Category Archives: Reformed Theology

Lesson 16: Romans 4

God created a diverse universe. This is the way he wanted it to be. When he made us humans he made us so that we would not all be the same. We are different in our talents, interests, abilities, health, intelligence, appearance, and callings. In this sense, all men are not created equal.

There is also a uniformity in God’s creation of man. All were made in the image of God, obligated to represent his sovereign lordship. All were equally represented in Adam, who was assigned as the head of the human race. All equally fell into sin and became depraved in Adam. His sin passed on to all his posterity. Romans 5 (our next chapter for study) very clearly summarizes this truth and its solution.

Sin has distorted our diversities into false categories. In our fallen nature we develop pride and prejudice very early in our lives. I remember playing around the neighborhood and on the school yard when I was very young. When someone crossed us we often formed “clubs” to exclude them. There were those we considered “friends” and those we excluded from the group. When I taught Jr. High I saw the tendency of teens to form cliques. They would often mercilessly exclude certain people, and prejudicial favor others.

Our society as a whole sadly reflects that same attitude even among adults. It is sometimes good and productive to form special interest groups to learn together, and to encourage others in specific areas. However, we also tend to come up with unfounded categories into which we put people different than us. Those are often looked down upon, or sometimes hated. Sometimes people are shunned because of racial prejudices or economic differences. Sometimes we divide up because others speak differently or have been raised with different mannerisms. False standards of virtue and acceptance create sinful pride and the unjust treatment of others.

The groups God has divided us into are of a very different nature. Though all are fallen in Adam, some are redeemed from that fallen condition, others are not. In our confused, fallen condition we tend to explain that in wrong ways. Humans tend to think of things people do as the cause of why some are saved and others are not. Some think that baptism or belonging to a certain church redeems us from sin. Some think that those who made a right decision or religious choice will be favored by God. Some imagine that they earn salvation from sin by doing good deeds, or by sincere thoughts. However, God’s word condemns those ways of salvation as prideful and wicked. Dividing men up by those standards is wrong.

In Paul’s day many of the Jews had created a religious clique. They believed their heritage, their descent from Abraham, made them better than everyone else. They believed that being from a circumcised family assured them of eternal life with God.

In Romans we are taught that the Jew’s own Scriptures show their error. No one has an advantage when it comes to salvation from sin. It is by grace alone that any are redeemed by the propitiation of Jesus Christ. To illustrate this, in chapter four Paul uses the life of Abraham, the father of all Israel.

Abraham was clearly a man justified before God. No one questioned that. His justification was not because of the things in which the Jews were taking pride.

Romans 4:1-5, “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,”

Abraham was the one to whom God revealed his promise to redeem a people for himself. He was justified. He was given the Righteousness of God, and forgiven for his sin and guilt. If he was justified by what he had done or earned, then he had something to brag about. But he didn’t. Abraham had sinned just like everyone else. He had inherited the same corruption from Adam. It condemned him, and separated him from God.

The righteousness he had was a gift from God. It was not a reward for what he had done, or for being a better person. It was imputed to him, credited to him, by means of faith.

It is important to know what part this faith plays in his being justified. Three facts about faith help us understand this most important teaching of Scripture.

1. True faith is not what most people think it is.
It is not just an inner feeling or conviction. It is not a blind or irrational leap in the dark contrary to known facts. It is not a trust in something without sufficient evidence. There is no virtue in these things. They are not what the Bible calls “faith.”

Just trusting in something is not always good. That kind of trust is what the first two commandments forbid. Faith in a false god, or in a false way of salvation, or in a false hope is condemned in the Bible. Faith is only a good thing when it trusts in the true promises God has spoken. Therefore, it is the object of our faith, what we trust in, that makes it either good or bad. A faith in what God has not revealed is a “wicked faith” and offends God.

2. Biblical faith is not something we naturally have.
As we saw in the last chapter of Romans, faith is impossible for unredeemed humans (3:10-12). They cannot understand spiritual things as they truly are, much less can they be confident in them. They cannot seek after the true God, so they will not trust in him. They cannot do anything truly good. Certainly exercising true faith in Christ is a good thing.

As Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 3:2, “not all have faith.” Biblical faith is a special work of God upon the heart to give it confidence in what he has said. It is a sure confidence that comes by grace alone to the unworthy.

3. Faith is not the cause of being justified. It is the means God uses.
The foundation of our being made right with God is the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. He died in place of his people paying the price they deserved for their sin. By his suffering and death he satisfied the requirements of justice completely.

