Mercy and Grace

Mercy and Grace

The Gospel is better than you may think. In this study, I want to take a careful look at some of the things the Bible teaches about forgiveness and salvation. Often, we may be tempted to think of forgiveness and salvation simply as our assurance that we will go to heaven when we die. That is certainly true, but there is far more good news in the Gospel message. It’s not simply a ticket to heaven.

Mercy
Lamentations 3:22 “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.”

The mercy of God refrains from giving us what we deserve.

Grace
Ephesians 2:5 “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us (made us alive) together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)”

The grace of God gives us what we do not deserve.

An important key to fully understanding the Good News of Jesus Christ is found in Romans 4:25. Speaking of Jesus, that verse says, “Who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification.”

I found this verse confusing for many years, and it turns out that the reason was that I did not fully grasp what Jesus did for me. There are two parts of the Gospel. Two primary things Jesus accomplished in His death and resurrection.

Jesus died on the cross for our sins. His blood was shed, and our sins were paid for. This is probably not a surprise to you.

But Jesus also rose from the dead. In Romans 4:25 we saw that He was raised for our justification. Many people think of His death for our sins and His resurrection for our justification as one and the same, but they are not.

In Romans 6:23 we read that, “the wages of sin is death.” We earn wages. We deserve our wages. In His mercy however, God overlooked the sins of the past. Acts 17:30 goes so far as to say that God winked at them! It reads, “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” (KJV)

Similarly, Romans 3:25 says, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” Scholars far more astute than I point out that the use of “remission” here means “passed over” rather than “forgiven” as it is most often used. The sins in view in this verse are those of the people who lived before Jesus. The work Jesus did took care of (propitiated) the sins of those who lived before He came just as surely as the sins of we who were yet unborn.

I don’t know about you, but I was raised to understand that God did not wink at sin. On the contrary, I was taught that He did not tolerate sin. We see this demonstrated starkly in the account of the great flood when God destroyed every living thing on earth that was not in the Ark. Or we might recall the rescue of righteous Abraham and Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning sulfur. So, what can these verses that speak of God having overlooked past sins mean?

The answer is provided in Hebrews 10:1–4 where we read that, “the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.”

Animal sacrifices provided atonement. They were a covering of sins until the time when sin would be taken away by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is what is meant when the texts we read earlier in Acts 17:30 and Romans 3:25 say that God winked at, or overlooked, the sins of the past. In His great mercy He did not give the Hebrew people what they deserved. He refrained from giving them the wages their sin had earned them.

Lamentations 3:22 speaks directly to this. It tells us that “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” It is this mercy that we celebrate with the writer of Lamentations (probably the prophet Jeremiah) when in the very next verse he says, “They (God’s mercies) are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:23

It is the death of Jesus that provides forgiveness. To say that Jesus died for our sins means that the blood of Jesus was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. More than simply covering sin, His blood took sin away completely. Indeed, this complete forgiveness of sin is in view in 2 Corinthians 5:19, which says, “that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”

But if forgiveness is all Jesus accomplished at the cross, then we are of all people most to be pitied. As Holy Spirit explained through the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:14 “if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” Then in verse 17 He said, “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.”

Two verses later in 1 Corinthians 15:19 we find this, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” If forgiveness through the death of Christ is all the good news there is, then we get to live our mortal lives as forgiven people who remain spiritually dead.

The reason forgiveness is not enough is that all it does is make us forgiven people who remain estranged from God. We may be forgiven well enough, but we remain separated from God because we are still spiritually dead to God. The only life we have is the mortal life we inherited from Adam. One day that will come to an end, and we will simply cease. For sure we need forgiveness, but we also need Life.

Earlier we read part of Romans 6:23. It said, “the wages of sin is death.” But that is only half of the verse. It continues with, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This wonderful gift is the grace of God giving us what we did not earn and therefor do not deserve.

Romans chapter six provides one of the most detailed explanations in all of scripture of what Jesus accomplished for us. Here’s an excerpt.

Romans 6:3–11
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

When Jesus died for our sins, He didn’t just change things here on earth. His work was accomplished in eternity. In eternity, we were immersed into His death to sin. In these verses we see this expressed in several ways.

We’re told that we:
were baptized into His death,
were buried with Him,
were planted together with Him,
were crucified with Him,
and that we died with Him.

The result is that we are to consider ourselves dead indeed to sin.

We are also told that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead so we could have new life. In these same verses we see this expressed in several ways.

We’re told that we:
were raised to new Life like Him,
were raised with Him,
were made to live with the One who can never die again,
were made alive to God.

The result is that we are to consider ourselves alive to God.

Considering, or reckoning, ourselves dead to sin and alive to God has to do with our mindset. If in our minds, in our own estimation or belief about ourselves, we are still enslaved to the power of sin, that’s what our attitudes and actions will reflect. If, on the other hand, our belief about ourselves is that we are dead to sin and alive to God, our attitudes and actions will increasingly reflect the wonderful truth of that. I reckon that is what we all want.

This is the reason Colossians 3:1–4 can urge us “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

We are risen with Christ.
Old sinful us is dead.
Our life is in Christ now.
In fact, Christ IS our Life.

