By Which – The Place Of Grace In Salvation (Part 3)
Passage: Ephesians 1:6
“…to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”
I have no understanding, really, of internal combustion engines. Oh, I am familiar, in very general terms, with the concepts involved and am able to explain them in general, and perhaps even draw some insight from the details. But should there be a real problem, I am completely unable to be of any use in fixing it because I simply do not understand how it works. In fact, should I try, I would do more harm than good and end up destroying (or at the very least, badly damaging) the engine.
It is much the same with the doctrine of salvation. If we misunderstand these basic ideas about how salvation works, we will never understand the deeper and more profound mechanisms that are in place after we are saved. The end result is that we do violence to the very concepts that salvation is built upon and we end up with very bad ideas about what brings blessing and how God’s favor is secured.
The Roman Catholic church tells its people that they are infused with God’s grace at baptism, and they then must “maintain” that gracious standing before God by meritorious works, particularly by the use of the sacraments of the church. If they do not do these things, then they cannot expect that God will bless. If they do these works, then they can reasonable expect the blessing of God. Now, certainly that is a generalization; but it is fairly accurate.
The Baptists tell us that we enter into God’s grace by our decision to accept Christ and that without that act on our part, we can’t be saved. They further tells us that unless we tithe, attend church, etc., we cannot reasonable expect that God will bless us. Again, certainly that is a generalization; but it is fairly accurate.
I trust you see the problem here. The essential difference between the two positions is merely one of semantics. Both are trusting in their own works to secure the favor of God and see those works as the lever that moves the hand of God and is, ultimately what brings blessing. Unless those works happen, by an act of the will of man, God cannot bless.
The truth is much different. The Bible teaches that God is not a contingent Being. That is, His actions are not at all, in any regard, derived from any other essential cause. In order for God to take any action in His universe, there is NOTHING that MUST happen first.
Now, understand, God has ordained that many things will happen before He blesses or causes a thing. But that is very different from the idea that they MUST happen, or He CANNOT act. God has chosen to bless in response (in some instances) to the obedience of His people. But that does not mean that those acts of obedience are the essential cause of the blessing.
This is especially true when we remember that it is God at work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. He does the work, the changing in us that is necessary to make us want to do what He wishes and has ordained for us to do in the first place.
This is what we mean when we refer to prevenient grace. Prevenient is from the Latin words meaning “come before”. It refers to the truth that God must act before be we are able or willing to obey His command to believe the Gospel, or to do any other obedience. This is simply what the Word of God proclaims and we must allow that proclamation to order our thoughts and guide our perception of how He works, not try and inflict our own perceptions upon Him.
This is what is in view when Paul says that all of this is to the “praise of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the Beloved”. He particularly wants to underscore the WAY in which we were made acceptable at this point. We were made acceptable by God’s Grace alone. The reason for this is precisely because God desired it to be NOT ONE WHIT of our own merit, but entirely based on His merit. It is “…to the praise of the glory of His Grace…”