As the Holy Spirit applies that redeeming work to undeserving hearts he removes their guilt and offense, clothes them with his righteousness, and produces in them life and true faith. Those redeemed respond with repentance and trust in the true promise of God alone. It is this trust, this God-given faith, that is the means by which the work of Jesus declares us to be justified.

The faith by which Abraham was justified was a trust in the true promises of God. The method of salvation has always been the same. Those who are justified, trust in the work of God’s promised Redeemer and not in themselves.

Before Jesus was born, believers looked forward with faith in the promise of redemption, even though they did not understand it fully. Since the cross and resurrection of Jesus, we believers look back with faith, resting upon the finished work of Jesus.

Romans 4:6-8, “just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin.’ “

The quote here come from Psalm 32:1-2 by King David, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit.”

Men are justified before God by having Christ’s righteousness imputed to them. In imputation, we are not merely treated as if we were righteous. In Christ we actually become righteous. We are just because of his declaration.

The true believer has the righteousness of Jesus Christ placed around him like a robe. As Isaiah said, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10)

In all ages the method of salvation has been the same.

Paul turned back to Abraham to illustrate justification by grace through faith. Many of the Jews had come to classify people not based upon that inner work of grace, but by the outward sign of belonging to Israel, circumcision. It produced pride and prejudice.

Romans 4:9-12, “Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.”

God gave Circumcision as a seal to mark out his people. Circumcision proclaimed a righteousness which was not their own. They joined together in a community to live by God’s promise, the hope of Messiah. They admitted the hopelessness of doing anything that would make them right with God.

So it was a sign, saying their righteousness was by that faith God gives by grace. If it is a sign of something God does inwardly, then it cannot be the cause of salvation. The Jews were wrong who expected their circumcision to save them. They were wrong in thinking that uncircumcised Gentiles could not be saved. Abraham was not yet circumcised when God by grace justified him.

Believers from all nations were intended to be blessed in the same promise to Abraham. He is not just the spiritual father of the Jews, but of all who believe in all ages. As Paul wrote in Galatians 3:6-9, “just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

Today, after the shedding of Christ’s blood, baptism has become that sign. Baptism is the sign that marks out God’s people as those justified by grace through faith. It means the same thing as the Circumcision of the Old Testament. This is reflected in Colossians 2:11-12, “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

The promise has not changed. It is not different. God has always saved his people the same way. God grants life and faith by grace alone on the basis of the One Savior dying to pay the penalty of the sins of his people, satisfying justice and giving them his righteousness.

Dr. Charles Hodge explained, “As Abraham was the head and father of the theocratic people under the Old Testament, this relation was not disowned when the middle wall of partition was broken down and the gentiles introduced into the family of God. He still remained the father of the faithful, and we are ‘the sons of Abraham by faith,’ Galatians 3:7”

Romans 4:13-17, “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’) in the presence of Him whom he believed — God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;”

Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe, not just of the Jews who had the written law, and who practiced circumcision. He is father also to those who were redeemed among the Gentiles who know nothing of circumcision. When the gospel comes to them, and they too believe, they show the same promise at work in them.

These are the three groupings into which God divides mankind.
1. Some never profess to belong to God through his promise of atonement.
They are those not chosen to eternal life, and who never join with God’s people even in an outward way.

2. Some profess Christ but are not truly redeemed.
They may even join with God’s people and take part in worship and other activities. In the time between Abraham and Jesus, they would take on the sign of circumcision. In the era of the New Testament church they receive the sign of baptism. However, they are among those not chosen to eternal life by God’s grace.

Jesus addressed them in Matthew 7:21-23. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ ”

While these may have many outward advantages in this life by their association with God’s covenant people, they remain condemned.

3. Others are truly justified through Christ by grace alone.
These are the elect of God (Ephesians 1:3-6). They profess faith in God’s promise, come to him in honest repentance and trust in the work of the Savior. When able, they join with the visible church and take on the sign of the covenant (which in this age is baptism).

The sobering reality is that many might say they belong to Christ and even become baptized and join a church. They might seem to live a good life and impress many with their conservative ways. However, only those undeserving souls, humbled by grace and given confidence in Christ’s work, are robed with the righteousness of the Savior and restored to fellowship with God.

The basis for our redemption is based upon the promise of God. Paul briefly reviewed the details of Abraham’s confidence in this next section of Romans chapter four.

