Introduction
I would like to reflect on two
ways to speak of the Gospel of our salvation.
The first is the more common way that has to do with justification by
grace through faith. I call this
Forgiving Grace. The second is in terms
of understanding and bearing fruit. I
call this Transforming Grace. (Martin
Luther, known particularly for his theology of forgiving grace, nonetheless
early on preached a similar message, ‘Two Kinds of Righteousness’.)
Forgiving Grace
So, first, let’s cover familiar
territory and speak of justification by grace through faith. We Christians, particularly we Evangelicals,
will very often describe the Christian life by speaking of God’s saving us by
grace through faith in Jesus Christ, our Saviour. When we explain what it means for Jesus to be
our Saviour, we continue with saying that Jesus’ death on the cross was for our
sins, a free gift from God to people still in their sins. We cannot earn our salvation. We are not ‘good enough’ for God to give us a
pass. Instead, as Paul says in Ephesians
2.4-5, ‘God, being rich in mercy, because of the great mercy with which he loved
us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with
Christ—by grace you have been saved’ (ESV, and throughout).
Now, this is, indeed, the Gospel,
the Good News. It is not only a message
in the New Testament, as though the Old Testament was a book of Law and the New
Testament a book of Grace. The Old
Testament again and again points Israelites to God’s grace and salvation and
the need to have faith in Him, not in our own righteousness. The New Testament part of the Gospel is
simply in saying that God’s grace, His salvation, comes through Jesus Christ,
and that our faith in God comes through faith in Jesus Christ as our
Saviour. The whole Bible, Old and New
Testaments, proclaim the Gospel: God is our Saviour.
The Book of Psalms regularly
points us to this message. Jews sang of
God’s loving kindness, His mercy, His salvation. Christians sing the same songs, adding that
God has revealed Himself in these latter times as kind, merciful, and our
Saviour in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for our sins. Notice that this ‘Gospel’ in both testaments
is something to sing about, with thanksgiving and joy. Islam, on the other hand, is a religion that
has parasitically fed off of Judaism and Christianity but stripped it of this central
message of God’s salvation. Islam’s
notion of God speaks of God being merciful, but only by the power of His
will. The Muslim does not know if God
will show mercy or not, and he tries to do good works to receive mercy. You hear acclamations from Muslims like ‘God
is great’, but you do not hear them making melody with praise in their hearts
for God’s salvation. There is no
equivalent in Islam to Handel’s Messiah.
There is no high music stemming from the joy of the Gospel and
thanksgiving with faith for the God of our salvation.
Transforming Grace
Now, the second way of speaking
of the Gospel of salvation is in terms of understanding and bearing fruit. We need to look at several verses to see
this, but first note the different focus these notions place on the
Gospel. This is the same Gospel, having
to do with God as Saviour, the work of Jesus Christ, and ourselves as recipients
of God’s great work for us. Yet we will
see that explaining salvation in terms of being given a new understanding
instead of having faith puts the emphasis on transformation. What God does is not simply give us something
freely, His grace, He changes our way of thinking. Now, the language of ‘understanding’ and ‘bearing
fruit’ are quite a mixed metaphor, as though you sow seeds of understanding and
produce a harvest of righteousness.
Still, this is the idea we find in the New Testament, especially in Paul’s
writings. And, just as understanding has
to do with transformation, so does the notion of a bearing fruit. Salvation is not just a gift of grace in the
sense of forgiveness of sins; it is now understood more fully as a gift of
transforming grace that produces righteousness in us. This notion of ‘bearing fruit’ is found in
both the Old and New Testaments. Israel
was a planted vineyard expected to bear fruit, Isaiah tells us (ch. 5). Jesus speaks of the need to bear fruit
(Matthew 7.13ff), symbolically curses the unfruitful fig tree or the lack of
righteousness produced by the temple worship of His day, and says that He is
the vine and the disciples are the pruned branches bearing much fruit (John
15.1-6).
God’s grace, then, is
transformative. First, it helps us recover
a right understanding. Second, it helps
us bear the fruit of righteousness.
Notice, then, how Paul puts these thoughts together in several
places. In Philippians 1.9-11 he writes,
Phil. 1:9 And it
is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all
discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be
pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of
righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of
God.
Verses like these are
theologically rich, but I am only here focusing on the knowledge and fruit
expressions of the Christian life. So,
Paul prays for the Philippian believers that their knowledge and discernment
would increase. This is not some general
notion of education, as though if we just educated people more they would
improve. In v. 7, Paul has spoken of the
Gospel, and knowledge has to do with the Gospel that we have already
explained. It is the Good News of God’s saving
grace through Jesus Christ. Yet this is
not just a doctrine, a dogma. It is a
truth, an empowerment, and something that increases in the Christian’s
life. The more we understand it, the
more transformative it is in our lives.
