Just a Sinner Saved by Grace?

(NOTE: The post is basically on my views not on generous apologetics.)

OK, so it's been two ice ages since I've posted. I figured the best way to thaw that ice would be to dive into something that's always set uneasily with me. That is when people say that they are "just a sinner saved by grace".

Just so that I don't get misunderstood, let me spend a moment to avoid some common errors. First off, according to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary the word 'grace' means "an unmerited favor" or "a privilege given, not a right". The word 'grace' doesn't take on a completely different meaning in the Bible, so I use it as "unmerited favor" throughout.

Eph 2:8-9 clearly says that we are saved by grace. And Rom 5:8 equally says that Christ died for our salvation while we were sinners. So that means that sinners are in fact saved by grace. So what then is my beef? Good question; glad you asked. The problem then is in the difference between action and identity. Take a look at 1 Cor 6:9-11:

⁹Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor 6:9-11 NIV)

Verses 9-10 list several example types of sinners (not an exhaustive list to be sure). Notice, however, the verbs. Through verses 9-10 everything is future tense. However, compare this to verse 11. Here all of the verbs shift to past tense. Paul is contrasting what is and what will be from that which was. Notice the pivotal phrase in verse 11: "And that is what some of you WERE" (emphasis added). Paul says that they were idolaters, or adulterers, or .... - basically that they were identified by their sins. There sin was who and what they were. However, verse 11 says that this is all passed. Believers are washed from sin and into new life in Christ. Now their identity comes not from there sin but from their new identity in Christ.

A quick side note here. 1 John 1:8-10 says that all of us, believers include, sin. All of us have sinned, will sin and quite possibly are sinning. Only Jesus is sin-free. The rest of us can move towards a less sinful state, but we will never get there. Sin will always be a part of our existence, this side of the grave.

So what does that mean back in 1 Cor 6:9-11? Paul identifies people as their sins, but that is what they WERE but no longer are. Even though they do still sin. The difference is between identity and action. Before Christ, we sin. After Christ we sin (hopefully less). But, before Christ our identity (who we are) is sin. After Christ, our identity is found in Christ. We were sinners who sin now we are saints who sin.

The problem with someone saying that they are "just a sinner saved by grace" is that they are still identifying themselves by their sin. They are "just a sinner". What do sinners do by nature? They sin. If someone is "just a sinner" then we can't expect anything more from them than sin. But what about saints? What do they do by nature? They do the good works of God. 1 John 1:8-10 does say that even saints sin, but it is against their nature. By nature they do good works. If someone has put their faith in Christ, they are a "new creation". They are no longer a sinner, they are a saint.

So the next time someone tells you that you are "just a sinner saved by grace" think about it. If you have put your faith in Christ tell them that they're wrong. Tell them that you are "just a saint saved by grace". If you don't care for the "saint" label, try telling them that you "were a sinner, now saved by grace". Which ever way you go, however you want to phrase it, don't let anyone tell you that your identity is still in sin, now it is Christ.

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

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Grace - Unmerited favor. That is, either getting that which you DID NOT earn, or NOT getting what you DID earn.

Identity - Who you are.

Action - What you do.

Blog index

I decided I wanted to keep things somewhat organized. Blogs always list the latest entry first, but sometimes you post in sequence, so people get it backwards. Here I'll keep in index, perhaps grouped by topic. If it's not your thing, skip it and read in blog style.

07/17/08 - What is Generous Apologetics?
07/28/08 - Differences
07/28/08 - Brevity
08/14/08 - Scriptura (different views on Scripture and authority)
08/15/08 - What is the Bible?
08/22/08 - Topics?
11/10/08 - On Church Growth
08/28/09 - Just a Sinner Saved by Grace?
02/25/10 - The End
04/07/11 - Rebirth
07/14/11 - Ockham's Razor
03/22/12 - The Becoming

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

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On Church Growth

I love Paul's statement in 1 Cor 3:6 on planting and watering. I think that is THE seminal verse for church growth. We are meant to be gardeners. Gardeners don't make things grow, they tend gardens. They do everything they can to make sure that the garden is healthy and then let God do the growing.

I've also seen that growth is not just a one dimensional thing. In any healthy church there will be seasons of growth in width (numbers) as well as in depth (discipleship), often alternating. The only true measure of growth is the area (width times depth).

