present salvation must be by grace

MEANING OF GRACE: Grace is unmerited favor. God’s grace defines the ability to do supernatural and extra ordinary thing. Grace is the unmerited favor given to humanity by God even without conscience of man. Again God’s grace means something that set man free from condemnations and power of sin so that we can live to please God. 

PRESENT SALVATION

I will handle the text briefly, by way of making a few statements. The first statement is clearly contained in the text. There is present salvation.

When Paul wrote this epistle, he declared, “You are saved,” not “shall be,” or “may be,” but “are”. He saved,” or “hopeful of salvation,” but, “By grace are ye saved.” Let us be as clear on this point as he PRESENT SALVATION MUST BE BY GRACE

was, and let us never rest until we know that we are saved. At this moment we are either saved or unsaved. that is clear. To which class do we belong? i hope that, by the witness of the Holy Spirit, we may be so assured of our safety as to sing, “The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation” (Exodus 15:2).

Upon this I will not linger, but I will pass on to note the next point.

PRESENT SALVATION IS BY GRACE

If we can say of any man or of any set of people, “You are saved,” we must preface or follow it with the words, “By grace.” There is no other present salvation except that which begins and ends with grace. Among those who dwell around us, we find many who are complete strangers to the doctrine of grace. These poor souls never dream of present salvation.  Possibly they trust that they may be saved when they die; they half hope that, after years of watchful holiness, they may, perhaps, be saved at last. But, to be saved now, and to know that they are saved, is quite beyond them, and they believe it is presumptuous to think so.

There can be no present salvation unless it is upon this foundation: “By grace are ye saved.”  It is a very singular thing that no one has risen up to preach a present salvation by works. I suppose it would be too absurd. The works being unfinished, the salvation would be incomplete; or, the salvation being complete, the main motive of the legalist would be gone.

Salvation must be by grace. If man is lost by sin, how can he be saved except through the grace of God? If he has sinned, he is condemned; how could he, of himself, reverse that condemnation? Suppose that he should keep the law all the rest of his life; he will then only have done what he was always bound to have done, and he will still be an unprofitable servant (Luke 176:10). What is to become of the past? How can old sins be blotted out? How can the old ruin be rebuilt? According to scripture and according to common sense, salvation can only be through the free favor of God.

       Salvation in the present tense must be by the free favor of God. people may contend for salvation by works, but  you will not hear anyone support his own argument by saying, “I am myself saved by what I have done.” Few men would dare to express such inordinate arrogance. Pride could hardly control its swelling with such extravagant boasting. No, if we are now saved, it must be by the free favor of God.

No one professes to be an example of the opposite view.

      To be complete, salvation must be by free favor.  When they come to die, saints never conclude their lives by hoping in their good works. Those who have lived the most holy and useful lives invariably look to free grace in their final moments. I have never stood by the bedside of a holy man who reposed any confidence whatever in his own prayers, repentance, or piety. I have heard eminently holy men on their deathbeds quoting the words, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). In fact, the nearer men come to heaven, and the more prepared they are for it, the simpler their trust is in merit of the Lord Jesus, and the more intensely they abhor all trust in themselves.

      If this is the case in our last moments, when the conflict is almost over, how much more ought we to feel it to be so while we are in the thick of the fight.

If a man is completely saved in this present time of warfare, how can it be except by grace? While he has to mourn over sin that dwells in him, while he has to confess innumerable shortcomings and transgressions, while sin is mixed with all he does, how can he believe that he is completely saved except that it is by the free favor of God? 

      Paul spoke of this salvation as belonging to the Ephesians: “By grace are ye saved.” The Ephesians had been given to curious arts and works of divination.

They had thus made a covenant with the powers darkness. Now, if people such as these were saved, it must have been by grace alone. So is it with us also.

Our original condition and character render it certain that, if saved at all, we must owe it to the free favor of god. it know it is so in must owe it to the free favor of God. I know it is so in my own case, and I believe the same principle holds true for the rest of believers.

      This is clear enough, and so I advance to the next observation.

BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH

Salvation by grace through faith means present salvation is by grace, and salvation by grace must be through faith. You cannot understand salvation by grace by any other means than through faith. This live coal from the altar needs the golden tongs of faith with which it carry it.