Romans 4:18-19, “who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”

When God told him that he and his wife would have children in their old age, it seemed humanly impossible. There was no reasonable hope based on outward things. However, though his faith was still immature, he believed God.

Romans 4:20-22, “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ “

There was a true faith implanted in his heart. Trusting in God’s provision for his sin, not in his own good works, the righteousness of God was imputed to him.

We too may wonder at times how God can forgive us and adopt us as his true children. Some may become confused by lapses into sin the way Abraham strayed and sinned. They may worry that they do not measure up or that their faith is not strong.

Grace is truly an amazing thing. Since our faith like Abraham’s is imperfect in this life, we will at times falter. It is the work of Christ that is the foundation of our hope. A weak faith should make us pray all the more, not to give up as if we haven’t done enough. By admitting that we fall short, we show the work of grace on our hearts.

John Calvin gave this comforting pastoral advice, “the mind is never so enlightened that there are no remains of ignorance, nor the heart so established that there are no misgivings. With those evils of our nature, faith maintains a perpetual conflict, in which conflict it is often sorely shaken and put to great stress; but still it conquers…”

Romans 4:23-25, “Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”

Those who are redeemed have nothing in which to boast. Note how often this has come up in this section. If we are counted among God’s blessed people by what we do, we have cause to either worry when we sin, or to boast when we do well. Instead we learn to glory in Christ alone.

It is challenging living in our pluralistic society. These divisions as God makes them are hard for us to accept. Man never ceases to make prideful and prejudiced divisions of his own. The truth is, the gospel takes it out of our hands entirely.

If we have come to see our own unworthiness, and to trust in Christ’s work alone for salvation, then we ought to be thankfully humbled before God, and before others. We ought to engage in humble and faithful worship. We ought to struggle hard to obey out of gratitude, with no delusions of earning our salvation, and we ought to busily evangelize, tell others, all kinds of others, both the challenging truth which God has revealed to us in his word. We need to declare that in spite of our own record, our own successes, our own accomplishments, there is hope in the promise of God, in the work of Christ.

(The Bible quotations in this article are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Lesson 15: Romans 3:21-31

You have to decide how you will spend your time? What will you become familiar with, and what talents will you develop? Whom should you marry? How can you best raise your children? What kind of job should you have so you can pay for the things you need and want? How will you cope with frustrations and disappointments? How will you cope with losses and death itself?

There is a question far more important than these, or any others we can think of. It is a question that deals with how successful you can hope to be with all the rest. It has to do with finding real satisfaction in life. It has to do with the personal qualities that you develop in your life. It has to do with having a proper attitude toward others you will meet. How will you spend the rest of eternity? The question of course is this: “How can I become accepted in the eyes of God?”

This is the most fundamental issue a person ever faces. As we have seen in our last studies, the Bible clearly teaches that the corruption we all inherit from Adam and the sins that flow from it separate us from God.

Being separated from him, no one can see things as they really are. In this state the person is spiritually dead. A spiritually dead person has no real satisfaction in life. He has no way to grow spiritually. He has no way to deal with the imperfections in those around him, and he has no eternal hope. The Bible tells us that in God’s eyes lost lives are deeply offensive.

Paul has proven so clearly in the first part of Romans that since all inherit Adam’s corruption and guilt, no one is able to make himself right with God. Our depravity poisons our motives and keeps us from doing anything that truly honors God. Our guilt is so great, even for one sin, that no matter what else we do, we cannot save ourselves.

Here is the dilemma: The payment demanded is complete separation from God for all eternity. To ignore the just penalty each person deserves would violate divine justice. So then, how can anyone ever be saved from this horrible future?

Paul summarized this universal and total inability of fallen man in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The whole first part of the letter shows that no one is exempt.

All who have descended from Adam are corrupt and therefore commit sins. This includes Jews and Gentiles, the educated and the ignorant, those having the Scriptures and those left with only the declarations of nature and human conscience. They all fall short of the glory of God.

There are many ways in which we come short of this glory. On the one hand, fallen sinners cannot glorify God and enjoy him forever, but here the word “glory” is used in a different sense. It is a glory that comes from God.

Jesus used this word in the same way when speaking of the Pharisees in John 12:43, “for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”

The original word translated “praise” is “doxa” (δοξα). The same word translated “glory” here. The Pharisees received glory from men, but they will not get the same from God. As sinners, there is no possible approval from God for anyone. Since we lack any hope of approbation from God, we need a righteousness that is not our own.

