Kootenai Church Special Sermons

Well, how do you fund a big building project? If you want to build a big worship center, you need money for that. It's quite a dilemma. The Catholic Church wanted to build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and the pope had the money, the coffers were full, but he didn't want to dip into that, and instead he wanted to start a fundraising program for that building in Rome. But here was the problem that the pope came up against. How do you convince the people in Germany and France and other far reaches of the Holy Roman Empire who will never see this structure, never visit this structure, since most people in the 1500s never traveled more than twelve to twenty miles away from the place that they were born in or lived—how would you convince them to give to that structure, knowing they would never go there, they would never see it, and they would never appreciate it? For some of them, it wouldn't even be completed inside of their lifetime. Why would they care, and how could you get them to contribute to such a construction project?
So the pope and his cardinals met together, and they pooled their wisdom and decided to employ some sound capitalistic principles of supply and demand, and there was something that was in demand, namely forgiveness of sins and eternal life. And so the pope and the cardinals decided that if they could sell forgiveness and eternal life to people, they could raise some money for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica. So that's what they did. They had this idea that people living under the fear of purgatory and of suffering in the flames of Hell for a good period of time, hundreds, maybe thousands, of years before they could finally get into Heaven, if they lived under that oppressive fear, you could offer them salvation, escape from purgatory, eternal life, forgiveness, and pardon for sin for just a contribution to St. Peter's Basilica. So the pope decided to raise funds by selling forgiveness.
So they had a product, now they just needed a pitchman, and they found one in a plump, Machiavellian, rapacious, louche man named John Tetzel. He was a braggart and a loudmouth, but he was a good salesman. He could sell bottled water to a dying man. So Tetzel went from town to town throughout Germany selling indulgences and promising people pardon from their sins, and pardon for their relatives who were even then in purgatory, if they would just simply make a contribution to the funding of St. Peter's Basilica. And so Tetzel came up with this little rhyme that Justin gave you last week, “When the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” That is a great little marketing slogan. Everybody needs a good little marketing slogan. Tetzel came up with one. It's right up there with “good to the last drop,” “melts in your mouth, not in your hands,” “I can't believe it's not butter,” and other good slogans. And Tetzel ended up striking marketing gold—no repentance necessary, no remorse for sin, no confession, no faith, no mediator, no strings attached, just give some money in exchange for a signed, sealed pardon from the pope himself.
And these sold like hotcakes. You could purchase paradise for your suffering child or your spouse or your grandma or your grandpa who was even then in the flames of purgatory. And which one of you would turn your back upon your suffering spouse or your grandmother or your mother or your father whom you loved so much, who did so much for you? How could you turn your back on them in the flames of purgatory even now when you can set them free and purchase their salvation for just a penny, just a shilling, just a little bit? You cold, heartless, ruthless, uncompassionate person, you. And so Tetzel pulled on the heartstrings like a three-armed puppeteer, and people coughed up their coins and their shillings to purchase salvation for people that they believed were suffering in purgatory and would be delivered as soon as the penny dropped in the coffer.
Did it work? Money poured in for St. Peter's Basilica, and news of this traveling little louche man finally met the ears of Martin Luther. And here is how Luther described what he heard about Tetzel. Luther said,
Then it was reported to me, however, that Tetzel was preaching some cruel and terrible propositions such as the following:
He had grace and power from the Pope to offer forgiveness even if someone had slept with the Holy Virgin Mother of God, as long as a contribution would be put into the coffer. . . .
Furthermore, he would not want to trade places in heaven with St. Peter, for he had redeemed more souls with his indulgences than Peter with his sermons.
Furthermore, if anyone put money into the coffer for a soul in purgatory, the soul would leave purgatory for heaven in the moment one could hear the penny hit the bottom.
Also the grace of indulgences is the grace by which man is reconciled with God.
Listen to the last sentence. “The grace of indulgences is the grace by which man is reconciled with God.” You are reconciled to God when you purchase a pardon. That is what the Catholic Church was teaching. That is what Luther was objecting to.
