You and I must hear, believe, and obey the gospel, each of our own volition. That decision for Christ and obedience to the gospel is essential. It is a condition of receiving salvation by grace. However Jesus puts this into perspective for us: "When you have done all that is commanded of you, say, 'we are unworthy slaves and we have done only what was our duty'"
Rom 3:27-28
"Where then is boasting? It is excluded ...by a law of faith
1Co 1:27-31
"God has chosen the 'foolish' things... to shame the 'wise'.. that none should
Gal 6:14
"May I never boast, save in the cross of our
Eph 2:8-10
"By grace you have been saved though faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest
Unfortunately these passages are sometimes taken to mean that if we claim to do anything that contributes to our own salvation, if we think we have the intelligence to make a decision for or against God's way,
This is not Paul's point at all. He is talking about people who say they don't need Jesus, they are good enough to go to heaven on their own. I once heard a person say, "I don't need your Jesus. I live a good life, and when I stand before God I'm quite sure I'll go to heaven." Now that is certainly a boast, and it is that kind of boasting that Paul
FOUR KEY WORDS
There are four key words in the scriptures that show that, even though we examine the gospel with our own intelligence, and follow it of our own will, we have nothing to boast of, and indeed
The first key word is "sacrifice".
A sacrifice is required to make atonement for sins. However any sacrifice we offer to God is going to fall short of his perfect standard just as surely as we do ourselves. So whilst it's a lovely thought that God would accept a sacrifice for our sins, we can't find one
God long ago anticipated that obstacle. God himself could provide a perfect sacrifice for us. He could see no reason why he should reject a sacrifice just because it was from himself, not from us. What mattered was that it be perfect. It's sufficiency did not consist in our providing it. What God provided was the sacrifice of his only begotten Son because nothing else would do
Firstly
God ordained that his Son should become flesh; he should become as those for whom he was to be sacrificed
Secondly
God ordained that his Son, having become one of us, should live the righteous life that all of us have failed to live
Thirdly
God ordained that his Son should suffer and be put to death as a wrongdoer, although he had done no wrong
Fourthly
God ordained that his Son should rise from the dead and ascend into heaven as our great High Priest, having sacrificed his own flesh and blood that it might be accepted as the sufficient and perfect sacrifice once and for all
With these facts before us, we can see that we have nothing to boast of. Even though we claim the capacity to understand and believe these facts, to be humbled by them, and to give thanks to God of our own volition, where is the boasting? As Paul says,
The second key word is "plan".
Peter proclaimed that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross came about "by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God"
Now you and I didn't have any plan. Did you plan your first sin? I'm sure you didn't. That's why most people can't even remember when they personally sinned for the first time. It was an unplanned event, and what a terrible pickle it got us into. You and I had no plan to get out of that pickle, any more than we had a plan to get into it. How foolish was that? Nothing to boast about there. We came under the wrath of God, under eternal condemnation, and for what? Most of us have
Now God is not foolish. He is the All Wise God. He knew we would be in a pickle, so he planned a way out of it. Where would we be if God had not ordained that plan for us? This is God's plan of salvation, not ours. Even though we accept that plan and decide to follow it of our own volition, what have we to boast of? We can but offer
The third key word is "gift".
Salvation is the gift of God. The well known verse tells us that God "gave"
Even if we claim the intelligence and capacity to appreciate this gift and to accept it, we give God the glory. "Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights..."
One kind of gift is inheritance. Imagine you are told that a rich relative has left you ten million dollars, but you have to make a long and difficult journey to get it. Does that make the ten million no longer a gift or any less a gift? Christians are heirs to "the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints... an inheritance imperishable and undefiled that will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you"
The fourth key word is "glory". Paul uses this word in Romans where he says, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us"
Now think carefully about that. Let us say that you believe in Jesus of your own intelligence and will, and you obey the Lord of your own volition. You suffer tribulation and persecution as a Christian, yet you still choose to follow Jesus. You even become a martyr for the sake of Christ; you are killed for the cross because you were unwilling to deny the Lord. Let us say you did all this. When you come to glory, will you come because you have merited it? No, you will enter glory because of what Jesus did for you, not because of the merit of
No matter how hard and long we work for the Lord, the reward he will grant us bears no comparison with the effort we have put in or the hardship we have suffered. This does not mean that God takes no account of our works or that they are meaningless. But their comparison with the unimaginable glory of the recompense shows it to be of grace, not of meritorious works. And we have nothing