Why "sovereign-grace"?
As a dedicated servant of God, I have been made painfuly aware by the Lord, these past 11 years of the sin of self-righteous pride that was lurking and breeding within my heart. That pride was the direct and immediate by-product of the theological and philosophical understanding I had both been taught and assumed for the first 15 years of my walk with the Lord as a born-again believer in Jesus Christ. That belief was the popular, but highly problematic view known as "free will". Because it was "I" who chose to believe in and serve God, who chose to say "Yes" to Him and "No" to the world and sin, how could I escape the conclusion that since it was nothing He did which made it certain that I would come and say "Yes", but only rendered it possible, that I myself was responsible? If God was not responsible for my faith and the choices which naturally sprang from it, the only alternative is that I was and am. If I am - to whatever degree or extent my own willpower or choice was operational, then God alone was not entirely responsible. If God was not completely responsible for the faith which I now possessed (but have since come to see, I did not produce), then either God and I are responsible for my faith, - in which case, credit must be split between He and myself for it; Or I myself am entirely responsible, in which case, credit for my faith goes entirely to me. Either way, since salvation is only "by faith", the conclusion, if "free will" is true, that I am either completely responsible for my being saved or at least partially so - to whaever degree my own choice and will played - is impossible to ignore.
Thus, the belief in "free will" produced the SIN of pride and self-righteousness in my heart. You see, the problem with self-righteousness is the "self" part! Isaiah lamented "For we are all as an unclean thing and all OUR righteousness is as filthy rags" (Isa 64: 6). Please notice carefully, Isaiah condemns our righteousness as "filthy rags" in God's sight. If our best attempts at morality and spiritual ethics are "filthy" in God's sight, then how does He view our sins? The key word again though is the word "our". If is produced by human wisdom, will-power or strength alone, then God does not and cannot view or regard it as "good". The only alternative to it being produced by our ability or choice alone, is by His grace alone, or, His grace and our cooperation. Theologically, there are no other possibilities present here. Jesus said, "For without Me, you can do nothing" (Jn 15: 5), and He said that in the precise context of stressing our need to "abide in the vine" in order to produce "fruit".
"You are who you are, what you are and where you are, only because of My grace. Therefore, don't ever think you're better than anyone else"
That is the word that came to me one day, after work, while waiting for my wife to come pick me up to go home. I had not been thinking of anything especially "spiritual" at that moment. Nor was I standing there thinking I was "better" than anyone else. But deep inside, God saw the seed of pride, the damnable sin of self-righteousness, which had been sown in my heart by the very philosophical precepts I had both assumed and been taught as a believer. My response, conditioned as it was by my understanding of my "free-will" and the role it played in "my choice" to believe in and serve Jesus, was immediate and adamant, "But I've made some right choices in my life!", I protested. The reply was also immediate. Authoritative, yet gentle. It said, "My grace enabled you to make right choices." I again protested, "But I've worked hard to get where I am today!" Again the instantaneous reply, "My grace empowered you with the abilities and opportunities to do so." With every protest of what "I" had done, the response was always the same, "MY GRACE!"
The Lord in His kindness, did not dispute that I had indeed made right choices, nor that I had indeed worked hard in matters spiritual and vocational. But He did clearly express the underlying context for both why and how I was able to have done both. That truth is what "sovereign-grace" is all about. It is what this web-site is intended to convey, any and every way it can. That was over 11 years ago, and I'm still learning and growing in this "reformation" I underwent about the grace of God and what role He and it played and play in my faith, my salvation and my walk with Him.
I was stunned as I stood there. Having been (so I thought), a keen student of the bible, with an aptitude for theological issues and questions, my head literally reeled as I stood there processing what had just happened to me. It was God, and I knew it! And did it have implications! It suddenly ocurred to me, Satan would "puff me up" in my own abilities and so encourage pride and false-trust. But God would humble me and exalt Himself and His grace! In the absence of the "I" there can only be thanksgiving for the "Thy". God wanted me to learn, apply and teach this essential truth every way, and everywhere I could. I have laboured long and lonely these past 11 years since then, to be faithful to what the Lord showed me that day. To that end, this web-site is dedicated!
This is exactly what Paul preached:
As I came to see after that stunning word came to me, as I literally tore into the scriptures to "see whether these things were so", what I felt the Lord said to me was essentially what Paul said was true of himself. In 1 Corinthians 15: 10, Paul said,
"By the grace of God, I am what I am and His grace towards me was not in vain (or 'without effect'). No, but I worked harder than the rest of them. Yet it was not really I, but the grace of God that was with me."
So, what was Paul at this point in his life?
-
Firstly he was a saved sinner. Saved by the GRACE of God.
-
Secondly, he was a chosen apostle. Chosen by the GRACE of God.
-
Thirdly, he was an empowered witness. Empowered by the GRACE of God.
Paul understood and confessed of himself that the principle and power, the means by which and because of which he was all of these things, was BY GRACE. Although he did confess to "how hard" he had worked for Christ, he immediately corrected that boast, by acknowledging that the power which was really at work both in and through him, and which therefore was really responsbile, was the GRACE of God and that alone! Notice the obvious facets of salvation - all of which had been done and accomplished by God's grace alone, and not human will-power or effort, or wisdom: Saved, chosen and empowered - all by grace!
Here, at the precise point where he began to assume personal "credit" for these things, he wisely and purposefully stopped and acknowledged God and His grace as being the efficient and primary cause for why he was what he was, and why and how he did what he did. This understanding, this self-abasing, God-exalting, works-denying and grace-affirming mind-set is all too often sadly missing in too many in God's kingdom and Christ's church, I believe. Convinced of the role their own will-power, wisdom and diligence played in these things, too many of God's people by both arrogance and ignorance of God's truth, sin as I had done. How, you say? In this; By assuming credit where naught but thanksgiving had any right to be, they sin, even as I had done in my former pride and ignorance. God takes this sin very seriously!
In the next section, I will explore in detail, the passages in which Paul goes into detail describing his conversion experience, the principles involved in it, and the singularly important truth that God intended his conversion to be the "pattern" or "prototype" God intended for "all who would after me believe", as Paul said.
God always takes this issue very seriously! By His grace, may we all do the same with humble reverence and diligence!
In His grace,
Adapted from: "God I Thank You That I Am Not Like Other Men: Exposing The Pride Inherent In The Free-will Model Of Salvation", (c) 2007, by: John M. Platanitis