Numbers is the only growth that is easy to measure so, sadly, it is the one that most of us focus on. This becomes a real problem when we focus on it to the exclusion of more important things, like truth and the Word. Turn on the TV and you'll see that it's really easy to grow in numbers - just sell out the Gospel and tell the people what they want to hear.

Gardening is hard work, but it is the only way to bring healthy growth. It also takes lots of patience. But the good news is that God takes care of the really hard work - changing hearts.

Pastors, don't bear a burden you were never meant to bear. Don't try to grow numbers or change hearts; let God do that. Tend your garden - plant seeds, water liberally and pull weeds (un-Biblical ideas). Free yourself from the burden only God can carry and be free to tend your garden with joy.

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

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Church Growth - The expansion of the church (can be local or universal) in either numbers or depth of discipleship.

Unhealthy Church Growth - Artificially causing a church to grown in numbers by selling out some aspect of God's Word and/or telling the people what they want to hear rather than telling them the truth.

Topics?

Hey folks, I have more than a few topics that I plan on writing on. But even so I am always up for people sending me topics to talk on. So, if you have something you want me to talk about, please send it my way. I might not get to it that day, but I will reply to as soon as I can. Have anything you want to how a generous apologist would handle, of for that matter any general theology? Just send them my way.

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

What is the Bible

You may have noticed, but in case you haven’t let me say, that in general I try to avoid big, theological words. They tend to obscure the real issues and scare people off. Sometimes they are hard to avoid, but I try. As I go I try to add definitions of the big and/or important words. I realized yesterday that I have left out one very important word. It’s not big in the number of letters it has, but it is very important so I’m going to correct my oversight and define it now. The Bible.

OK, so most everyone knows what the Bible is, but have you ever tried to define it? I’ve heard many nicknames (the Word, the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, the Divine Love Letter, that-big-black-book-I-carry-but-seldom-read) but few definitions. It’s very important to try and define it because how you define something often controls how you treat that thing. So here’s my definition for the Bible:

That Bible is the Word of God, written in human languages, for all mankind.

Well, it doesn’t sound earth-shattering, but it is important. Trust me. As you can see it has three parts; each one is very significant.

The Bible is the Word of God. A book is only as good as its authors. The Bible was written by many human hands but God inspired it all. Whether you believe in a literal, word-for-word inspiration (aka dictation) or something more like divine inspirations of concepts, either way the Bible comes from God and therefore has authority. Everything that God felt was important, we have in the Bible today and equally there is nothing in the Bible that God did not want there.

The Bible is written in human languages. This one seems like a DUH but it too is important. All human languages have rules - this form of the verb gets used in that context, the plural of this noun is that, etc. So when you read you can’t just pick and choose what you want, you have to understand and follow the rules of language to get the real meaning of what was written. The Bible is no different. No matter how “divinely lead” you may feel, you can’t read ‘red’ in the Bible and think “yellow” and be correct. The only way to get at what the Bible really means is to use the common rules of the language(s) it is written in - then figure out what you are doing to do with that meaning. (More on that one another day.)

The Bible is for all mankind. (This one is harder to cover in brief, so don’t expect much depth today.) The Bible in the Book of John it says: “But these [the words of Gospel of John] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31 NIV) Notice that it doesn’t say “these are written for priests to know and explain to you how to be saved”. It doesn’t say that it is written for priests or theologians or Saints or people without piercings and tattoos who eat all their veggies and clean up their rooms at night. It is written so that the person reading (a non-believer is implied) might know Jesus and believe in Him for eternal life. The Apostle John wrote several books of the Bible, but this one is different. Here he used very simple language to express some very profound things. The Greek words used would be about the level that a high school dropout of the day could understand, maybe even simpler. John wrote it in simple language so that ALL would be able to understand and then choose to believe or not. He wrote his Gospel for all mankind - the Bible was written for all mankind - not just a select (usually self-appointed) few.

If the Bible is written to all of us, then all of us should be in there reading it. If the Bible is written in human languages, then there are rules to help us understand what it really means. If the Bible is God’s Word, then it has authority and we had better understand it to see what God expects of us. You need to accept all three to really understand how to treat the Bible and what place it will have in your life today.

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

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The Bible - The Word of God, written in human languages, for all mankind.

Theology - The study of God and the things of God.

