Works or Grace

RIVERSIDE INDONESIAN FELLOWSHIP
Go to content

Works or Grace

Riverside Indonesian Fellowship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2019 · 6 October 2019

We come back to this great epistle of Paul written very early in his ministry to confront the constant problem of people corrupting the gospel. People do it because Satan does it. The gospel alone saves, and therefore Satan wants to confuse people about the gospel. The whole world is confused when it comes to the gospel, to the matter of salvation and being right with God.

Even the church of Jesus Christ, including its leaders and its people, are largely bewitched, by the same false doctrine that holds the world captive. Today we live in the same kind of world that Paul lived in; but this is a world where there is a singular truth. The gospel of Jesus Christ in Holy Scripture: that is God’s plan of salvation through faith alone, apart from works.

But in the time in which we live now, most people have their own self-styled corruption of the gospel, thinking somehow that God owes them heaven because they’re good persons, religious persons, moral persons, philanthropic persons, or they’re not criminals. And even if they are criminals, God still owes them heaven because there are worse criminals than they are.

Heresy can only come in the corruption of the gospel. So part of the responsibility of believers is to make sure we get the gospel clear. So that we are not, as we saw last week in Galatians 3:1, like the foolish Galatians who were true believers, but had become bewitched. They had become literally bewitched, as if they were under some kind of spell, to accept a false gospel.

Paul says, “I can’t even believe how soon you are removed from the truth to another gospel, which is not another, when you should know the true gospel. Anybody who preaches you any other gospel, let him be damned.” and he says it twice. But nonetheless, the Galatians who were true believers who had believed the gospel, were being foolishly bewitched.

We saw that in our message from the first five verses last week. And Paul asks them the question: “Remember your experience. You have met Christ. You have vividly seen His death and the significance of His death and resurrection; you have believed that. You have been regenerated by a miracle of God the Father, and you have become the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Consequently, you have the full Trinity received by faith, not by works. Why are you now foolishly being bewitched by people who tell you that salvation demands works? You already have the full salvation: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. These Judiazers came from Jerusalem and they were falsely teaching: “Unless you are circumcised and follow the custom of Moses you cannot be saved.”

This issue was brought to the leaders of the church in Jerusalem to get the apostles’ opinion. They had a meeting which was recorded in Acts 15. The apostles, the elders got together and they talked about these things, and they said in verse 11, “We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the same way they also are.” Salvation is by grace, through faith, apart from works.

The teaching of God’s Scripture is clear. In Acts 16:30-31, Paul was talking to the Philippian jailers who said to him, “What do I do to be saved?” to which he said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” In John 1:12, the apostle John says, “The children of God are those who believe in His name.” Jesus says in John 3:16, “Whoever believes in the Son of Man, will have eternal life.

And it is clear from the Scripture that there are no works by which we can earn our righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 says, “All our righteousnes are like filthy rags.” We are wretched to the core, to the bone. There is nothing in us that can please God. There is nothing in us that can do anything that honors Him in the way He deserves to be honored by perfect righteousness.

Galatians 3 is Paul’s doctrinal section of the letter. This is where Paul lays out salvation by faith alone. He writes with a heart inspired by God against the Judiazers. They brought a damning heresy, because anyone who propagates that heresy is cursed. And that heresy is that they teach that salvation is not by faith alone, but by faith plus something else.

Everything was correct, but they still became bewitched. So here, in Galatians 3 in particular, and on into Galatians 4, Paul is going to prove that salvation is by faith alone. First, he proves it from their experience in the opening five verses. Then he proves beyond that in Galatians 3: 6, with Scripture which is the source of the rest of his discussion on this important topic.

And for Paul, Scripture was the Old Testament. Paul shows us that salvation has always been by faith alone. Because men are always sinful, incapable of coming to the standard of God’s righteousness. And if they are to be righteous, God has to grant it to them, and He grants it only when they believe Him, and acknowledge Him as trustworthy. Now the hero of these Judaizers was Abraham, the father of Israel.

Abraham meant everything to them. Repeatedly in the gospel accounts, the Jewish people lean on Abraham as their father. And as their father, he passed on to them their Jewish genealogy, and the assumption has been all through the history of Israel that if you’re a Jew, you’re okay with God. That’s certainly what the Jews believed in the time of our Lord; and many believe it even today.

It all began in Genesis 12:2-3, “Now the Lord had said to Abram: 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” God is going to call out a people to whom He will give His divine revelation, a people who will be His witness nation in the world.

That’s their purpose. It is not simply that He designed to save the nation spiritually. In fact, most of the Jews throughout human history are now in hell. They were not saved by the promise that through Abraham, God would build a nation. This is clear in Romans 2:28-29, because it says there, “He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly.” And again in Romans 9:6, “Not all Israel is of Israel.”

The nation of Israel was under the protection of God as a nation to be a witness for Him, but that did not grant them personal salvation. And salvation is always personal, it is always internal, and it is always spiritual. It is never national; it is never external; it is never physical. God is going to call out a people to whom He will give His revelation, to be His witnesses.

