I. John Newton

John Newton’s song "Amazing Grace" through three centuries has touched the hearts of thousands upon thousands. Every one singing this song "with the understanding" truly is amazed afresh at the bigness of the Father’s heart. Inevitably, with the song completed, one is humbled, grateful, responsive, and more dedicated. The late and beloved Ira North, who could have lived a selfish life, devoted himself selflessly to the spread of the kingdom. Many forces molded Ira, one of which was the song "Amazing Grace." The bible class he started under that name has reached thousands whom Ira never personally met but whom joyously he will know in a better land.

John Newton (1725-1807) of London was motherless at age seven and a sailor at eleven. Soon he was vulgar, blasphemous, and skeptical. However, on an African-England voyage, a mighty tempest left all sailors exhausted and despairing of life. As the ship pitched he began to reflect on his sinful life as he waited to receive his doom. When the ship righted, John began to pray. He was a changed man.

Back in England he began studying the Bible. Then, becoming a slave ship captain, on one trip, as he was taking a cargo of black men from Africa to Charleston, S. C., his nature shrank from such inhumanity. Resigning, he wrote a letter of condemnation. Back in England, he took a job in Liverpool as a clerk in an office, and started going to church. At the age of thirty-nine he was ordained a rector, and preached for forty-three years. Among his writings were these words:

Cautioned about his still continuing to preach when he was nearly eighty-two years old, he replied, "Shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?" He wrote an epitaph to be placed on a tablet in the London church building where he preached:

II. Examples of Grace

Agape, the New Testament’s greatest word, is misnamed unless it contains charis, grace, unmerited favor. I rejoice in the infinite beauty and magnitude of God’s creation ("the heavens and the earth"), but he did not owe me anything that he should make it. I have to acknowledge that it is by his grace. I rejoice that I am a living being, yes, one of the chiefest of living creatures in God’s world, but he did not owe me the gift of life. What have I that I did not receive? (cf. I Cor. 4:7). Again I must acknowledge that "by the grace of God I am what I am" (I Cor. 15:10).

The greatest Old Testament word, hesedh, would be a shell if it did not contain grace. Elementally, hesedh is to bend, to incline. One sees the gracious, considerate, bending over disposition of the Father taking time to come to the earth to talk to a sinful, sulking, angry Cain. By all rights, the busy God of the universe could have ignored the disobedient Cain. But grace goes beyond all rights. It was grace that moved the Father to leave heaven to do personal work with one person. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust" (Psa. 103:13-14).

Since God’s disposition is the same in both the Old and New Testaments ("I, Jehovah, change not," Mal. 3:6), one is not surprised in the New Testament to see him as a father "moved with compassion," running, bending, even falling on the neck of a dirty, shabby, shoeless, sinful son, and kissing him profusely ("much," in the Greek at Luke 15:20). Strict justice never bends, but grace does.

The fleshly personification of grace is the one who "steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem," who endured the cross, despising the shame, who pleaded for his murderers, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 9:51; 23:34; Heb. 12:2). If one spends some time in the darkness under the arms of the cross (as did four people, John 19:25-27), he would never say that as Calvary God was imposing a covenant on all people, nor would he say that sinners’ accepting the blood-sealed covenant were entering a "vassal treaty" with God. Instead, one sees the God of all grace peering through the gloom imploring sinners to become his children ("what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God; and such we are," I John 3:1). And one sees Jesus as an older brother begging sinners to cleanse themselves by his blood that he might not "be ashamed to call them brothers" (Heb. 2:11). Though their sins be as scarlet, though they be red like crimson, from the heart they will be able to sing:

III. Grace Abused

Works salvation. Some crush the fragrant petals of grace by thinking human deeds bring salvation, attaching works of merit to grace. The roman Catholics have an official "Treasury of Merit" where good deeds are deposited offsetting bad deeds, and so shortening one’s stay in Purgatory. Pilgrimages and the sacraments "impart grace" to faithful Catholics. But the New Testament forbids that any meritorious deeds be connected with salvation by grace. "If by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise, work is no more work" (Rom. 11:6).

