BFM: Grace
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Introduction
Introduction
As we continue our study of the BFM, we come to one of the most controversial subjects in all of Christianity - Grace. What we are going to do tonight is approach this topic from Scripture and then discuss what Christians think about “grace” in the Salvation process. The key that we must remember is that the BFM was written by great men of the faith who were on both sides of this “issue” if you will. Because of this, the BFM (and the Bible, for that matter) supports both sides. As a church, this is something that we must remember as well because it can be easy for us to automatically get dismissive or offensive of someone who has a different viewpoint than we do. The BFM reminds us that there is Scripture that talks about this and that we must examine said Scripture. After that, though, we still might have a different opinion than a brother or sister. That’s ok! “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity.”
BFM: Grace.
Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility.
All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 45 “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.
Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
We see throughout Scripture that we are saved by Grace through Faith. We see that we are sinners and that there is certainly something mysterious about being “drawn” or “called” by God in the salvation process. There are 2 specific words that are key in this article of the BFM and we will spend the majority of our time tonight on them: election and perseverance.
Election
Election
We know that we are born as sinners. We are in need of saving. Regardless of your view on the word “election”, we can all agree that it is a wonderful and gracious word! We know that God’s election cannot fail. One of the things we talked about last week regarding Salvation is that if you are justified, you are also glorified. God’s election cannot fail or “stop”. Once you are saved, you are saved. Some denominations believe that you can lose your salvation and that some sins cause you to need to be saved again… That’s not the Baptist understanding of Scripture or Election. We believe that once you are saved, you are saved. This is a wonderful truth because it is not up to our obedience but up to God’s obedience. Thankfully, God’s is completely faithful. This gives us hope.
One of the reasons that I think the word “election” gets under our skin or makes us feel uncomfortable is because we think that it means that we have no free will or that we cannot choose to do things. By no means is this what election means (it is what some people will say, but solely off Scripture, this is not what we see). Whenever a person acts, he or she acts freely. You have the ability to choose what you will do. What is important to note is that before Christ, we are “dead” in our sins! Therefore, before Christ we sin freely and we freely sin. What we see with the word election in Scripture is that it is a good thing! It displays mercy for sinners. While we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly! This is not a bad term that should be met with negativity, even if you don’t agree with everything about election, it should be a positive word.
WA Criswell (former pastor of 1st Baptist Dallas and a non 5 point Calvinist)) had this to say about the importance of election: “We have a tendency to back away from the word „predestination,‟ to hesitate before the word „election,‟ but not so with God, and not so with the Word of God. They are words much used. It is a revelation employed and it is a truth of God, functional, on which this earth stands and by which the Kingdom of God abides forever.” What matters when we look at some of these terms like election, predestination and chose is that we look at what Scripture says about them, not what our human mind thinks or what our preference is.
So what does “elect” even mean? The Greek word (eklegomat) means to chose for oneself. We know that God’s people in the OT is a commonly seen term referring to the Jews. We know that in the NT this designation refers to God’s people - His family/children. We see in and 7:6 that God chose Israel. We know that in the New Testament, God chose certain people to proclaim His good news (Paul comes to mind in ). We must remember that election is Christocentric - centered around Christ. Christ was elect (), we are saved through Christ () and election is done in love - not in condemnation.
What are some implications of election? If you are in Christ (elect), you should act like Christ. There is a tie between being saved and living a holy life. We also know that there is assurance and hope because of this term - again, not a bad term.
What does the BFM show about election? God does not “chose” based upon human ability or goodness. This is a good thing because none of us are “good enough” to deserve salvation. We saw last week that there are several different terms to describe Salvation and election is part of that process as well. A non-Christian is not justified or glorified, they are condemned. A Christian is justified and glorified. One thing that the BFM does a great job of is showing how God’s sovereignty and human free will do not contradict one another but rather are compatible with one another.
One of the knocks on “election” is that people will say that if someone is elect then there is no reason to go out and share the Gospel because God does all the work. That is not the message we find in . Salvation comes by hearing the Word. They must respond in faith. There is certainly responsibility on the part of human beings in this process.
As I mentioned from the get-go, the BFM gives us a generic statement about election that all parties involved can truthfully affirm. Whether you believe in conditional election, unconditional election or corporate election rather than individual election, you can affirm this statement - again, this is a unified statement, not a divisive one!
There is mystery and tension in election. We do not have to agree on everything regarding this topic, but we do see the need to be active in missions regardless of where you stand on election.