And by the time Luther had come to the understanding of forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ alone, not by indulgences or papal decrees or works of righteousness or any other means offered by the church, he had come through a long personal struggle. And finally, while teaching through the book of Romans, he read in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.” That's it. “For the Jew first, and also for the Greek. For in it [in the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just [the righteous] shall live by faith’” (Rom. 1:16–17). The gospel is the power of God to everyone who believes. And with that realization, Martin Luther's soul was regenerated, his heart was changed, his mind was changed, and his theology was radically altered.
The question that Luther struggled with was, How can a man be made right in the sight of God? How can you and how can I, an unworthy, unrighteous, guilty sinner who has violated the law of God and has heaped up a serving of God's wrath—and I justly deserve Hell—how can I stand in the presence of a righteous and holy God cleansed of my sin? The Catholic Church said, “Buy your forgiveness,” and Luther said, “It's by faith. It's not by purchasing indulgences, it is by faith.” And Luther had come to understand that. And he had spent most of 1517 preaching that very thing.
And then when news of Tetzel's shenanigans reached Luther's ears, he wrote ninety-five theses, ninety-five statements, and he nailed them to the door of the university church in Wittenberg, Germany. And those ninety-five statements were not intended to separate him from the Catholic Church. That was the result of it, but that was not his intention. His intention was to post that in order to generate some debate. Luther wanted to reform the church. He wanted to bring correction. He didn't think the church was evil or wrong or hideous or anything like that at that point, he thought it just needed to be reformed, just corrected a little bit. And if we could debate these ninety-five statements, then we could sort of bring some correction to some of these things that the pope is believing and that Tetzel is teaching. So he posted them on October 31 in 1517 because it was the eve of All Saints’ Day, and the next day people would be coming into the church in throngs to celebrate the mass and they would walk right past those ninety-five statements.
So here are some examples of the things that Luther wrote:
Number 21: “Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope's indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved.”
Number 32: “They will be condemned eternally, together with their teachers, who believe themselves sure of their salvation because they have letters of pardon.” In other words, if you say you have a letter of pardon from the pope himself, you're damned and the person who told you that is damned. That's harsh.
Number 52: “The assurance of salvation by letters of pardon is vain, even though the commissary, nay, even though the pope himself, were to stake his soul upon it.”
Number 82: “Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church?”
Why not do it out of love if he can do it for money? That's a good question. Well, the Church didn't want to debate that. Nobody wanted to debate that.
And much to the chagrin of both Luther and the pope, because Luther didn't intend this, those ninety-five statements made their way into the wrong hands. Those hands had access to a printing press, and before long, those ninety-five theses were mass-produced and put into the hands of nearly everybody in Wittenberg and all over Germany before too long. And again, Luther did not intend that. That was, by the way, the first viral post, those ninety-five theses. They spread all over the place, and everybody was talking about Dr. Martin Luther and his A Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. That was what it was titled.
As a result of that, the Catholic Church turned all of their guns toward Luther, and he was a hunted man. To save his life, he was kidnapped by friends and taken to a castle where he lived in secrecy for a period of time in seclusion. And during that time, he was anything but idle. With a copy of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament and a Latin translation of the Scriptures, in only ten months Luther translated the entire Bible into the language of the German people. He completed the New Testament in eleven weeks. I couldn't even write the New Testament in eleven weeks, let alone translate it into another language.
Luther did that because he believed that the Scriptures were the only standard for faith and practice and that salvation comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And if you're going to get people saved and you're going to get people sanctified, it has to come through Scripture. So he wanted a copy of the Scriptures in the modern tongue of his people in their possession so they could read it, be saved, and be sanctified themselves without having to listen to what the pope or a cardinal or a bishop or a local friar might teach them.
And it was that rediscovery of gospel truth, that a man is justified by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone, that was the heart of the Reformation. That was the issue at play. Luther believed that salvation comes by hearing the Word of God, so get the Word of God into the hands of the people. And that sparked a rediscovery of gospel truth, a truth that had been buried beneath the traditions of men, the dogma of the church, and the power of a corrupt and immoral papacy. The light of the Word of God shined upon the hearts of men and was unobscured again and allowed to shine upon people. This exposed the myths, the corruption, the superstitions, the dogmas, and the traditions of the church, and it launched a revival of faith that the world had never seen before and has not seen since. It's as desperately needed today as it was back then, but it was the revival of faith of the last two thousand years. Incredible what Luther did.
