindicates the righteous who are wrongfully oppressed. In the Old Testament, the righteousness of God requires a real righteousness of the people on whose part it is done. In Isa. 51:7, the promise of deliverance is addressed to those “who know righteousness, the people in whose hearts is my law.” Similarly, in order to share in the promised vindication, the wicked must forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return unto the Lord (Isa. 55:7). In the New Testament, the righteousness of God is not only a vindication of a righteous people who are being wrongfully oppressed (this view is in Jesus’ teaching in Matt. 5:6; 6:33; Luke 18:7), but it is also a deliverance of the people from their own sins; it is also the salvation of the ungodly who are delivered from their ungodliness (trust in a false god) and unrighteousness. The righteousness of God saves the unrighteous by setting them right with God Himself through faith (Rom. 1:17a).
The righteousness of God is not opposed to the love of God nor does it condition it. On the contrary, it is a part of and the proper expression of God’s love. It is the activity of God’s love to set right the wrong. In the Old Testament, this is shown by the parallelism between love and righteousness.
“But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and His righteousness to children’s children.” (Psa. 103:17). (See also Psa. 33:5; 36:5-6; 40:10; 89:14.)
God expresses His love as righteousness in the activity by which He saves His people from their sins. In His wrath, He opposes the sin that would destroy man whom He loves. In His grace, God removes the sin: the grace of God is the love of God in action to bring salvation (Titus 2:11; Eph. 2:8). The grace of God may properly be called the righteousness of God. For in His righteousness, God acts to deliver His people from their sins, setting them right with Himself.
The righteousness of God is God acting in love for the salvation or deliverance of man. This righteousness of God has been manifested, that is, publicly displayed, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-22). God was active in Jesus Christ, particularly in His death and resurrection, for salvation (Acts 4:12; I Thess. 5:9; I Tim. 2:10; 3:15; Heb. 5:9). Because He is the act of God for our salvation, Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God (I Cor. 1:30). The gospel or good news is about this manifestation of the righteousness of God. The gospel tells us about God’s act of salvation in the person and work of Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:3-4; Eph. 1:13). But the gospel is not only about the righteousness of God manifested in the past on our behalf, but in the preaching of the gospel the righteousness of God is being continually revealed (apokalupto) in the present.
“For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is being revealed from faith unto faith” (Rom. 1:17a ERS).
The revelation that is spoken of in this verse is not just a disclosure of truth to be understood by the mind, but it is a working that makes effective and actual that which is revealed. Hence, the revelation of the righteousness of God is that working of God that makes effective and actual that which is revealed, that is, the righteousness of God. In other words, the revelation of the righteousness of God is the actualization of God’s salvation. And the righteousness of God is revealed when the salvation of God is made actual and real, that is, when salvation or deliverance takes place. Thus in the preaching of the gospel there is taking place continually an actualization of the righteousness of God. In other words, salvation or deliverance is taking place as the gospel is preached. This is the reason that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16. Compare Rom. 1:16-17 with Isa. 56:1 which is, no doubt, the source of Paul’s concepts and words in these verses.)
The gospel not only tells us about this manifestation of the righteousness of God, but also in the gospel the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or made effective and actual (Rom. 1:17a). When the gospel is preached, God is acting to set man right with Himself. The result of God’s activity of righteousness is the righteousness of faith, the righteousness from God, since it has been received from God by faith. God in His righteousness sets man right with Himself and through faith man is set right with God; faith rightly relates man to God. The righteousness of God is what God does and the righteousness of faith is what man does in response to God’s activity. The righteousness of faith is the righteousness from God because faith, which is man’s response to the word of God, comes from God (Rom. 10:6-8, 17); that is, in a sense, faith is “caused” by the word of God, even though it is man who does the believing and trusting.
Faith is the actualization of the righteousness of God or the salvation of God. This is expressed by Paul in Romans 1:17a in a twofold way: “from faith unto faith”. These prepositional phrases modify the verb “being revealed”, not the words “the righteousness of God.” The revelation is “from faith unto faith.”
1. Faith is the source of the revelation of the righteousness of God: “from faith”. The revelation of the righteousness of God arises out of or comes out of faith. That is, the actualization of the deliverance of God is the faith which the righteousness of God produces. The righteousness of God is revealed only when the one to whom the revelation comes has faith. Without faith there is no revelation, and only when there is faith is there a revelation, an actualization, of the righteousness of God. In this sense, faith is the source of the revelation of the righteousness of God.