Romans 3:21-22, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference”

By “Righteousness” we mean perfect obedience to God’s moral principles. No one can be righteous by keeping the law. All have inherited the guilt of Adam’s sin. Therefore from the time a person is conceived, he is morally offensive to God. No one can obey all of God’s law perfectly without even one lapse or failure.

Since no one is able to be righteous on his own, God, by his grace, provides righteousness to fallen humans by means of the gospel.

Dr. Haldane says the expression “the righteousness of God,” “is one of the most important expressions in the Scriptures.” Somehow, by grace, the perfect holiness of God becomes ours. With it come all the benefits of being perfectly holy. We have the comfort and fellowship of God promised to us for all eternity. That is the Gospel. Truly good news.

This is the heart of the gospel message. What we unworthy sinners cannot have by even our best efforts, is provided through Christ. Only he could provide us with the blessings of holiness without violating the demands of justice.

Jesus was a real human, perfectly holy. At the same time he was God, infinitely powerful and worthy. By Sovereign decree Jesus was made to be the representative of his people. He was perfectly obedient to every point of morality and worship. He suffered the penalty of the law, though he himself did not break it.

Only Jesus could both be sinless and suffer to pay the penalty for sin. A creature may either keep the law, or suffer its condemnation, but Jesus was no creature. He was the Creator who humbled himself to suffer and die as one of his own offensive creatures. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might have righteousness in him. God’s righteousness is credited to us freely, and our guilt is credited to him.

This was not a new idea. It is the consistent message of the whole Bible. God always promised to provide righteousness to unworthy sinners by grace alone through faith. It was witnessed to by “The Law and the Prophets” (an expression used for the whole Old Testament). Noah was called a preacher of righteousness in 2 Peter 2:5, and is called an ” heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” in Hebrews 11:7.

In the next chapter of Romans (Chapter 4) Paul shows how Abraham was made righteous by faith alone. The whole Levitical system of regulations and sacrifices under Moses points to the coming of Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, to pay for his people’s sins. The Psalms and the Prophets base their whole idea of righteousness not upon our earning it, but upon the work of a promised Messiah, which is applied to individuals by faith in this promise.

Romans 3:24-26, “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

There are several principles here that explain how Christ justifies us while remaining just.

This Justification is a gift of God’s grace. This means there is no merit to it. Nothing a person does even contributes to it. It is wholly the work of God by grace alone.

The work of Christ is called “redemption”. He paid the awesome price we owe for our offenses.

There is a hint in the Old Testament law to help us understand what Jesus did. Leviticus 25 presents the law of redemption. Sometimes people got into deep financial debt. They would have to give up their possessions or bond themselves as slaves to work off the debt. In time they could redeem back their possessions, or their freedom, by paying the price of redemption. No one had the right to redeem by this law, except the person himself, or a close relative. The price of redemption had to pay the debt in full.

This law, like the others, was given to lay the foundation for the redemption of souls by Christ. Here God defined the language he would later use in explaining the gospel.

For our spiritual redemption from sin the debt had to be paid in full, but the price is infinite. No one can pay it. Even though a person suffers in torment for all eternity, his debt is never satisfied. Jesus, the infinite God in human flesh, could pay it in moments on the cross. What we cannot satisfy in all eternity, was satisfied by our infinite Redeemer on the cross.

Therefore the redeemeer of a lost soul cannot be the person himself. He can never pay the price. However, Jesus was made of Adam’s family, kinsman to the race of Adam. As the only kinsman-Redeemer able to meet the price of our debt, he has redeemed all those of the race given to him by the Father (John 6:37).

Our Redeemer provides us with the Righteousness of God by “propitiation”. To “propitiate” means to appease God’s wrath. To remove God’s holy anger, our offensive sin and guilt must be removed. As long as the offense remains, there can be no restoration to fellowship with God.

Jesus, by shedding his infinitely precious blood for those the Father had given to him, paid their debt, removed their guilt, and took away the cause of offense before God. God is “propitiated” because the cause of his wrath is removed.

All through human history, God had purposed the death of Christ as the way of Righteousness. In the past, sin was passed over by the forbearance of God awaiting the fulfillment at Calvary. Now, in the ages after the cross, the way of Righteousness is fully disclosed.

