GROWING IN GRACE & KNOWLEDGE

 

SIX WEE GLIMPSES OF GRACE

Growing in Grace & Knowledge

What’s the Gospel?

The Gospel is about the doing and dying of Jesus. Jesus did what Adam failed to do, and He paid the penalty for that failure. Adam failed to keep God’s Law that He had written on Adam and mankind’s heart. Jesus kept God’s Law in all its applications perfectly unto death. Therefore, His life was substitutionary, and His death was substitutionary.

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In rugby or soccer as in many sports, a substitute can be brought on to replace an injured player. In our case, Adam and all of mankind was injured to the point of being dead in our trespasses and sins. We were dead, out of the game for life. Jesus perfectly kept all the rules and played a perfect game. The fulltime whistle was blown when He breathed His last on the cross.

God raised Jesus from the tomb because He was without sin. He died to pay the penalty for His team’s foul play. He paid for His side’s sins, and, since death is the wages for sin of which He had none of His own, God was obligated to bring Him back to life.

So, in the simplest of terms Paul says, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved” (Rom. 10:9-10 NIV). Therefore, you believing that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead is your salvation. Telling others that you believe this, is evidence that you personally have been saved. Your profession of faith is to declare that you are on Christ’s team.

If you belong to Jesus, then you have been saved from God’s punishment of sin, i.e., breaking His Law. You have been justified by the Father because of everything that Jesus did in His life and His death, yes, His doing and dying. The Holy Spirit is the One who brought you, the believer, this good news by His Word. “Faith comes by hearing…” He has given you the gift of faith, i.e., belief in the Gospel, in God’s Word.

Now, go and score some goals for the Lord!

What’s Sin?

John says, “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4 NIV). When God saves us, He gives us three main things, three things that we lost when Adam sinned. He renews us in Knowledge (Col. 3:10), Righteousness, and Holiness (Eph. 4:24).

If we remember that the Holy Spirit always works with the Word of God, we will understand that this knowledge has to do with God’s revelation, creational and written, i.e., through the things He has made and by the sixty-six books of the Bible. It is God renewing your mind (Rom. 12:2). Your mind was darkened before you believed (Eph. 4:18). Now you are saved, God the Holy Spirit is shining the light of His Word in there.

Righteousness has to do with your being justified by God. God has applied to you what Jesus did. Jesus kept God’s Law perfectly as your substitute. Growing in the knowledge of God and His works means that you are holy, set apart from the world by God for God. You no longer play for the world. You are now on Christ’s team.

The power sin had over you has been broken. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1-2). Sure, you still sin, but God has given you a new nature. Your nature now has the power to not sin. Your will has been set free from its bondage to sin, self, and Satan. You now live for Christ. You wear His jersey, His uniform.

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If you find a nice big juicy red apple with a worm in it, especially after you’ve bitten into it, you spit it out as fast as you can. That should be our reaction when we discover sin in our heart. Jesus speaks of hell as the place where "the worms that eat them do not die…” (Mark 9:48a). Sin tastes too much like hell. So, spit it out and look to the Saviour!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:1-2).

Now, because you are holy, you want to know more about Christ and His righteousness. As Jesus says, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33). Sin is the opposite of righteousness. Sin is breaking the law that Jesus kept perfectly for sinners such as yourself. Righteousness is Jesus doing what you could not do. But now that you have been saved, now that you are growing in knowledge, now that you have been justified, now that you are holy, you have the God-given ability to turn your back on sin by the power of the Spirit working with the Word in your heart. “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psa. 119:11).

As a watch with a dead battery is merely an ornament, so is anyone without God’s Word hid in their heart. Christians are to be doers of His Word. The more we fill ourselves by reading and studying God’s Word, the more we give the Spirit to work with in our battle with sin.

Kick sin through the opposition’s goalposts!

What’s Justification?

Paul says about Jesus, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).

Jesus was our substitute. His death was to save us from God’s punishment for our sins. The Father punished His Son instead of punishing us. This means that God’s justice has been satisfied. This means that God has been paid in full what He was owed for Adam’s and our breaking His Law. When Adam broke covenant with God by breaking His law, he did so as our representative. He failed the outward test by eating the forbidden fruit, the fruit with the worm in it.

