Grace

I believe there is nothing in and of the sinner that prompts God to act kindly towards him (Romans 1:16; Galatians 3:26). Why, then, does a sinner, an unrighteous hell-deserving rebel, receive eternal life and escape eternal punishment? It is solely by God’s grace, alone. The grace of God in the gospel is first and foremost the good news that God himself has rescued us from His own wrath and that He adopts its recipients as sons into an eternal relationship with Himself. In the gospel the love of God is revealed. God is fiercely opposed to our unrighteousness and our suppression and distortion of the truth to justify ourselves (Rom 1:18). But in spite of our rebellion, Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The love of God had to deal with both man’s unrighteousness and God’s wrath. How does this gospel do this? The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes because “in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” (Rom 1:17)

How can this be good news, however, when the righteousness of God is our problem and men are never found naturally willing to submit in faith to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? (Rom 3:11; John 6:64,65; 2 Thessalonians 3:2) Because God gives to us freely, what he demands from us. In it God reveals the same righteousness for us that God demands from us. What we had to have, but could not create or perform or supply (faith and holiness), God grants us freely, namely, his own righteousness and the gift of faith. He reveals, as a gift in Christ Jesus, the faith and righteousness that was once only a demand. God saves us by grace alone, through faith alone, and this faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.