2. Faith is goal of the revelation of the righteousness of God: “unto faith”. The revelation of the righteousness of God moves toward and is accomplished in faith. When a man has faith, the deliverance of God has reached its goal. Faith then is the goal of the revelation of the righteousness of God.
Faith is not the means nor the condition of salvation but is the actualization of salvation. Salvation is not a thing which is received by faith but is God’s activity of deliverance which produces faith and is accomplished in that faith. In salvation, God does not give us something but gives us Himself, and faith is not receiving of something but is the receiving of Him. In salvation God does not just reveal something about Himself but reveals Himself. Apart from this personal revelation, faith is impossible, but when this revelation take place, faith is possible. Since “faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17), faith is the product of God’s activity of the revelation of Himself. And this revelation takes place in the preaching of the gospel.
The Protestant Reformers rejected the Roman teaching that grace is given by the sacraments to enable the will of man to earn his salvation by meritorious works and taught that salvation is by grace through faith and that the grace of God regenerated the believer, giving him a new nature, by which he can do good works, but not to earn salvation and eternal life (Christ had earned this for them by His active obedience), but to show that they are saved and regenerated. According to their teaching, the believer has two natures, a sinful nature and a new nature, and the experience recorded in Romans 7 was interpreted as the struggle between these two natures. This legalistic explanation of salvation and of the Christian life leaves the believer under the law, and under the dominion of sin ( Rom. 6:14). And this legalistic explanation of Romans 7 also leaves the believer with no deliverance from this struggle, contrary to the clear teaching of Scirpture that there is deliverance:
“7:24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 7:25aI thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 7:24-25a KJV)
John Wesley (1703-1791) in the 18th century recognized that there was deliverance from the Roman 7 experience, and he put forth the teaching that there was a second work of grace (the first work of grace was conversion), which he called entire sanctification, that would eradicate the sinful nature, cleansing from inbred sin and enabling those experiencing this work of grace to live without conscious or deliberate sin (Christian Perfection). But his explanation of this deliverance as the eradication of the sinful nature assumes that the struggle of Roman 7 is caused by the sinful nature. This assumption is wrong; the cause of the struggle is not the sinful nature, but being under law. According Rom. 6:14, sin has dominion over the believer when he is under the law and the deliverance from the dominion of sin is to be under grace.
“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom. 6:14)
The grace of God, God’s love in action, delivers the believer from the dominion and slavery of sin by placing the believer back under the grace of God. God does this by not condemning the believer who is in Christ Jesus.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1).
Under the law, the law condemns those who sin; it does not deliver those under the law from the dominion of sin. But God does not condemn them but places them back under grace and delivers them from the dominion of sin (“the law of sin”) and of death (“the law of death”) by the operation of the Spirit (“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”).
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” (Rom. 8:2 ERS).
The law separates the believer who is under law from God; this is practically the same as spiritual death. Thus the believer under law sins because he is practically spiritually dead. For the Christian to place himself under law is like placing oneself in spiritual death; the law has taken the place of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and it has the same results as spiritual death — it produces sin.
Wesley, while recognizing that there was deliverance from the Roman 7 experience, misunderstood that deliverance as an eradication of the sinful nature. He did not recognize that the cause of the Roman 7 experience was being under the law, not the sinful nature. And he did not recognize this cause because his explanation of the need for salvation was legalistic (all men are under the law and have sinned by transgressing that law) as was the explanation of Augustine and of the Prostestant Reformers. And his explanation of salvation was also legalistic: he believed that the passive obedience of Christ’s death paid the penalty of men’s sin and that the active obedience of Christ’s good works earned for us eternal life which is imputed to our account when we believe. Also his concept of Christian Perfection and Holiness was also a legalistic misinterpretation of the Christian Life as sinless perfection.
In chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul discusses the Christian’s relationship to the law. This discussion actually began with the statement in Rom. 6:14 (“you are not under law, but under grace.”) which raised the question in Rom. 6:15 (“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?”) and its answer in Rom. 6:16 through 6:23. Then Paul says that the Christian is not under law because he has died with Christ to the law (Rom. 7:1-6).
Then Paul discusses the experience of the one under the law. The man in Romans 7:7-24 is the Christian under law. This is not where the Christian should be — he is not under law ( Rom. 6:14) because he is dead to the law ( Rom. 7:4, 6). The Christian life depicted in Romans 7 is an abnormal (or subnormal) Christian life; there is no mention of the Holy Spirit in Rom. 7:7-24; the law has taken the place of the Holy Spirit. Such defeat and despair are not characteristic of the normal Christian life depicted in Romans 8 and elsewhere in the New Testament.