In these verses, the particular power of knowledge of the Gospel is that
is restores discernment to the sinner.
Paul says, ‘so that you may approve what is excellent’ (v. 10).
Paul says something quite similar
in Romans, and we need to bring the beginning and the end of his presentation
of the Gospel in Romans together to see this.
In Romans 1.28, Paul says that the problem of human sinfulness led to a
greater and greater depravity of our minds.
What does that mean? It means
that we not only did certain things that were sinful—and Paul’s example here are
idolatry and homosexuality—but we also began to think that these sins were
natural activities, not sinful in the slightest. Idolatry is a distortion of worship of the
Creator, and homosexuality is a distortion of passion for same-sex unions. Both are examples of the depraved mind, as
are other sins that we not only do but also approve (1.29-32). So, the mind is corrupted and confused. We might note that, when Psalm 119 celebrates
the Law in a lengthy acrostic poem, it celebrates the discernment that God has
given sinful humanity in its statutes.
Thus, the giving of the Law is an act of God’s salvation: in it He sets
straight the corrupted understanding of a sinful world. Having explained in various detail the truths
of God’s salvation in Romans, Paul comes to a conclusion in Romans 12.1-2. Notice that the ‘mind’ that was corrupt in
1.28 is now transformed, and notice that discernment—as in Philippians 1.10—has
returned, so that we can once again know God’s will. So, Paul says,
Romans 12:1 I
appeal to you therefore, brothers,1 by
the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.2 2 Do
not be conformed to this world,3 but
be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern
what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
So, even in Romans—the letter
explaining salvation by grace in terms of justification by faith—we have this
other way of speaking about the Gospel, its transformation by the renewal of
the mind that restores discernment.
I’ve shown how Philippians and
Romans explain the Gospel in terms of understanding. Galatians speaks of the fruit of the Spirit in
the Christian life: ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control’ (5.22-23). Philippians, Ephesians, and Colossians also
mention this along with the notion of bearing fruit.
In Ephesians 4.18-24, Paul speaks
of how those outside Christ ‘are darkened in their understanding, alienated
from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their
hardness of heart’ (v. 18). What is the
result of this? He says, ‘They have
become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice
every kind of impurity’. Ignorance expresses
itself in ‘sensuality’, which means sexual promiscuity. Paul says the Ephesian Christians’ former
manner of life was ‘corrupt through deceitful desires’, but they have been ‘taught’
in Christ, are renewed in the spirit of [their] minds’, ‘put on the new self,
created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness’ (4.23-24). This is transforming knowledge, and it is
what we have already noted in Romans.
The next chapter in Ephesians
contrasts the darkness of the mind with the light in the Lord that Christians
now have. He also uses the language of
bearing fruit, speaking of the ‘fruit of light’:
Eph. 5:7
Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the
fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try
to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose
them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for
anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
In the very similar letter to
Ephesians in Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, these ideas are once again
presented as a description of the Christian life.
Col. 1:3 We
always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4
since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for
all the saints 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you
have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come
to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and
increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood
the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow
servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8
and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. 9 And so, from the day we
heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with
the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing
fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being
strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance
and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to
share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
The notion of the Christian life
in terms of understanding and bearing fruit is not only in Paul’s letters. We also have this in James:
James 3:17 But the
wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason,
full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest
of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Conclusion
Why is this little study important?
1.
Sin has the consequence of distorting people’s
understanding. As Christians, we have a
very different understanding, one agreeing with God’s law and purposes in
creation. We will find ourselves
debating with people about abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, marriage, and
many such things.
2.
If we only understand the Gospel in terms of
justification of the sinner, we will miss the fuller understanding of the
Gospel as transformation. We will find
ourselves offering people a Gospel of inclusion without change. This softness toward sin may even lead some
to condone sin, as when people say ‘homosexuals are born that way’ instead of ‘the
Gospel brings transformation’. We need
to offer sinners more than forgiveness; we need to offer them the power of the
Gospel at work within us to transform us into the image of God in righteousness
and holiness (Ephesians 4.23-24). The ‘born
that way’ idea leaves people in the desperation of an internal disorder and
truncates the Gospel. Some have even
suggested that the ongoing struggle with a besetting sin, or a desire they do
not acknowledge is a sin, is somehow a message of the Gospel: God keeps
forgiving. How very sad not to offer the
Gospel as newness of life. It is like
saying Jesus completed His work but never sent the Spirit—the opposite of John
14-16!
3.
Both understandings of Christian life are based
on the Gospel of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ. Notice how a different New Testament author,
John, brings together the forgiveness of sins and transformation, using the
language of light and darkness, truth, forgiveness, and cleansing. 1 John says,
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to
you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If
we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not
practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of
Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say
we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us (1.5-10).
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