From one standpoint, one must "work out" his own salvation (Phil. 2:12), but from another it is impossible for one to work his way to heaven. "When ye shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do" (Luke 17:10).

Grace alone. As exclusive as is the saving power of God’s grace, yet works are essential in appropriating divine grace. If the Bible taught salvation by grace alone, then nobody could be lost, for "by the grace of God" Jesus died for every man (Heb. 2:9). Human response must interact with his grace. God’s grace opened a well of water for Hagar, but she had to do something or she would still have thirsted to death: "she went, and filled the bottle with water" (Gen. 21:19).

God’s act of grace alone in opening the Red Sea would not have delivered the Israelites. The had to do quite a bit of walking, but none attributed his salvation from Pharaoh to his own work. All of them could have sung, "By grace are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves; not of works, lest any man should boast" (cf. Eph. 2:8-9).

And so it is when a sinner today comes up out of the waters of baptism: he does not compliment himself on works accomplished and salvation earned. He knows that intrinsically he is not justified by any works of his own but by grace (Tit. 3:5-7). But grace will never justify the disobedient (John 3:36; Heb. 5:9).

Post-baptismal grace. Some gospel preachers so abuse grace as to say nothing in the New Testament beyond baptism is obligatory on the Christian, asserting that all after the book of Acts is a "bunch of love-letters; grace takes care of everything." They resent the word "law," not realizing that law in every dispensation (Gen. 18:19; Psa. 119:97; Rom. 8:2) is holy and just and good (Rom. 7:12), and that grace operates through law (Tit. 2:11-15).

Their misuse of anarthrous "law" in Romans 6:14) and Galations 5:18 has led them into a contradiction of the many New Testament verses that teach Christians they are under Christ’s law (Isa. 2:1-4; Jer. 31:31-34; Rom. 3:27; 8:2; I Cor. 9:21; Gal. 6:2; James 1:27; 2:12: I John 3:4). These preachers condemn the Old Testament as only a "written code" from which Christians are liberated. Since love is "the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:10; Gal. 5:14), they say there is no law for the Christians but love, something not found in a "written code." With their theory these men could not consistently teach on baptism or the Lord’s Supper, for the word "love" does not contain such subjects.

Logically these preachers have grouped themselves with the love-moralists. If love motivates, no action can be wrong: killing, abortion, euthanasia. Nothing of itself is wrong: "there are no absolutes" (Julian Huxley). As circumstances vary, so do moral decisions (Dr. Harvey Cox). "If it feels good, do it." This thinking refuses to condemn pornography, homosexuality. Those following this philosophy do not use the words adultery, fornication, and sin. "Sex is not a moral question" (Miami psychologist Granville Fisher). The criterion should be, he said, "Is it socially feasible , is it personally healthy and rewarding, will it enrich human life?" Thus the holy doctrines of love and grace are abused to cover licentiousness and every gross immorality.

In truth there is a written code for Christians, the New Testament. Anyone claiming to know God and not keeping his commandments "is a falsifier" (I John 2:4), and his commandments are in no place but in the written New Testament (Matt. 10:40; Luke 10:16; John 16:13). The right-thinking person receives with meekness the engrafted word (James 1:21) as his moral guide, and he is adrift without it.

Understood rightly, the words of Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, "love and do what you will," are true and beautiful. Love moralists or preachers without a written law do not understand if they seize upon his statement as being the love-morality with no written commandments. The love which Augustine exalted as primary and single began with love for God and finished with respect for the Bible. In his eyes, if one loves God as he should, he reverences all of God’s commandments. If one concentrates on the highest love then he "wills" to do anything God has approved, and he refuses to do anything God has condemned. God’s will becomes his, the Christian’s will. If one truly loves God his will is to obey God completely. Christ has become his "all in all" (Col. 3:11), for he (his old man) had died, and his "life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3). He has willingly allowed God wholly to envelop his being. "Our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee." In that understanding, it is beautifully true that if one loves he is free to do what he wills.