Romans 3:27a, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. …”

Since our righteousness is from Christ by grace, and not from ourselves, there is no place for bragging. No one on his own is better than anyone else. No one is more corrupt. If we come to Christ by repentance from sin and by faith in his work, we have come by God’s grace, not by anything that we have done.

Romans 3:27b-30, “… By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.”

The word “law” has 3 different uses in this passage.
1. It means the written Books of Moses. In the last part of Romans 3:21 it speaks of the “Law and the Prophets” which is a term used for the whole Old Testament.

2. It means the stipulations of God’s covenant in Romans 3:21, 28 and 31. These are the moral commandments, the ceremonial laws, all types of revealed law. These are the rules God has given at various times for his people to live by.

3. It means a principle by which things operate. In Romans 3:27 it is used that way. We use the word “law” similarly when we speak of the law of gravity, the law of supply and demand, etc.

So then, by what kind of principle are we Justified before God? Not by a principle of works. No one can qualify by law-works because no one is without sin. We are re-born by the principle of faith.

This is not “faith” as the world sees it. No one is justified by a blind leap in the dark. That is foolishness, not holiness. No one is justified by scientific analysis. Faith is not a judgment based upon experiences. Trusting in a chair to hold you up, or in a bridge to hold you up is not what is meant by “faith” here.

This faith is a special quality implanted into us by the grace of God when he makes us alive in Christ. John Calvin reviewed the Scriptures about faith and came up with this description: Faith is “a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favor toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds and sealed on our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Institutes 3.2.7).

Since faith is a grace implanted into unworthy sinners based on the propitiation of Christ, it is not the cause of our justification, it is the instrument God uses in justifying us. By grace, God grants faith to us so that by it he might justify us through our resting not in anything we have done, or in any merits of our own, but in the shed blood of Christ alone.

How this humbles us! Even our faith and the desire to come to Christ is ours as an undeserved gift of God! There is absolutely no grounds for boasting at all.

There is only one God. He is Creator and Lord of all humans. Those who remain in sin and have no faith in Christ as their Redeemer still answer to him. This also means that no one has an advantage. All who are saved are saved by grace.

This is the answer to the dilemma: God’s Justice is not set aside in saving us. Its demands are fully met! God does not just pardon us from the penalty of sin. He pardons us by satisfying sin’s penalty by the Savior.

In the work of the Gospel, God’s perfect justice and mercy are blended into one glorious message.

Paul adds one last thought …

Romans 3:31, “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.”

He realizes that some will dig up a problem here to attack his reasoning. If we say that no one can be justified by keeping the law, then do we nullify or make void the law of God? He quickly answers: “May it never be!” — This is an idiom common at that time, “mae genoito” (μὴ γένοιτο). We might say, “No way!”

The whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, the writings of Paul and James, the sayings of Jesus, all teach but one way of justification, one way only that lost sinners can be counted as righteous. The one perfectly obedient and infinite Savior, who is God incarnate with a full human nature, paid the price of redemption to meet the demands of the law and propitiate God’s wrath.

So the law is not set aside or nullified. Its demands are fully met!

There is an immensely practical lesson in this gospel of grace. Not only is it a call to the unsaved to come to Christ and find deliverance. It is also a warning to redeemed believers to have a right attitude toward themselves and others.

Since we are redeemed by grace and not by our merits, this makes us all equal, equally lost that is. Undeserving, unworthy, unrighteous, criminally condemned before God. Therefore no one has the right to demean or ridicule another.

When conversations turn to ridicule of friends, neighbors, co-workers, or our national leaders, we need to take a different path than the world that boasts in its own works and worth. We need to remember the doctrines of total depravity and of grace.

If not for the grace of God, and the awesome price paid by our Saviour, we would be as blind, and as unbridled in sin, as anyone else. Holiness and spiritual understanding are not special talents or personality traits. They are graces of God upon undeserving sinners.

May God forgive us when we forget that, and while professing to believe in grace alone we live as if we are better or have earned our standing before God. May we never be among those putting others down or ridiculing those who do wrong.

This does not mean we excuse sin or by-pass right civil punishments for crimes. It does mean that we treat even the criminal, the perverse, and the foolish with the humility that refuses to gloat over grace, and demean what we too would be if not for Christ’s love.

How humbly and thankfully we all ought to live if we are to represent the good news, the gospel of Grace, which justifies unworthy sinners by faith alone in Christ alone.

(The Bible quotations in this article are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)