He was not alone. There were others who labored tirelessly to bring people back to the Word of God. Men like John Calvin, John Knox, John Wycliffe, John Huss, a lot of Johns. A couple of guys not named John—Ulrich Zwingli, William Tyndale, and others too numerous to list. A lot of other guys named John, a lot of other guys not named John. They labored before Luther, they labored during the time of Luther, and they labored after Luther to ensure that you and I would have the Word of God in our tongue and that we would understand what the gospel is. We see the truth clearly today only because we stand on the shoulders of giants, great men who have gone before, who themselves labored to ensure that we would have the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
So since Luther believed that the Word of God was the shining beacon of the Reformation, it is to the Word of God that we now turn, to Ephesians 2. Paul's concern in Ephesians is that we understand the immense grace that has been given to us in Christ and that we praise God for every spiritual blessing that has been given to us in Him, all to the praise of His glorious grace. That's Ephesians 1. He prays basically that at the end of Ephesians 1. And then in Ephesians 2, he is concerned that we understand these four things: the truth about man in verses 1–3, the truth about God in verses 4–7, the truth about salvation in verses 8–9, and the truth about works. If we are to give God adequate praise, we must understand what Scripture says about man, God, salvation, and the role of works in the Christian life. And when we understand those four things, we can praise God for His immense grace to us in Christ Jesus.
Now, if you're suspecting that in the normal course of a series on the book of Ephesians this might be four sermons instead of one, you are correct. But today we're not going to go into nearly the expositional depth that we might do on all of the granular details of this text. Instead, we're going to look at this entire text this morning, looking at each of those things that we have to understand properly.
So first in verses 1–3, the truth about man. Read it with me.
1 And you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience,
3 among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Eph. 2:1–3 LSB)
Now, this is not a flattering picture of man. Man in his lost condition is dead in his trespasses and sins. Although physically alive, spiritually we are dead. And we are born dead. We are dead on arrival. That is our spiritual condition upon birth. Man isn't sick in his sin. Man isn't terminally ill in his sin. He's not weak in his sin. He's not slightly handicapped in his sin. He's not slightly disabled in his sin. He is dead in his sin.
Man is very much physically alive. He thinks, he reasons, he meditates. He can work, he can move, he can make decisions. He can do all of that. He can plan, he can purpose, he can communicate. Man can do all of those things. But all those things, even the nonphysical things, are not functions of the spiritual man. They're functions of the soul. They are functions of the body. But they are not functions of the spiritual part of us. The spiritual part of us at birth is dead. We are dead in our trespasses and sins.
Though the immaterial self is there, every faculty of man is infected and affected by sins. The effect on Adam's race of his sin was total. Adam devastated us. We are born dead in Adam. His transgression is our transgression. Our bodies are subject to the curse. Our bodies are dying. Our bodies are limited in all of their capacities and capabilities. Our soul, likewise, is limited, and it is ruined by sin. The spiritual aspect of us that communicates with God, understands spiritual truth, and is able to take that spiritual truth and walk in obedience to it, it's dead. That capacity, that part of us, is utterly ruined.
Now, if you think—and I ask you to not think this for one moment—that sin has affected every atom of this universe, every far reach of this galaxy, every star, every nebula, every animal, every plant, every interaction, every molecule of the earth on which you stand, but that sin has somehow not affected your free will, you are deluded. Your will is in bondage to sin, to Satan, and to yourself. It is not free. Does that mean you don't make any decisions? You make plenty of decisions. You decide when to sin, with whom to sin, where to sin, how much to sin, which sin to commit, but the only thing we can decide outside of Jesus Christ is to sin, and everything that we do is sin. Your will is not free. You're dead in your trespasses and sins. You can try and convince yourself that your will is as free as a bird, untouched by sin in its every capacity, but it is not. You’re dead in transgressions and sin.
And Paul goes further. We are born into sin, and we drink iniquity like water. Paul says in Romans 8 that our flesh is at enmity against God and it is not subject to the law of God and it cannot be. The mind that is set on the flesh cannot please God. Colossians 1:21 says we are alienated and enemies in our mind through evil deeds. Romans 5:10 says that we were enemies of God when we were reconciled to Him.