No confession of sins. The free grace of God is so deep and wide, say some, that a Christian should not confess his sins, and if he does he shows he does not believe enough in God’s grace. A preacher writes:

The brother’s aversion to a confession of sins drove him to misuse the word homologeo. Classical Greek does use the word to mean "agree with," but no New Testament writer so used it. The very opposite of that meaning was in Jesus’ mind when he spoke the word in Matthew 7:23), "I never knew you," In John 12:42 nonsense results if one says the rulers believed on Jesus but did not agree (homologeo). The principal New Testament meaning is to confess, to acknowledge, as when one confesses Christ (Rom. 10:9; I Tim. 6:12; I John 2:23; 4:15), and as when one confesses sins (Matt. 3:6; James 5:16; I John 1:9). To affirm, so long as a Christian has a "repentant and trustful attitude," that forgiveness of sins is automatic is another abuse of God’s grace. Such a theory not only contradicts John’s plain statement, "if we confess our sins" (I John 1:9), but also conflicts with Solomon’s wisdom: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy" (Prov. 28:13).

Those who attempt to make a Christian’s forgiveness automatic without any confession not only dispute Proverbs 28:13 and I John 1:9, but also Luke 11:4, "forgive us our sins." An evasion of that statement is effected this way: "Jesus’ emphasis in the Model Prayer is that our forgiveness is related to how we forgive others." Surely that relationship is there, but forgiveness granted to others is not automatic, being based on "if he hear thee" and "if he repent" (Luke 17:3; Matt. 18:15). These conditions entail a confession of wrongs.

Sins not imputed. Shocking is the thought that a Christian shows he does not understand grace if he confesses sins. However, even more shocking is the teaching that the sins have not been charged against him in the first place. This idea makes the previous discussion about imputed against the Christian, it is nonsense to speak of forgiveness. A gospel preacher writes: "Romans 4:8 speaks of a man (the child of God) whose sin is not imputed to him. Yes, I believe that is the grace in which Christians stand."

The brother does not understand Romans 4:8 (the second half of an example of synthetic parallelism, with v. 7 being the first half). Paul has quoted from Psalm 32:1-2, "Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah imputeth not iniquity." The verses describe David, against whom sin had been charged (II Sam. 12:13), but not forgiven. But he was not forgiven until he had made his confession of sin: "I sinned against Jehovah" (II Sam. 12:13). "I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity only when a man has confessed his sin (as in I John 1:9). The man who does not so confess is he who "covereth his transgression," and shall "not prosper" (as in Proverbs 28:13). God is no respector of persons. Nobody is exempt from the imputation of sin when he had sinned, transgressed God’s law (I John 3:4), and no Christian, having confessed his sin, has it charged against him.

Finite man presumptuous to limit grace. It has been argued that "no man knows enough to say what or what not the grace of God covers." That sentiment is used to excuse the use of instrumental music in Christian worship. However, the same sentiment also justifies holy water, incense burning, homosexuality, etc. But biblically one can know what or what not the grace of God covers: all confessed sins are covered, while those not confessed are not covered (I John 1:9).

What if one sins unknowingly? Ignorance is no excuse (Leviticus 5:17), but God of love is fair and judges with more leniency those who sin in ignorance (Luke 12:47-48; I Timothy 1:13). A wise person will search the Scriptures daily (Acts 17:11) to "know the truth" (John 8:32), and he will pray for forgiveness of unintentional sins: "Cleanse me from secret [hidden] faults" (Psalm 19:12). And he will try his best to be sinless (I John 3:9).

Conclusion

It is wrestling the Scriptures to teach that God’s grace is a cover for disobedience either in or out of the church. But how thankful a Christian should be, having obeyed the gospel, and continuing his confession of sins, that the Savior’s grace is a blessed and unfailing strength an cover:

"Grace is receiving what we do not deserve. Mercy is not receiving what we deserve" (Pat Flanigan).