      I suppose that it would have been possible, if God had so willed it, that salvation might have been through works and yet still by grace. If Adam had perfectly obeyed the law of God, he would only have done what he was bound to do. So, if god had rewarded him, the reward itself must have been according to grace, since the creator owes nothing to the creature. This system would have been very difficult to work on a practical level, even though its objective was perfect. However, in our case it would not work at all. 

Salvation in our case means deliverance from guilt and ruin and this could not have been secured by a measure of good works, since we are not in a condition to perform any.

      Suppose I had to preach that you, as sinners, must do certain works, and then you would be saved.

Further, suppose that you could perform them. Such a salvation would soon appear to be of debt. Apprehended in such a fashion, it would have come to you in some measure as the reward of work done, and its whole aspect would have been changed. Salvation by grace can only be gripped by the hand of faith. The attempt to lay hold of it by the performance of cretin acts of law would cause the grace to evaporate.

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace

                                                (Romans 4:16)

And if by grace, than is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, than is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more.                                                  (Romans 4:16)

Some try to lay hold of salvation by grace through the use of ceremonies, but it will not do. You are christened, confirmed, and caused to receive “the holy sacrament” from priestly hands. Does this bring you salvation? I ask you , “Do you have salvation?” you dare not say “Yes” if you did claim salvation of a sort, yet I am sure it would not be in your minds salvation by grace, for those who are most addicted to the performance of outward rites are usually the last persons to enjoy any assurance of being saved  by grace.  

They do not even think to look for such a thing. The more they multiply their rites and ceremonies, the more they quit the notion of grace, and the more they quit the notion of grace, and the more they lose the true idea of salvation.

      Again, you cannot lay hold of salvation by grace through your feelings. The hand of faith is constructed for the grasping of a present salvation by grace but feeling is not adapted for that end. If you say, ‘I must feel that I am saved; I must feel so much sorrow and so much joy, or else I will not admit that I am saved,” you will find that this method will not suffice. You might as well hope to see with your ears or taste with your eyes or hear with your nose as to believe by feeling: it is the wrong organ. After you have believed, you can enjoy salvation by feeling its heavenly influences, but to dream of getting a grasp of it by you own feelings is as foolish as to attempt to carry the sunlight in the palm of your hand or the breath of heaven between the lashes of your eyes.

Moreover, the evidence yielded by feeling in singularly fickle. When your feelings are peaceful and delightful, they are soon broken in upon and become restless and melancholy. The most fickle of element, the most feeble of creatures, or the most contemptible it would certainly be were it not of such a miraculous quality that it baffles the waters and set up its reign of fire and light even in the depths.

Salvation by grace, through faith, is not of ourselves in the sense of being the result of our own power. We are bound to view salvation as being a divine act as surely as we do creation or providence or resurrection. In every point of the process of salvation, these words are appropriate: “not of yourself.” From the first desire for it to the full reception of it by faith, it is forever of the lord alone, and not of ourselves. The man believes, but that belief is only one result among many of the implantation of divine life within the man’s soul by God Himself.

Even the very will or desire to the saved by grace is “not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” here lies the emphasis of  the discussion. A man ought to believe in Jesus. It is his duty to receive Him whom God has set forth to be a propitiation for sins. Yet , man will not believe in Jesus. He prefers anything to faith in his Redeemer. Unless the Spirit of God of God convinces his judgment and constrains his will, man has on heart to believe in Jesus unto eternal life.

      I ask any saved man to look back upon his own conversion and explain how it came about. You turned to Christ and believed on his name; these were your own acts and deeds. But, what caused you to turn that way? What sacred force was it that turned you from sin to righteousness? Do you attribute this singular renewal to the existence of a something better in you than has been yet discovered in your unconverted neighbor? No, you confess that you might have been what he is now if it had not been that there was a potent something that touched the spring of your will, enlightened your understanding, and guided you to the foot of the cross. Gratefully we confess the fact; it must be so,. Salvation by grace, through faith, is not of ourselves. None of us would dream of taking any honor to ourselves from our conversion or from any gracious effect that has flowed from the first divine cause.

