DOCTRINE OF GRACE
ORIENTATION
(Part I)
A. Introduction.
1. There are seven propositions with regard to the subject of grace.
a. God exists.
b. God reveals Himself through the canon of Scripture.
c. God has a plan for your life. If God reveals Himself, He also reveals a plan for Church Age believers specifically. Your life was designed for invisible impact in five categories. Nothing is more significant than your life as a believer.
d. God’s plan is based on God’s policy. God’s policy is always grace. Grace is the system for the administration of God’s plan for the Church.
e. The grace of God for the human race is divided into three categories.
(1) Pre-salvation grace. This is the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, being judged for our sins as our substitute. This includes three things.
(a) Common grace. This is the work of God the Holy Spirit taking the spiritual phenomena of the gospel and presenting it to the mind of man as a reality. The unbeliever is spiritually brain dead, so that God the Holy Spirit must make spiritual information understandable to spiritually dead mankind. The unbeliever cannot understand the things of God, 1 Cor 2:9-16.
(b) The divine call. Having understood the issue of the gospel, to believe in the person and work of Christ, God now invites the unbeliever to believe what he has heard and understood.
© Efficacious grace. This is the work of God the Holy Spirit taking that faith alone in Christ alone and making it effective for salvation.
(2) Salvation grace. This includes the forty things that God gives us at the moment of salvation.
(3) Postsalvation grace.
(a) This is the more or greater grace of Jam 4:6. Postsalvation grace is found in 1 Pet 5:12, “I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.”
(b) There are distortions of grace. 2 Tim 2:1, “You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
© Grace is the means of conveying the power of God to the life of the ordinary believer. 1 Pet 5:5-6, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. `God makes war against the arrogant believer but gives grace to the humble believer.’ Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may promote you at the proper time.” 1 Cor 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove
vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” Eph 1:6, “To the praise of the glory of His grace, which He
freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
(d) God always operates within some sphere. In the plan of God for the Church Age believer, the sphere in which grace operates is union with Christ. In Eph 2:7, this grace will continue in the eternalstate, “That He might show us in the coming ages the surpassing riches of His grace in generosity toward us in Christ.” Eph 6:24, “Grace be with all believers who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptibility.” Loving the Lord with incorruptibility is a reference to occupation with Christ. 2 Thess 2:16, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who has loved us and given to us for our benefit eternal comfort and good confidence in the sphere of grace, comfort your hearts and strengthen you in all production and good doctrine.”
f. The consistency of grace. Consistent grace is the Church Age believer, saved by grace and living by grace. God is consistent. There is no legalism in salvation; therefore, there is no legalism in the Christian way of life. Sooner or later, God takes every believer and brings them to the end of their human resources, making them totally dependent upon divine
provision. Acts 13:43, “Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who began speaking to them and were urging them to continue in the grace of God.”
g. Every believer owes both the salvation plan of God and the grace of God a hearing. 2 Pet 1:2, “Grace and tranquility be multiplied to you in the [epignosis] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”
2. Definition and Description.
a. Grace is all that God is free to do for mankind without compromising His divine essence. Grace means favor, kindness, and mercy.
b. Grace is free, unmerited favor and love from God alone, not from our works or because we are attractive to God. God’s love comes in two categories for us.
(1) God has impersonal love for the unbeliever in the status of spiritual death. Jesus Christ had impersonal love for all mankind, when He went to the Cross and received the imputation of our sins. God the Father had impersonal love when He imputed all of our sins to Christ and judged them.
(2) God has personal love for the believer because the believer receives the imputed righteousness of God.
c. Grace means that all things from God, including salvation by grace through faith, are received from God as a free gift totally apart from any form of human merit or any system of human works. They are never merited or earned by mankind. They never compromise divine essence or divine effort in bestowing blessing on mankind. Jn 1:12.
(1) Grace is benefit from God totally a part of the work of God and totally apart from the works of mankind. No one has ever been blessed by God because they tithe or because they are moral. The Christian way of life is infinitely greater than morality. Morality is a function of the energy of the flesh and is for the human race. Morality is the result of self-determination; grace is the result of God’s determination.
(2) The virtue mandated of the believer is infinitely greater than morality. The inner life of virtue is not something we can do in ourselves; it is something that God has provided for us in grace. He has given us the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, thoughts that have to be metabolized in the soul for motivation and a life far greater than the function of the energy of the flesh.