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As the sign in the antique shops says, “You break it, you pay for it.” What Adam broke, Jesus paid for. But He paid only for those who believe in His Gospel, His team members. As Adam represents all mankind, Jesus represents those His Father has justified, i.e., believers, those who wear His jersey.

Justification is about being declared innocent by God. It is to have had your bill for breaking God’s Law paid in full, paid by Jesus. And since you yourself are included in that which Adam broke as your representative, you being declared right with God in God’s court of Law, declared just, means that you as it were are being dewormed by the Spirit working with His Word in your heart. The Spirit is the new battery in your watch, the power that never grows dim or runs out.

As Jesus was raised from the dead for our justification, you who are justified by Him are being raised back to life too. You were what He was, i.e., dead. Now you are being made what He is, i.e., alive! His righteousness has been imputed to you. This is justification. The Holy Spirit by His Word has communicated this good news to you. You have believed the Gospel. You have been regenerated by the Spirit. You, who were a flat football, have now been filled by the Spirit and are ready for play.

Keep the ball away from the opposition!

What’s Sanctification?

Sanctification us the Holy Spirit working with His Word in your heart to make you into what God has declared you to be, i.e., righteous.

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Sanctification flows out of Justification. Justification is the bubbling spring that supplies the water of the Word that cleanses us of our sin through the process of sanctification. Justification is the raincloud. Sanctification is the cloudburst that washes away our sins. Christ has won our salvation for us. “It is finished” (John 19:30). His Spirit has notified us of His victory. Even though we were nothing more than spectators sitting in the bleachers, sanctification is our shower after the game.

To be holy is to be in the world but not under its sinful influence. It is to be in Christ’s team, the winning side. Though you have been declared righteous, and thus are something that you were not before, i.e., holy, you must now strive, by the power of the Spirit within you, to become more holy. You want to grow in knowledge of Jesus and His righteousness, and you want to grow in holiness. “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).

Christ is where all our righteousness stored. The Holy Spirit applies that righteousness to all who believe, we “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood” (1 Pet. 1:2). The Spirit sprinkles us with Christ’s blood, the blood that cleanses us of all sin (1 John 1:7). This after-match shower is pictured in Covenant Baptism.  “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word” (Eph. 5:25b-26). The Spirit works with the Word to make us holy. This is sanctification.

Join the cloud of witnesses to Christ’s victory parade!

What's the Trinity?

To be baptised is as it were to wear the team’s jersey of which Jesus is Captain. “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal. 3:27). We must never forget whose side we’re on. Christians wear the name of Christ. We barrack for Him, not for ourselves, and most definitely not for the other side! In other words, we are to remember our baptism.

As Jesus represents us, so the Father represents God, who is Triune. When we are baptised, the element used is water and the formula is “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19b). If the water represents the Spirit “cleansing [us] by the washing with water through the word,” then we will easily see the importance of the Trinitarian formula being used in the administration of baptism. For therein we clearly see the Spirit working with the Word. It is the name of the Triune God we are being baptised into through Christ our representative. The sprinkled and/or poured water being applied to us speaks of those “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood” (1 Pet. 1:2).

It is our Trinitarian baptism that visually separates us from the world. Baptism is a sign and seal of righteousness, our Captain’s righteousness. It is primarily about promise not profession. To be baptised is to have the covenant promise of the Father (representing the Triune God) affixed to you. Communion or the Lord’s Supper is about our profession of faith.

Whereas Baptism speaks of our union with the Triune God through Christ our Captain, the Lord’s Table is where we get to celebrate this union in communion with God and His people. The Lord’s Supper is Christ’s team celebrating His victory over the Devil and his team. It is the celebration of the death of death through the death of Christ. The Father has chosen you for Christ’s team. The Son has won the contest with the devil and death for you. And the Spirit has revealed your victory over sin, self, Satan and death! Covenant Baptism cleanses you for the Covenant Meal.

The Spirit is the “Promise of the Father” (Luke 24:49). “On one occasion, while [Jesus] was eating with them, he gave them this command: ‘Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit’” (Acts 1:4-5).