Now, that's a biblical picture of man. Roman Catholicism says, “No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. Yeah, sin has tweaked you a little bit, but you can overcome that. God gives you enough grace to make enough good decisions and do enough good things that you can please God and earn His favor.” And Paul says man is dead. You can't do anything. You can't turn from your sin. You can't believe. You can't think righteous thoughts. You can't do righteous deeds. You're dead.
The difference between Protestantism and Catholicism is this fundamental: what is the condition of lost man? The Protestant says he is dead. The Catholic says he is sick and an infusion of a little bit of grace can make him much better and pleasing to God. Is man dead in sin or just slightly ill? Is he unable or able? Is he utterly ruined or just a little banged up? Dead people don't work. Dead people don't believe. Dead people don't turn from their sin.
Dead people don't exercise faith. Dead people don't please God. Dead people don't do works of righteousness. Dead people are—I heard somebody say it—dead. You get five stars for that answer, whoever said that. Dead people are dead. Dead people do nothing.
But Paul goes even further. Not just were we dead, but we walked. So now you have the walking dead. You're dead in your trespasses and sins, but you were walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. So yes, you are conducting yourself while spiritually dead. You're conducting yourself according to what? According to the world. You’re walking according to the world's precepts, the world's thinking, affections, its actions, its priorities, all of that which is driven by the world system, that way of thinking that is alienated from God and makes no room for God and is not pleasing to God. And in fact, the one who makes himself a friend of the world is an enemy of God. That world system dominated you.
And if you're in Christ now, at one time those were your homies. You were at home there. You enjoyed that. You were comfortable there. That was your family. And then salvation comes and all of that changes, and those people are no longer your homies. Now we're your homies, and you enjoy being here. And you enjoy the things that you once hated and hate the things that you once enjoyed. That's because redemption makes us no longer walk according to the prince of the power of the air and this world. So you were slaves of the world.
Second, you were a slave to Satan. Look at Ephesians 2:2: “You formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” There was a time when, unredeemed man that you were, you were in slavery to the devil. You did his will. Knowingly or unknowingly, wittingly or unwittingly, but always willfully, you jumped at his commands and did exactly what he would have you to do because you were a slave to the evil one, that spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. You who once were a child of disobedience, a child marked by disobedience to God, you were once a slave to the prince of the power of the air. You may not even have believed that he existed, but you don't have to believe in your taskmaster for your taskmaster to exercise dominion over you. Because everything about your inner man loved it, loved that sin.
So you're a slave to Satan, a slave to the world, and third, a slave to your lust. Look at verse 3: “Among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath [children marked for and marked by wrath], even as the rest.” You once were under the wrath of God. This is man without Christ, man in his natural state. Our passions, our drives, and our desires were all characterized by sin, walking and living in bondage to it, driving us onward into sin. We did this willingly, lovingly. Adam's sin plunged his entire race into depravity, and we walked in it, fulfilling the lusts of our flesh willfully. And we were children marked out for wrath, under the wrath of God, and justly so.
And that flesh, those lusts of the flesh, cannot be tamed, they cannot be changed, they cannot be denied, and they cannot be subjugated by the one who is in the flesh. Something must happen so that a man or a woman can break free from the lust of the flesh. So do you think your will was free? Well, you walked according to the course of this world, according to Satan, and according to your flesh. You had three slave masters. That doesn't sound free to me. You had three slave masters, and you did their bidding.
This is what it means to be dead in sin: hopeless, lost, wrecked, shipwrecked, destitute, ruined, chained, enslaved, dominated, unable to change your situation, slaves to the world, slaves to the devil, and slaves to your lusts and your flesh. Rome said, “Man is not that bad.” And the Protestant Reformation said, “No, man is far worse than you think, far worse than you can imagine.” And the longer you live, the more you will realize just how desperate your lost condition was. Worse than you think.