For the Christian to be under law is for him to be under the dominion of the law and to be a slave of the law ( Rom. 7:25b); this slavery to the law would be equivalent to an idolatry of the law which is basically what legalism is. The Christian becomes entrapped in this legalism when he believes the legalistic teaching that a Christian’s relationship to God depends upon his submission to the law and he has accepted the legalistic claim that the law is the way to be delivered from the dominion of sin. But the law does not deliver from the dominion and slavery of sin, but rather the passions of sin are aroused or energized by the law.
“While we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.”
(Rom. 7:5 ERS)
The law is not thereby sin (Rom. 7:7), but sin finding opportunity in the commandment “Thou shalt not covet” works all kinds of covetousness (Rom. 7:7-8). The law, instead of delivering from the dominion of sin, leads instead to the enslavement to sin (7:14, 25b). Instead of leading to life as legalism promises, the commandment leads to death (7:10). Sin uses the commandment as an opportunity to come alive or active (7:9, 11). The man under law wants to do what is right, but he cannot do it (7:18). Thus legalism leads to the moral dilemma: the contradiction between what man is and what he ought to be (7:19). The end is defeat and despair. In verses 21 to 23 of chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans Paul gives the conclusion of his analysis of this dilemma.
“7:21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil is present with me. 7:22For I delight in the law of God according the inner man, 7:23but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin which is in my members.” (Rom. 7:21-23)
There are three laws operating in this experience.
1. The first law is the law of sin (verse 21).
Since sin is not what man under law wants to do,
he concludes that sin must dwell in the members of his body
rather than in his real inner self (7:17-20).
2. The second law is the law of God (verse 22),
which the man under law delights in,
which he agrees with his mind is right, good and holy (7:12, 16);
this law is “the law of the mind” referred to in the next verse.
3. The third law is the “another law” in verse 23. The Greek word heteros, translated “another”, means “another of a different kind”; not allos, “another of the same kind”. This is a law different from the first two laws; it wars against the law of the mind, which is the law of God, and brings the man who is under law into captivity to the law of sin. What is this third law? In the next verse, we find a clue. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (7:24) The law of death is this third law, this other law. And this is confirmed in Romans 8:2 which says,
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:2)
The law of death brings the man under law into captivity to the law of sin. Death leads to sin; that is, because of death all have sinned (Rom. 5:12d, “because of which [death] all sinned” ERS.).
The law separates the man under law from God; this is practically the same as spiritual death. And the man under law sins because he is practically spiritually dead. For the Christian to place himself under law is like placing himself in spiritual death; the law has taken the place of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and it has the same results as spiritual death — sin. Romans 7 is not the normal Christian life but the abnormal or subnormal experience of the believer who is under law. But if the Christian falls into this legalism, there is deliverance.
“Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (7:25a). In Romans 7:25b through 8:4 there may be found three steps for deliverance from legalism:
“7:25bSo then, I myself am a slave to the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin. 8:1There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. 8:2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 8:3For what the law could not do, in that it is weakened through the flesh, God Himself, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, 8:4in order that the righteous acts of law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
(Rom. 7:25b-8:4 ERS)
Step 1 – The recognition that legalism is the problem (Rom. 7:25b). “So then, on the one hand, I myself with my mind am a slave to the law of God, but on the other hand, with my flesh to the law of sin.” (Rom. 7:25b ERS) To be delivered from legalism one must first recognize that he himself is a slave to the law and a slave to the law of sin, that is, that he is under the law and sin has dominion over him ( Rom. 6:14).
Step 2 – Deliverance from condemnation (Rom. 8:1). “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1 NAS) God delivers from legalism through His word of unconditional love which says that there is no condemnation to those in Christ. This is a word of grace and places the Christian back under grace. Legalism conditions God’s love by our sins. God says that His love is unconditioned by our sins. Therefore, God does not condemn us for our failure under the law but delivers us from under law and places us back under grace. For in His love God delivers us from sin and death (Rom. 8:2) and thus from wrath which is condemnation.
Step 3 – Deliverance from sin and death (Rom. 8:2).“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you
free from the law of sin and of death.” (Rom. 8:2 NAS)
Paul here says that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” has set him and his readers free from “the law of sin and [the law of] death.” Paul, like other New Testament writers, uses the Greek word nomos (usually translated “law”) in several different ways. The following are some of them.