(3) Anything an unbeliever can do is not the Christian way of life. Morality can be accomplished by the unbeliever. Morality is necessary for freedom in the human race. The purpose of codex three of the Mosaic Law was to protect freedom, privacy, property, and life.
d. Grace is the manifestation of God’s holiness, power, virtue, efficacy, mercy, compassion, indulgence, forbearance, pardon; unmerited favor based on the exclusive work of God. Grace includes three categories of divine blessing from God. Grace is unmerited favor and divine provision for mankind before, during, and after salvation. Three categories of God’s grace include:
(1) Pre-salvation grace which includes all that God is free to do for the spiritually dead person, that is, common grace, the divine call, and efficacious grace.
(2) Salvation grace which includes all that God has accomplished to save spiritually dead mankind, that is, the saving work of Christ on the Cross, the judgment of God the Son by God the Father, the revelation of this message by God the Holy Spirit, and the forty things God does for us at salvation.
(3) Postsalvation grace includes total divine provision of God for the fulfillment of His plan, His will, and His purpose for our lives. Postsalvation grace includes all that God does for the believer totally apart from any human merit on the part of any Christian.
(a) Postsalvation grace is described in Jam 4:6, “He keeps on giving greater grace. Therefore, it says, `God makes war against the arrogant believer but gives grace to the humble believer.’” Greater grace means greater than pre-salvation grace, greater than salvation grace. It is the greatest grace of all. Postsalvation grace includes more grace than anything else in life. Jn 1:16, “From His fullness, we have all received even grace in exchange for grace.” We have exchanged salvation grace for postsalvation grace.If we are saved by grace, then we should live by grace. Jn 1:17, “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth
came through Jesus Christ.”
(b) The phrase “Grace for your benefit and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.” occurs many times in Scripture: 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2; Phil 1:2; Col 1:2; 1 Thes 1:2; 2 Thes 1:2.
© 2 Cor 6:1, “We also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”
(d) Gal 2:21, “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law (and it does not), then Christ died in vain.”
(e) Eph 3:2, “Since you have heard about the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for your benefit.”
(f) 2 Thes 1:12, “In order that the person of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified by you and you by Him, on the basis of the grace of God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(g) 2 Tim 2:1, “You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
(h) 1 Pet 5:5-6, “...clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God makes war against the arrogant believer, but
gives grace to the humble believer. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may promote you at the proper time.”
(i) 1 Pet 5:12, “I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.”
(j) Eph 1:6, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
(k) Eph 2:7, “that He might show you in the coming ages [millennium and eternal state] the surpassing riches of His grace in
generosity toward us in Christ Jesus.”
(l) Eph 6:24, “Grace be with you all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptibility.”
(m) 2 Thes 2:16-17, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and has given to us eternal comfort
and good of intrinsic value confidence in the sphere of grace, comfort your right lobes and strengthen yourselves in all production and good of
intrinsic value doctrine.”
(n) 2 Pet 3:18, “But keep on growing in the sphere of grace and in the sphere of knowledge about our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
Glory to Him both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
e. Orientation is defined as doctrinal cognition of the believer, his true status in relationship to the plan, will, and purpose of God.
3. Pre-Salvation and Salvation Grace.
a. There are two categories of mankind who are the recipients of God’s grace policy.
(1) God’s grace is extended to the unbeliever who is spiritually dead. The unbeliever is under total depravity, total separation from God, and total helplessness to do anything to gain the approbation of God.
(2) God’s grace is extended to believers in this dispensation through the protocol plan of God.
b. Under the first category, grace is all that God is free to do for mankind on the basis of the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
c. Under the second category, postsalvation grace is extended to every believer in Jesus Christ. Under this category, grace is all that God is free to do for each Church Age believer without compromising His essence.
d. Under the divine policy of grace, only the ability and power of God counts and meets the needs of helpless mankind in two categories: spiritual death and as believers in Jesus Christ.
e. God has found a way to save us, to give us eternal life, and God has found a way in His grace policy to help us in our helplessness as believers. We never lose our helplessness.
f. Under His grace policy, God does more than help us: He blesses us, He provides our needs, He provides life support, and He gives blessing
to us whether we are winners or losers.
(1) The same justice of God that judged our sins on the cross also sends blessing to the righteousness of God indwelling the believer, because he receives God’s righteousness at the moment he believes in Christ.
(2) So the justice of God, one-half of divine integrity, sends blessing to the indwelling righteousness of God, the other half of divine integrity.
(3) This is entirely grace; we do not earn or deserve any of it.
g. Scripture.
(1) Rom 5:8, “God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died as a substitute for us.” The Greek preposition HUPER plus the genitive plural of advantage indicates that it is to our advantage that Christ became a substitute for us. The greatest advantage we have ever had in life is that Jesus Christ became a substitute for us.