Luther had an ongoing debate with a Catholic theologian named Erasmus, and in their back-and-forth correspondence, Luther pointed to this very issue, the condition of lost man and his sin, and he said, “This is the door upon which the Reformation turns. This is the hinge.” This is the issue: what is the condition of lost man? You either believe he is totally depraved and unable to do anything to please God so that sovereign grace and grace alone is necessary, or you agree with the Catholic Church. Those are your two options. What is your soteriology? What is your doctrine of salvation? Are you a Protestant or a Papist? If you think your will is free and you did something to join with God and to work with God for your salvation, you're a Papist. You're not Protestant in your theology. Protestantism says there is nothing you could do. That is the condition and that is the truth about man.
Now let's get the truth about God in verse 4. Once we see man's lost condition for what it is, then you can see that the Roman Catholic Church's solution to it is entirely insufficient. The only sufficiency is a remedy of a sovereign and powerful God who, for His own glory and for His own sake and by His own choice, gives life to dead sinners. Verse 4:
4 But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
6 and raised up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:4–7 LSB)
But God is rich in grace and mercy, rich in love, that even while we were dead—in other words, He does a work while the sinner is dead. He does not ask the sinner to do a work to make himself alive. The sinner is dead, and God speaks into that dead situation and raises the sinner to spiritual life. It is God who does this work. The language of the text is very clear. It’s deadness and resurrection. You were dead. He made you alive. You didn't make yourself alive. You didn't do anything to get yourself alive. You were dead in your transgressions, and He made you alive by His grace. And not only did He make you alive, but He raised you up, He gave you life, and He seated you with Christ.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation says that all of this is the result of the work of man. If lost man can improve himself and work hard enough and cooperate with God's grace, then he can contribute to his salvation, do his penance, serve his time in purgatory, do good deeds, exercise faith, and in every other possible way earn God's favor. And eventually, after he has worked off all of his sin, burned off all of his sin, he can then be justified and enter into the presence of God at some time after he is dead. The Roman Catholic system is all about man, what man does, what man contributes, what man can give. And a biblical faith is all about God. It is God who, being rich in His mercy, saved us even while you were dead in your transgressions. And He raised you up and He seated you with Christ.
The purpose of that is very clear: so that in the ages to come He might demonstrate His goodness and His kindness and His grace by pointing to you. You want to know how gracious I am? Look what I did for that wretch. You want to know how gracious I am? Look what I did for that wretch. You want to know how merciful I am? Look what I did for that wretch. Mercy and grace displayed for ages.
See, it can't be about us. There's no room for boasting. And if your theology hinges upon the free will of man, that God has done everything possible and now He leaves it up to the sinner to choose, I would say the answer to that is in Romans 9:16: “It does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who has mercy.” “But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:4–5). Salvation is about putting God on display, not man's works, not man's deeds, not man's efforts, but revealing His grace, so that the honor and glory is left for Christ and Christ alone.
And that brings us to the truth about salvation. Ephesians 2:8–9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast.” I hope you can understand and see the line of thought that he is drawing through this passage. In verses 1–3, you were dead. In verses 4–6, but God did this. So if you were dead and God had to do this, then what is the conclusion? It is by grace then that you have been saved through faith, and that, the faith, is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, so that no one may boast. It's all about excluding boasting. It logically follows then that salvation must be by grace, that the just must live only by faith.
How is it that you can escape the wrath of God? How do you go from being a child of wrath, a child of disobedience, to being a child of God? It is by grace through faith. “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8). How can a guilty, unholy, unrighteous sinner, whose conscience bears witness to the fact of their guilt, be accepted by a holy and righteous God? Only on the basis of faith, not on the basis of works. Why? Because dead men don't work, so it can't be by works. It has to be an act of God. And if it is an act of God, then it must be entirely of grace and not of works, and if it is entirely of grace, then it comes to us on the basis of faith. And you might be thinking to yourself, “Well, then I have the faith that I can boast of, right? I have the faith. I can't take credit for anything else but that faith, that conjuring up of belief out of my inner man. That faith I get to boast in.” Do dead men exercise faith? Nope. And that, the faith, is not of yourselves.
Philippians 1:29: “To you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” Faith is something that God grants to you. And if He doesn't grant it to you, you cannot and you will not believe. Why? Because you are dead in your transgressions and your sins. You can't do anything pleasing to God, including the faith that brings you that righteousness. Faith is a gift from God, it is not a work, which is why Paul says in that passage that it is “not of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:9).