Abraham was 75 years old when he followed the command of God and left Haran with his wife Sarah. God says, “I am going to call you, and from your loins produce a great nation that will bless the entire world.” Abram is a believer now in the true God. In Genesis 14:22 he says, “I have sworn to the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth.”

Abram has abandoned all the gods of his ancient family. God comes to him again in Genesis 15:1, and tells him not to be afraid, “I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great.” He’s been told he’s going to be the father of nations; but he doesn’t even have one child. Verse 2, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”

That was his main servant; if there was no son, the inheritance would pass to the son of the main servant. Verse 4-5, “Then the word of the Lord came to him: ‘This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.’ 5 And He took him outside and said, ‘count the stars, if you’re able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’

Verse 6, “Then he believed in the Lord – here’s the key verse – “and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” It was Abraham’s faith that caused God to credit him with divine righteousness. There is salvation by faith. Abraham is the prototype of faith. Abraham is not only physically the father of Jewish people, but spiritually he is the prototype, the father of all who believe God through human history.

So God gives him a nation physically, but also through that nation comes the Messiah, and through that Messiah comes a world family by faith. That’s inherent in the promise of Genesis 12. Now the Jews would say, “Yes, Abraham is the pattern. Yes, he believed God.” But how God was going to provide this seed? So Sarah suggested that he make one of the servants pregnant.

And she got pregnant and bore Ishmael, who fathered the Arab people. That was a problem that keeps going throughout all of human history, as the Arab-Israeli conflict goes back to Hagar and Ishmael. Ten years have passed and there’s still no child. Then the child is born and Abraham is ninety-nine years old. Genesis 17:2, “I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”

Genesis 17:9-11, “And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10 This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; 11 and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.”

At least fourteen years after Genesis 15:6, he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, Abraham was circumcised as an old man. Salvation didn’t come to him because of circumcision. The law was given hundreds of years after Abraham, so he wasn’t saved by observing the law and ceremony of Moses. There was no circumcision when Abraham was reckoned as righteous.

Philippians 3:3, “We are the circumcision who worship Christ in the Spirit.” Ours is a spiritual cleansing. Why was that particular symbol chosen? Circumcision is a symbol of cleansing, as well as a protection. Abraham was declared righteous by God, when he was neither circumcised, nor aware of the Mosaic Law or any ceremonies. God made Abraham a remarkable promise from a human perspective.

In Genesis 22, Isaac is with Abraham. They go up Mount Moriah, to offer a sacrifice. And God says to Abraham, “Isaac is the sacrifice. Put him on the altar and kill him.” And Abraham lifts the knife. Hebrews 11:19 says: he believed that if Isaac died, God would raise him from the dead. Abraham believed that he and Sarah would have a massive family that would fill the earth.

That was a picture of the sacrifice of Christ to come. Romans 4:3, “What does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Righteousness came to Abraham from God because he believed. Was he righteous? No, he was not righteous.

And then Paul quotes in Romans 4:6 from Psalm 32 that God forgives the lawless, covers the sins of the sinful; and He does it by faith. And then Paul asks the question, in Romans 4:9, “Was he circumcised or uncircumcised?” Well, he was uncircumcised. Did he obey the law?” No. there was no law.” This is the biblical argument that you cannot add any works to salvation by faith alone.

Now the Jews thought following Abraham was enough. In Matthew 3, John the Baptist comes preaching to the Jews. And he’s telling them basically that they’re no better than pagans, because he says, “You need to be baptized; I’m here to baptize you.” And the only people that were baptized in their world were Gentiles who wanted to become proselytes to Judaism. So it was a proselyte baptism.

Then John the Baptist said this: “And do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father.’ For I say to you, that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; and you’re going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.” This is reality. They were falsely trusting in their Abrahamic ancestry.

In John 8:32, Jesus is talking to the Jews, and He tells them they don’t know the truth about God, they don’t know the truth about salvation. He says, “If you listen to Me, you’ll know the truth, and the truth will make you free. So they answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, who have never been enslaved to anyone. Jesus said to them, ‘truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.”

Verses 38-39,44, “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father. 39 They answered and said to Him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said, ‘If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham and believe. 44, ‘You’re doing the deeds of your father the devil. He is a murderer and doesn’t stand in the truth because there’s no truth in him.”

Galatians 3:7-9, “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” That becomes the New Testament word to identify all Christians. Let us pray.



JOIN OUR MAILING LIST:

© 2017 Ferdy Gunawan
ADDRESS:

2401 Alcott St.
Denver, CO 80211
WEEKLY PROGRAMS

Service 5:00 - 6:30 PM
Children 5:30 - 6:30 PM
Fellowship 6:30 - 8:00 PM
Bible Study (Fridays) 7:00 PM
Phone (720) 338-2434
Email Address: Click here
Back to content