Perseverance
Perseverance
We made it through the difficult term! Perseverance is something that Baptists are unique compared to other denominations in, however we have a strong Biblical basis of what this term encompasses. The BFM rejects the negative sentiments associated with “once saved, always saved”. Surely you’ve heard this statement, right? What follows, normally? Well I will pray the prayer and then go off and life a very worldly and self-gratifying life because I’m “saved”! Nothing could be further away from the truth.
The BFM affirms the strong assurance that Believers have in salvation, though! Our assurance is not placed in praying a prayer, it is through the power of God Himself. Because of this, perseverance is every bit as much about the perseverance of God with us as it is us. We see the trinity acting in this process.
The Father helps to keep us. We can have confidence that we will persevere not because we are able to do so but because it is a part of God’s nature. As Peter writes in 1 Peter
4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1 Corinthians 1:8
8 who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We also see that Jesus Christ plays a role in this perseverance.
37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.
37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
We see that Jesus talks about His sheep in and says
28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
This is a double negative (no not) in the Greek language which is bad English grammar but only adds to the theological importance. In Greek a double positive or double negative adds to the magnitude of what was stated. It strengthens the case of what was said. In the most strong way possible, Jesus taught that it is impossible for one of His sheep to perish. We see Him talk about sheep often and in several parables He talked about how a shepherd would leave His flock to find one that has gone astray. Praise God that this is the Jesus that we find time and time again in Scripture! Whenever we run astray, Jesus (the good shepherd) finds us and brings us back to the flock.
We also see that the Holy Spirit assures the Believer as well. We looked a couple of weeks ago at and saw how the Spirit is the “downpayment” of salvation and that we have an “earnest” or the full payment coming in the future! The presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Believer obligates the Father to fulfill his promise to complete Salvation in our ultimate redemption and glorification. We have the Holy Spirit now, He helps us persevere and we see that God cannot lose the Spirit, therefore He cannot “lose” us. We see several times that the Spirit “seals” us in 2 Corinthians
21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, 22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.
A seal represents authority and ownership/protection. This is what the Spirit does for us, represents God’s ownership and protection of us!
We have looked a lot at Paul’s letters and he often used legal language to talk about salvation and other theological terms. The declaration of being saved should bring about confidence to a Believer because it is a legal declaration that cannot be overturned! Our judge is God and He cannot overturn His decision, especially because we have the blood of Jesus on our account and the Holy Spirit guiding our thoughts and actions. For God to reject us after being born again would be equivalent to Him rejecting Jesus Christ. We have Christ’s righteousness on our accounts if we are in Christ.
If you believe that you fan “fall away” from everlasting faith then that faith was never everlasting in the first place. As Vance Havner said, “The faith that fizzles before the finish was faulty from the first.” The sign of perseverance is continuance in faith. We keep on because we are kept by God.
Conclusion
Conclusion
We looked at several key words and terms in the BFM regarding grace tonight and gained a better understanding of what election means and how it is not a bad thing as many people make it out to be. We also saw that once we are born again and saved, there is nothing that we can do to “fall away” because we are in Christ and we are a new creation. If you have looked at the handout then you’ve probably noticed that there are several terms on there that are controversial. Calvinism, Arminianism and other such terms can cause conflict in the church today. My reasoning on handing out this chart tonight was because it provides a good amount of information that can help us see where people come from when it comes to reading Scripture and their interpretation of certain theological terms. Grace is a word that we all know but we have a difficult time describing sometimes. This chart helps show what each “group” believes about key questions regarding grace.
I want to stress this point before we dive into this chart. We see in Scripture and in our life experiences that anyone who turns to Jesus for salvation will in fact be saved! We know that some people will think that they are in fact saved and will be shocked to find out one day that the “Lord never knew them”. I want to point out here that this statement can be difficult for us to wrap our minds around, however the point that we must keep in mind here is that we are saved by grace through faith. If you turn to Jesus Christ in genuine repentance and live a changed lifestyle, you are in fact saved. If you think that things like praying a prayer or attending church in and of themselves will save you then you are in for a rude awakening.
I pray that this chart helps to answer questions that you all have and I want to stress that the BFM helps to provide a statement that all 3 of these groups can support.
We must remember in all things that: By his work on the cross Jesus obtained our salvation. By his work in heaven Jesus maintains our salvation. This is good news because it is not up to our obedience - it is up to Christ and His work on the cross. Praise God for this truth!