Belief and faith are not things you muster. They're not things you create. They're not things you conjure up out of your inner being. These things are graces from God communicated to the sinner by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. So being made alive is necessary to both believe and to repent. So that belief, the faith, and the repentance, they are both gifts, and those gifts are both communicated in the instant of regeneration. God regenerates the heart, and the very first action of the regenerated heart, like a resurrected corpse taking its first breath, the initial action of the regenerated heart is to turn from sin and believe. These things—regeneration, faith, and repentance—chronologically that's the order. Logically, I repent and I believe and I am regenerated, but a dead sinner cannot do anything pleasing to God. Is faith pleasing to God? Is repentance pleasing to God? The unbelieving man can do neither of those because he cannot please God in his flesh. Something must happen in the heart of a man to make him willing to repent, desiring to repent, willing to believe, and desiring to believe, and that is regeneration. The spiritually dead sinner has to be raised from the dead.
The Scripture teaches that the only thing that distinguishes me—and you make this personal to yourself—Scripture teaches that the only thing that distinguishes me from the sinner who dies in his sins without Christ, the only difference, is sovereign, matchless, merciful, infinite grace to a wretched sinner who is not just undeserving but ill-deserving. That is what makes me to differ from the other man. What makes Moses to differ from Pharaoh? I'll have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will harden whom I harden. “Oh, that's not fair.” Yeah well, go have a word with the Potter about that. He has some things to say about that. You might want to read through Romans 9. If you find yourself agreeing with the imaginary objector of Romans 9, you're on the wrong side of the argument because Paul answers that. “Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?” (Rom. 9:20) You just better bow your knee and give thanks that He saved you and let it end with that. Stop asking questions, stop making objections, stop refusing to believe because you think this is unfair. Bow the knee and embrace it.
You and I are not going to spend our eternity patting each other on the back and congratulating each other for the faith and the repentance that brought us into the kingdom of God. We're not going to do that. Instead we're going to sing, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12). “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the might forever and ever” (Rev. 5:13). That will be our song. Not “Congratulations!” but “To Him belongs the glory.” But God, being rich in grace, rich in mercy, raised us up when we were dead.
That's the truth about man, the truth about God, and the truth about salvation. Now the truth about our works in verse 10. If man is dead, he can't work for salvation. If it's God who saves him apart from his works, then where do works fit in? This is the issue. The Catholics take works and they put it up here at the front, in front of faith, in front of repentance, in front of justification and sanctification. They say that works is the gateway through which all of these other graces come to the believer. And the Protestant position, the biblical position, is that no, man can't do that. He's dead. God must do this. So salvation is by grace, and works is what follows, which is why Paul begins this passage with grace and our deadness and does not begin with works. Works come in verse 10.
And works can only come if you have first been created in Christ Jesus for those good works. Verse 10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Works do not earn salvation, they evidence salvation. They don't provide salvation, they are the proof of salvation. You have to get those in the right order. Dead men can't do good works. Dead men can do things that you and I approve of, but dead men can't do things that God approves of. Understand the difference. Just because you look at somebody who's a nice guy, who throws himself on a grenade to save the rest of his platoon, that might be a nice thing from our perspective, but from God's perspective it merits nothing because it comes from a spiritually dead, rebellious, wicked sinner.
So good works are impossible for the man who is dead in his trespasses and sins. They must come afterwards. We must be created in Christ Jesus for good works, and until that happens, until you are raised from spiritual death and made alive in Christ Jesus and seated with Him, you can't do any good works. You have to first be created in Christ in order to do them. Then the good works follow.
And you say, “OK, finally we get to the end of the chapter. Here's something I can boast about—my works! I can't boast about being partially alive, I can't boast about raising myself from the dead, I can't boast about my faith or my repentance—but my works!” Those were prepared beforehand for you to walk in them. What did you have to do with that? Every good thing you've ever done that is pleasing or meritorious to God in His sight as a believer, every good work, every act of service, every sacrifice, every gift, everything you've ever done, He prepared it for you before the foundation of the world. It was already appointed for you by His good hand as the demonstration of the grace that He will display on you for all of eternity. So you can't even boast about the works.