1. The first 5 books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch (Matt. 12:5; Luke 2:23-24; 16:16; 24:44; Rom. 3:21b).
2. The whole Old Testament (Rom.3:19 referring to the passages quoted in Rom.3:10-18 which are not just from the Pentateuch; John 10:34, quoting Psa. 82:6; I Cor. 14:21, quoting Isa. 28:11)
3. The Mosaic covenant that God made with the children of Israel (Exodus 24:1-12; Rom. 2:12; 3:19; 4:13-14; Gal. 3:17-18).
4. The Ten Commandments, the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-21; Matt. 5:18), sometimes improperly called the moral law.
5. All the commandments of God, ceremonial as well as the Ten Commandments; all statutes and ordinances of the law of Moses (Luke 2:22; John 7:23).
6. Teaching, instruction, guidance (Rom. 2:17, 18, 20, 23, 26); compare this with the meaning of the Hebrew word Torah which has the same meaning. As such it is that content of God’s revelation (the Word of the Lord, Deut. 5:5; Psa. 119:43, 160) which makes clear man’s relationship to God and to his fellow man. It provides guidance for man’s actions in his relationship to God and to his fellow man.
7. Any commandment regulating conduct (Rom. 7:7, 8-9).
8. A principle or power of action (Rom. 3:27; 7:21, 23, 25; 8:2).
This last use is the way Paul uses it here in this verse ( Rom. 8:2). The Greeks and the Romans believed that the law had the power to force compliance with the law (Cicero, Laws, II, 8-10). In their view, the law was a principle or power of action which could by its action bring about what the law prescribed; it was not merely a description of or prescription for some action; the law made the action occur. This is the sense in which Paul speaks of “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” and of “the law of sin” and of “the law of death.” These are not merely descriptions of how the Spirit or death or sin acted; they are powers that act and bring about certain actions. Thus the law of the Spirit of life is the power of the Spirit of God acting to make one alive, and thus freeing from the law or power of action of death and of sin. The law of death is power of death acting to make one dead. The law of sin is the power of sin acting to make one sin. In the next verse ( Rom. 8:3), Paul says that the law of God is unable to make righteous; it does not have that power of action. And, as Paul says in Gal. 3:21, righteousness is not by the law because the law cannot make alive; the law of God does not have that power of action either. The law or power of action of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law or power of action of sin and of death. Since death leads to sin, the Spirit delivers from sin by giving us life in Christ which is deliverance from death. The law is not able to do this; it is through the death of Christ ( Rom. 8:3) who puts an end to sin’s reign over us (“condemn sin in the flesh”) by His death for us (Rom. 6:6-10). The result is that the righteous acts of the law are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit ( Rom. 8:4). To walk after the flesh is to try to do the righteous acts of the law by human effort (“the flesh”). The believer must not do it that way. By walking after the Spirit, the beleiver will fulfill the righteous acts of the law. He will love God with his heart, soul, and mind, with his whole being, and he will love his neighbor as he loves himself.
The interpretation of Romans 7 as the Christian struggle with the sinful nature is a legalistic misinterpretation. This misinterpretation considers the normal Christian life as under law and the sinful nature as the explanation why the Christian cannot keep the law and has this struggle. The flesh is considered to be the sinful nature.
But the sinful nature is not needed to explain the struggle and defeat in Romans 7; the Christian cannot live by the law any more than he can he be saved by the law. The law cannot produce righteousness because it cannot make alive.
“Is the law then against the promise of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” (Gal. 3:21)
Only a real personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit can produce righteousness, that is, the right relationship to God and to man. The law cannot make alive to God; that is, the law cannot produce a real personal relationship to God of love and trust in God. To try to live the Christian life by the law separates and isolates the Christian from God (spiritual death) and the attempt by human self-effort (the flesh) to live up to standard of the law results in failure and sin. As right and good is the law, God did not give it as a means of salvation nor as the way to live the Christian life by it. So all attempts to do so will fail, as Romans 7 shows. The sinful nature is not the cause of this failure but the wrong use of the law. Romans 7 shows what happens when the law is used wrongly. The solution to this problem is not to try harder, but to abandon this wrong use of the law. And to turn to God’s way of the Christian life; that is, to walk according to Spirit (by faith), and not according to the flesh (human self-effort) ( Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:25).