Salvation Is the Gift of God

Finally, salvation may be called, Theodora, or God’s gift, and each saved soul may be surnamed Dorothea, which is another form of the same expression. Multiply your phrases and expand your expositions as you will, but salvation truly traced to its fountainhead is all contained in the unspeakable gift-the free, unmeasured blessing of love.

Salvation is the gift of God, in opposition to wages, when a man pays another his wages, he does what is right. No one would dream of praising him for it. Yet, we praise God for salvation because it is not the payment of debt but the gift of grace. No man enters eternal life on earth or in heaven as his due; “It is the gift of God”. we say, “Nothing is freer than a gift”. Salvation is so purely, so absolutely a gift of God that nothing can be freer.

God gives salvation because He chooses to give it, according to that grand text that has made many a man bite his lip in wrath: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion”(Romans 9:15). You are all guilty and condemned, and the Great King pardons whom he choose from among you,. This is His royal prerogative. He saves in infinite sovereignty of grace

At the same time, the Lord Himself has declared, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”(Acts 2:21). This sweeping statement in no way conflicts with the statement that no one receives salvation xcept as a gift. You must stand obliged to God’s mercy for it, or else you will die without it. To pretend a right to it would be to insult God, whose heart is set upon the exercise of His free bounty. He will not barter and bargain with you-so much grace for so many tears, so much mercy for so much repentance, so much love for so many works-the idea is contemptible. Salvation is not on the market except  under these explicit terms: “without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1). Freely may you be saved if you will cast out of your soul the last thought of making God your debtor.

      Salvation is the gift of God-that is to say, it is completely so, in opposition to the notion of growth.

Salvation is not a natural production from within; it is brought from a foreign zone and planted within the heart by heavenly hands. Salvation is a gift from God in its entirely. If you will receive it, there it is, complete.

      Will you accept it as a perfect gift? “No, I will produce it in my own workshop.” You cannot forge a work so rare and costly, upon which even Jesus spent His life’s blood. Here is a garment without seam, woven from the top down in one piece. It will cover you and make you glorious. Will you take it and wear it? “No, I will sit at the loom, and I will weave  a raiment of my own!” proud fool that you are! You spin cobwebs. You weave a dream. Oh, that you would freely take what Christ upon the cross declared to be finished.

      “It is the gift of God” in the sense that it is eternally secure, in opposition to the gifts of men, which soon pass away. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you” (John 14:27), said our lord Jesus. If my lord Jesus gives you salvation at this moment, you have it, and you have it forever. He will never take back again. And if He does not take it from you, who can? If He saves you now through faith, you are saved so saved that you will never perish, neither will anyone pluck you out of his hand (John 10:28).

      I pray that you may know, at this moment and always, the joy of being eternally secure as you “abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (psalm 91:1) because you have accepted His free, merciful gift of salvation by His precious grace.

      Not of Ourselves

We now take this discussion a step further. The present salvation and the faith and the whole gracious work altogether are not of ourselves.

      First of all, they are not deserved because of our prior performance. They are not the reward for former good endeavours. No unregenerate person has lived so well that God is bound to give him further grace and to bestow on him eternal ife, otherwise, it would be n longer of grace, but of debt, salvation is given to us, not earned by us our first life is always a wandering away from God, and our new life of return to God is always a work of undeserved mercy, performed in those who greatly need, but never deserve, such gracious favor.

In the further sense, it is not of ourselves in that it is not out of our internal excellence. Salvation comes from above. It is never evolved from within. Can eternal life be evolved from the bare ribs of death? Some date to tell us that faith in Christ and the new birth are only the development of good things that lay hidden in us by nature. But in this, like their father the devil, they speak of their own (John 8:44). Beloved, if an heir of wrath is left to develop on his own he will become more and more fit for the place prepared for the devil and his angels! You may educate an unregenerate man to the highest degree, yet, he remains, and must forever remain, dead in sin unless a higher power comes in to save him from himself.

conclusion 

Grace brings into the heart an entirely foreign element. That element does not improve and perpetuate. It kills and then makes alive. There is no continuity between the state of nature and the state of grace. The one is darkness, and the other is light the one is death, and the other is life. Grace, when it comes to us, is like a firebrand dropped into the sea.