I can't look to any book that I've written and say, “Look at me.” I can't look to any sermon I preach and say, “Look at me.” I can't look to anything I've sacrificed, anything I've given, anything I've done, or anything I have. Is there anything that I have that has not been given to me? The answer is nothing, not my salvation, not my sanctification, not my glorification, not any good work I have done. If I write a hundred more books, can I take credit for any of those? No, because God already appointed those beforehand for me to do. So everything I do, I do because I am endeavoring to do the work that God has given to me and appointed for me from before the foundation of the world.
So when I get to the end of it and look back upon all of the things that we have done in grace for the glory of God, I can't point to any single thing of which I can boast, not a one. I can be grateful for it. I can thank God for it. I can praise Him for it, and I will for all of eternity, but I can't take any boasting in it. Romans 3:27: “Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.” Since it comes by grace through faith, you can't boast of any single thing. There is nothing you have that you haven't received.
So if you still think after doing all of this that you still did something and had something to do with your salvation, then answer me this question: what can a dead person do to affect their own resurrection that they can't boast in? What can a dead person do to affect their own resurrection that they can't boast in? The answer to that is nothing. We were dead. God is rich in mercy. Salvation is by grace through faith. And the works were appointed for us, so we do them.
Now, what should this do for us as Christians? Two things. First, it should humble us. I hope you read that. I hope you hear that. I hope that impacts you. It should humble us. With nothing for us to offer, God looked down in grace. He chose us. He loved us. He sent His Son to die for us. He raised us from spiritual death. He granted us faith. He granted us repentance. He granted us belief in His Son. He raised us up with Him by the regenerating work of the Spirit of God and sealed us with the Spirit. Adoption, predestination, redemption, all of it is God's gift of His grace and His grace alone. That should be humbling.
Second, we should be thankful, thankful that God, being rich in grace and mercy, has made known to us the mystery of His will, called us, chose us, and redeemed us by His blood. We should be thankful that salvation is by grace and not by works. If it were by works, we would certainly miss it. It must be by grace. We should be thankful for the grace that calls us and changes the heart and sets us free from sin, self, and Satan so that we can serve God and do the works that He has predestined us to do.
And some of you at this very moment may not even be in the family of God, so I want to talk to you for a moment. If you've never repented of your sin and trusted Christ for salvation, you're still in verses 1–3. You're under the wrath of God. You're a child of disobedience. Your lies, your dishonoring your parents, your lust, your hatred, your greed, your selfishness, your envy, your strife, your bickering, your pride, your idolatry, your fornication, all of that has heaped up for you a helping of God's wrath that you will have to bear for all of eternity if you do not find a substitute for your sin. That's the bad news. You deserve Hell. You deserve it everlastingly. And even one sin is enough to separate you from a loving and gracious God for all of eternity, and if you had only sinned one time, Hell is what you would deserve and Hell would be just. That's a fact.
But here's good news. Everyone around you also deserved that at one time as well, but God is rich in mercy and has sent His Son the Lord Jesus Christ into this world. He lived the life that you were required to live but you didn't, and He died the death that you should have died but you couldn't, and He bore the wrath and He bore the punishment for every last person who would ever trust in Him. That sacrifice, that atoning work, is sufficient to cover your sin if you will come to God on His terms, and His terms are repentance and faith. He's the offended party. You are the guilty criminal. If you want clemency, if you want forgiveness, if you want grace, you come on His terms. His terms are repentance and faith. You understand that you're a sinner, you understand you deserve the wrath of God, and you turn from that sin, and you turn toward God in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, believing and trusting that that sacrifice was enough to pay the price for your sin. And you believe that, you know that, and you turn to Christ, and you call out to God for mercy. He will not cast you out. He will embrace you, He will forgive your sins, and He will give you the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
The good news of the gospel is that by grace you can be saved through faith, and at the moment of faith, Christ takes all of your sin and you get all of His righteousness. This is the great exchange over which all of Scripture is written. You get righteousness, He gets your sin. His payment is sufficient, but you must come to Him in repentance and faith. And my prayer for you is that you will understand your lost condition in verses 1–3, that you will embrace by grace through faith the saving work of Jesus Christ, and that you will be raised from the dead through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the work of the Spirit of God through the will of God.
For those of us who are in Christ Jesus, let us give God thanks for His great work of salvation.