As per the great Commission, the Father promised that He “will sprinkle many nations” (Isa. 52:15a), and “I will pour out my Spirit on all people” (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17), so the Father kept His promise. It was as John the baptiser had said, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16). As per the baptising the nations in the Great Commission, the Father kept His promise made through Ezekiel, “For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezek. 36:24-27).

The Father choses people from the nations for His Son’s team. The Son has already won the contest by fighting to the death and shedding His blood for His team. The Holy Spirit clothes His team with jerseys that have been cleansed by the blood of Christ’s cross. His team hears the good news of their victory through the ear-gate by the preaching of the Gospel, and they see the Gospel through the eye-gate in the two Sacraments, i.e., Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

All non-Christians deny that God is Triune, i.e., Father and Son and Holy Spirit. They reject the Trinity to their peril. They are on the other team. Don’t rub in their defeat. Rather, try to win them over. For they have lost possession of the ball, i.e., eternal life in Jesus Christ. We hear about it in the Gospel and we see it in the both Sacraments.

Always keep your eye on the ball!    

What's Covenant Theology?

Covenant Theology is a whole of Scripture approach to understanding the Gospel and the Sacraments. It is Trinitarian. It sees the Gospel as being synonymous with the Covenant of Grace. Grace for salvation began to be revealed by God to man right after Adam sinned in the Garden (Gen. 3:15). Adam broke the same covenant that the second Adam, Jesus, perfectly kept (Hos. 6:7; Rom. 5:18-19)). Christ’s keeping and paying the penalty threatened for breaking the pre-Fall Covenant of Works is what we call the Gospel, i.e., the Covenant of Grace.

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Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8b). He is the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He is the promised Messiah, i.e., the Christ (Matt. 16:16). He was chosen by God (1 Pet. 2:6). He is the elect in whom are the elect of God, i.e., all who are on His team. “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph. 1:4).

Covenant Theology reflects the Trinity. In the Godhead, in what has been referred to as “the Trinitarian dance” where each Person interpenetrates the Others in the One and the Many, (God is many Persons but one God), so, in Covenant Theology all theological doctrines interpenetrate the others but are one. They are all interconnected, like a seamless garment as opposed to a patchwork quilt. They dance with each other. Like the books of the Bible, they are one and many.

Utilizing and synthesizing Biblical Theology and Dogmatic/Systematic Theology) Covenant Theology begins with the Triune God in eternity past. From there, it traces the Bible’s revelation of Creation, the Covenant with Adam, the Fall, the Covenant of Grace, the Flood, the giving of God’s Law, the Word’s Incarnation, His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the outpouring of the Spirit, the gathering in of the nations by the preaching of His Word, Christ’s coming on the Last Day/Resurrection Day, the new Heavens and new Earth, and our dwelling with Him thereon in His everlasting Kingdom, and more, yes, the whole Bible!

In Covenant Theology, Scripture interprets Scripture. Jesus says, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40). The Scriptures speak of Jesus. Therefore, Covenant Theology comes to Jesus and trusts Him as its hermeneutic, i.e., Covenant Theology uses Jesus to interpret the Scriptures. Thus, the Word interprets the Word.

Scripture is the Book of the Covenant and Christ is our Covenant (Isa. 42:6, 49:8). We are sprinkled by His blood, i.e., the blood of the Covenant. “In the case of a will [i.e., a covenant] it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will [i.e., a covenant] is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep” (Heb. 9:16-20).

Christians are clothed in Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. We wear His shirt, sprinkled by His blood. That’s what makes us holy, His blood. It is Trinitarian. The Father chose us, elected us in eternity past to be given to His Son should the Son covenant with the Father to become flesh and lay down His life for them. The Spirit testifies to this covenant with His Word.

The Father promised the Son a Kingdom, i.e., people and a place, Paradise (Psa. 2:7-9; Luke 23:43). Jesus lived and died for this people. “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” (Matt. 1:21). His people are those who have been chosen by the Father in eternity past, these are the same people for whom Christ died (thereby releasing the blessings of the eternal Covenant), and are the same people the Holy Spirit comes to with His Word that they may hear and believe the good news of their salvation. It is these people, renewed and restored in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, who will live with the resurrected and returned Christ in Paradise, the renewed Earth with their resurrected and renewed bodies forever (Rev. 21:1-7, 22:1-5).

Christ’s team have won the cup, the cup that runneth over!