Galatians 2:20 encapsulates it this way, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

By the mercy of God, we have been forgiven our debt. He has forgiven us because a Savior came and settled our account.

It is as if we had incurred so much debt we could never hope to pay, and we were thrown into debtor’s prison with no hope of ever being released. Then one day the wealthiest person there had ever been went to each of our creditors and paid our debts off completely. What’s more, like the good Samaritan, He told them all that whatever expenses we might incur in the future would be covered as well.

By the grace of God, we have been given righteousness and the natural result of that is eternal Life.

This is the part of the Gospel that many miss. 2 Corinthians 5:21 puts it this way, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” This says that Jesus, who was completely sinless, bore our sin on the cross. He paid our debt and settled our account forever. But He didn’t stop there. Once that had been accomplished, He gave us the righteousness of God.

That sounds too good to be true. Worse, it sounds foolish to our ears because we all know that our attitudes and actions are sometimes, maybe often, not godly. Often, we don’t feel very righteous. Because the attitudes and actions we observe in ourselves and those around us appear to disprove this radical statement, we look for alternative explanations. But the Bible says what it says, and it says it unabashedly.

Ephesians 1:4 tells us, “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” We are before Him even now, so this cannot be referring only to some future time.

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 says, “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” Our spirit, soul, and body cannot be “preserved unto” some future time if they are not already in the necessary state now. You can’t preserve fresh food if it is rotten when you start.

Colossians 1:21–22 “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.”

Holy, blameless, beyond reproach. These are strong words, and we are not at liberty to soften them by declaring that they describe only our future state in heaven someday in the future. Though many do exactly that using terms like “positional,” “forensic,” or “imputed,” scripture is clear that what Jesus did at the cross, He finished. It’s clear that when we placed our faith in Jesus, we were given a new loving heart, a new spirit, and that the Spirit of God was placed within us.

The Holy Spirit of God does not live in places that are unholy. The Holy of Holies, the Holiest place in the tabernacle and in the temple was a shadow of this. Into it only the high priest could enter. He could enter only once each year. He could enter only after an extensive ritual cleansing. The reason was because this was the place where God dwelled. We can see this point made clearly by studying Hebrews.

There are two important components to the work Jesus did at the cross. There is His death and there is His resurrection. Both are crucially significant.

I think there was a reason that there were three days over which the work of redemption was accomplished by Christ. Remember, He was crucified on Friday and rose again on Sunday. I used to think this was a way to prove that He was really dead and thus that the resurrection was real, and it surely does that. But I’m coming to think there was more significance in this heavenly pause than that.

Jesus, in His death gave us forgiveness. This made possible what came next. Because we were forgiven, our sins were taken out of the way. As far as God was concerned, no debt or offence remained between us. In 2 Corinthians 5:19 we read that, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself and not counting people’s sins against them. Since our debt or offense had been eliminated, it had become possible for us to be reconciled to God.

It is this part of the work of Jesus that made relationship with God possible. Reconciliation is a two-way street, however. That’s why we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” God had reconciled us to Himself, but He does not contravene our ability to choose or reject Him. Consequently, we had to agree to be reconciled to Him. This is what we do when we believe on Jesus Christ.

I think the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection is designed (at least in part) to help us see that there are two distinct components to the Gospel. Both forgiveness and rebirth are needed. What we read in Romans six shows that we were both crucified and raised with Christ.

Having been forgiven through His death, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are reborn. When we place our faith in Him, this rebirth takes place, and we are made righteous. We are given the very righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. This is necessary in order for us to be given His Life, and in fact eternal life is the natural result of righteousness.

Righteousness is tied to life in very much the same way that sin is tied to death. Romans 8:1–2 help us understand this. There we read, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

When we take God at His word, trusting that Jesus has done everything necessary for us to be made righteous, we are placed into relationship with God.

I love the way Jesus said it in John 17:3 “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Knowing God is only possible for those who are righteous. Righteousness is only possible by accepting the gift of God in Christ Jesus. Knowing God, righteousness, eternal Life, in a very real sense, they all mean the same thing. You can’t have one without the others.

Mercy and Grace. Both are required, and both have been given abundantly, just as we would expect from our loving God.

In His great mercy, He has refrained from giving us what we deserved. He has forgiven our offenses against Him. He has completely satisfied our debt to Him.

In His great grace He has gone above and beyond. He has given us righteousness and the eternal Life that makes possible. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing and given us everything we need for life and godliness in Christ Jesus—and we are never not in Christ Jesus. We are sealed there by the Holy Spirit, who guarantees our inheritance as joint-heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

I want to encourage you to think about this and to rest in the freedom it brings.

You are freed from rules, rites, and rituals intended to result in merit with God.
You are freed from focusing on yourself and your performance.
You are freed to change your mindset away from earthly things.
You are freed to set your mind on Christ, on heavenly things, on the prompting and direction of the Spirit within you.
You are forgiven because of God’s mercy.
You are eternally alive because of God’s grace.

This is not freedom TO sin. This is freedom FROM sin.