Theologian - Someone who studies hard and trains themselves diligently to make the hard to understand things of God even harder to understand. (Hopefully not.)

Scriptura

It would be wrong to deny that there are differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants. It would be even more wrong to deny that there far more similarities between the two. One of the chief differences comes down to authority and I thought I’d say a word on it here.

One of the cornerstones of the Protestant Reformation was the idea of Sola Scriptura (Latin for “by Scripture alone”). The idea being that the Bible alone should be the basis for faith and practice in a believer’s life. In contrast, the Catholic Church believes in Apostolic Succession, the idea that when the 12 Apostles died they passed on the office of apostle and it has since passed down to this very day. Because of this, someone (in this case the Pope) has the same rights as the Apostles to introduce new doctrines and practices. So the Protestant Reformers believe in the Bible alone for faith and practice while the Catholic Church believed in the Bible AND the teachings of the Popes.

In fairness, I must also mention that this issue doesn’t just touch on Protestant and Catholic differences. There are others out there who believe in authorities beyond the Bible. Some believe they have the Apostolic Succession, some that they have modern day prophets and still others that they have other forms of modern day revelation (seers, angelic visitations, etc). How then can those that believe in the Bible alone and those that believe in the Bible plus some other authority ever get along? Should they even try? I believe that in most cases they should, by being generous.

Having been in several and witnessing several other debates on whether the Bible is the only source of authority for believers I’ve come to one inescapable conclusion: the odds other neither side will give in. So the choices then would be to either cut off ties with the other side of the issue or somehow agree to disagree and be generous on this point. I know both Protestants and Catholics that feel that the other side are not really Christians. They choose the former solution, but that leads to ill will and they miss out on opportunities where they could minister together for the good of all. How then can we be generous about this point? By focusing on what we do have in common, the Bible.

All Christians believe that the Bible authority to teach faith and practice in our lives. Some believe in other authorities as well (Pope, seer, prophet, etc) but on the authority of Scripture we all must agree. As I posted before, the best way to handle differences it to focus on what we have in common rather that what we differ on. In this case the authority of the Bible.

What I propose then is that instead of fighting over Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), we instead accept the idea of Prima Scriptura (Scripture first) and agree to disagree on whatever is left that the Bible doesn’t speak to. The idea is that the Bible should come first as the authority for faith and practice. Then if some group wanted to accept some other authority, that’s fine for them, just as long as the other authority doesn’t contradict the Bible. If, however, someone has a “new” authority that contradicts the Bible, then that is a different issue that we cannot be generous about. We know that the Bible is from God. We know that God cannot contradict Himself. Therefore any “revelation” that contradicts the Bible contradicts God and cannot then be from God.

Whether you are a diehard Protestant or a hard-core Roman Catholic or believer in modern-day prophets and/or revelations let’s all agree to the authority of the Bible first. If these other authorities don’t contradict the Bible, let’s agree to disagree. Then, when ministry opportunities arise that are totally within the Bible, we can work side-by-side as brothers and sisters in Christ. When ministry goes beyond the Bible, we must agree to disagree, possibly debating the point, but always with grace and generosity as befits believers in Christ.

There is a catch though. A difference that goes beyond the Bible can be OK, but one that contradicts that Bible is not. The catch is that the only way we can tell the difference is if we know what the Bible really says. You can’t be generous with money when your pockets are empty, nor can you be generous in your faith when your mind is empty. Scriptural generosity requires first that we know what the Bible says. But that is a post for another day.

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

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Sola Scriptura - Latin for "by Scripture alone". The idea that the Bible should be the sole authority for faith and practice.

Apostolic Succession - The idea that the authority of the 12 Apostles was passed down through the ages to the modern day so that some today hold the same authority as the Apostles did, including creating new doctrines and practice.

Prima Scriptura - Latin for "first by Scripture". The idea that whatever other authority for faith and practice you want to follow, you must first accept the Bible as primary and that all other sources of authority cannot contradict what the Bible says.

Brevity

They say short blog posts are good blog posts. So far I've found this harder than I thought it would be. I apologize for the long posts. I'm the contemplative type (a la Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas then updated in Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels). We tend to contemplate a lot (hence the name) on something and then pour out all that we came up with at once. It's hard to condense hours of contemplation into sound bites, so bear with me folks. Hopefully they won't all be novels. bo)

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training