The views of Augustine and Calvinism, as well as Welsey’s, totally depersonalize salvation, grace and faith. The Biblical view, on the other hand, is totally personal and dynamic; the grace of God is God’s love in action to bring man into a personal relationship with God Himself and faith is man choosing to enter into that personal relationship. Spiritual and eternal life is this personal relationship between God and man, where the grace of God is God’s side of the relationship and faith is man’s side of the relationship. God initiates this personal relationship and a man must choose to enter into that personal relationship by faith, receiving God’s gift of eternal life and trusting God and His love. Salvation is not a monergism, nor is it a synergism, where the grace of God enables man to do meritorious works, nor is the faith of man a meritorious work by which he earns the salvation. Salvation is God’s act of grace which initiates the personal relationship and man’s act of faith is in response to God’s act, accepting the gift of God, eternal life. This personal relationship has nothing to do with earning something by meritorious works, neither on God’s or man’s side. Grace and faith are just the two sides of the personal relationship between God and man; grace is God’s side initiating and sustaining the relationship and faith is man’s side in response to God’s grace, entering into the personal relationship with God.
The Christian life is the continuation of this personal relationship where the believer walks by faith and acts upon the basis of God’s sustaining grace and the personal guidance and empowering of the Holy Spirit. Grace and faith are relational concepts and are not just properties of either God or man. The grace of God is God acting in His love toward man and faith is man choosing to trust God and His love. Because of their underlying legalism, the views of Augustine and the Protestant Reformers, as well as Welsey’s, have obscured and distorted this Biblical view of salvation and of the Christian life.
Salvation by works is one aspect of legalism which attempts to understand the relationship between God and man in terms of the law. Legalism is not just having a lot of do’s and don’ts, rules and regulations. It is a misunderstanding of the rules and regulations and of the law of God. The law of God is not legalism; it was the covenant relationship between God and the people of Israel. In the Old Testament, Israel was not saved by meritorious works of the law; they were not under the law but in a covenant relationship to God (see the Greek of Romans 2:12 and 3:19). Legalism attempts to put all men under the law; that is, to define man’s relationship to God in terms of the law. And in particular, legalism attempts to put the Christian under the law (contrary to Rom. 6:14). Christian legalism not only ignores the clear statements of the Scriptures that the Christian is not under law ( Rom. 6:14), but also ignores the equally clear statements of the Scriptures that the Christian is dead to the law.
“Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit to God.” (Rom. 7:4)
“For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God.” (Gal 2:19)
Not only is the Christian dead to sin but is also dead to the law. Through Christ’s death, the believer has died to sin and to the law, and now in the resurrected Christ he is alive to God.
“But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Rom. 7:6)
The Christian has passed from under the reign of death and sin unto reigning in life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 5:17). The law was the rule in the dispensation of death (II Cor. 3:6-7); the letter kills and the law condemns. The Holy Spirit is the rule of life in the new dispensation of life (II Cor. 3:17-18). Since the Spirit gives life (II Cor. 3:6), the dispensation of life is the dispensation of the Spirit (II Cor. 3:8), the Era of the Spirit. Since the Christian has passed from death to life, he has passed from the rule of the law to the rule of the Spirit. The law as the rule of Christian life has no place in the Era of the Spirit. And if the law has no place in the Era of the Spirit, legalism as an idolatry and misunderstanding of the law has no place in the Era of the Spirit either.
Legalism is the cause of many problems in the church. It is the cause of a dead orthodoxy and a cold, unloving Christianity. To correct these effects of legalism there have arisen in the church various movements such as pietism, the evangelical awakening, the deeper life movement, revivalism, etc. None of these movements went to the source of the deadness, coldness and unlovableness but often just reinforced the cause — legalism. The great outpouring of the Spirit starting at the beginning of the twentieth century has been constantly burdened and limited by the frequent relapses into the same legalism. And the source of the legalism in practice is the legalism of the theology. Practical legalism is the result of theological legalism. The problem is not too much theology but bad theology, legalistic theology. This theological legalism has misunderstood the Gospel of our salvation. With the present move of the Spirit, the time has come to remove the cause of this practical legalism by clearing the theological legalism out of our theology and again recovering the Bibical understanding of the Gospel of our salvation. Such a theological renewal should be the natural accompaniment of the move of the Spirit of God today and could produce a reformation comparable to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. This book is an attempt to contribute to such a theological renewal.
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