(2) 1 Pet 3:18, “Christ also died once for our sins, the righteous One as a substitute for the unrighteous ones, that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh but made alive by means of the Spirit.” Even as unrighteous ones we have an advantage because we have a substitute—Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ brings us to God, not our commitment, baptism, works, or giving up anything.
(3) 1 Pet 2:24, “He [Jesus Christ] Himself carried our sins in His own body on the wood [Cross].”
(4) 2 Cor 5:21, “He who did not sin was made sin as a substitute for us.”
(4) Gal 3:13, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law by means of becoming a curse as a substitute for us; for it stands written, `Cursed is everyone who hangs on the wood [Cross].’”
h. There are three reasons for faith alone in Christ alone for eternal salvation: efficacious grace, the Greek word TETELESTAI, the direct statement of Scripture.
(1) Efficacious Grace.
(a) When the spiritually dead person responds to the divine call (or invitation to eternal salvation), he simply believes in Jesus Christ. This is a thought in the soul of a spiritually dead person. We are spiritually brain dead and are helpless to have a spiritual thought. When you respond with faith in Christ to the divine call to believe in Christ, the grace of God the Holy Spirit takes faith in Christ and makes it effective for eternal salvation.
(b) If you add anything to non-meritorious faith alone, then the Holy Spirit cannot make that faith effective for salvation. If you add anything, it cancels your faith; you have contradicted the grace of God completely. Many people are not saved because they have added some work to their faith. If you add anything, you have rejected Christ as savior.
God the Holy Spirit cannot make human works effective for salvation. He cannot make your making Christ Lord or making a commitment for Christ or giving up something or any legalistic function effective for salvation. We do not cooperate with God for our salvation; God provides it all by Himself.
© The only thing we have that is compatible with the grace policy of God is faith alone in Christ alone. The faith of the spiritually dead person indicates positive volition and non-meritorious function compatible with grace.
(d) The Holy Spirit, in common grace, makes the gospel understandable to the spiritually dead person. Then God the Father invites the spiritually dead person to believe in Christ. Then the spiritually dead person believes in Christ for salvation. Then God the Holy Spirit makes the spiritually dead person’s faith in Christ effective for salvation. When works are added the omnipotence of the Spirit does not cause faith to be effective for salvation, because divine omnipotence and human power are mutually exclusive. Consequently, human works added to faith in Christ cancels faith; for human works is human power, which is rejected by grace.
(e) The legalist tries to fit all believers into his own pattern and mode of thinking. When the professed believer does not comply with the legalist’s erroneous ideas, the legalist is shocked, frustrated, and proclaims that the professed believer was really not saved in the first place. The legalist says that the professed believer really was not saved because all he did was believe in Christ. From this legalistic thinking comes the heresy and blasphemy that you have to believe
and make a commitment, that you have to believe and feel sorry for your sins, that you have to make Christ Lord of all, that you have to believe and be baptized, that you have to believe and live a good moral life, that you have to believe and have an emotional experience, that you must feel saved, that you must come forward and make a public profession of your faith, or that you must invite Christ into your heart.
(2) The Greek word TETELESTAI.
(a) This word was uttered by our Lord on the Cross while He was still alive. His physical death had nothing to do with our
salvation. When the last sin was judged, our Lord said, “It is finished.” He was telling us that His work of substitutionary spiritual death—being judged for our sins—was finished. Then He died physically and dismissed His soul and spirit from His body. Christ did not die physically for our sins. His physical death only meant that His work on earth during the Incarnation was finished. When our Lord said TETELESTAI, He was speaking from His humanity.
(b) Jn 19:30, “Therefore, when Jesus had received the wine, He said, `Finished in the past with the result that it stands finished forever.’ He pushed His head forward and delivered over His human spirit.” This is the intensive perfect passive indicative of the verb TELEO, which means to achieve, to succeed, to complete, or to finish.
(3) The direct statement of Scripture. Grace is a gift from God. Since it is a gift, it cannot be earned or deserved.
(a) Jn 16:8-9, “And when He [the Holy Spirit] comes, He will convince the world concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.”
(b) Jn 3:15-16, 18, “Every one who believes in Me has eternal life. For God loved the world so much that He gave His Son, the
unique One, in order that any one who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. ...He who believes in Him is not judged, but he who does
not believe is judged already because he has not believed in the person of the uniquely born Son of God.”
© Jn 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not believe shall not see life but the wrath of God abides
on him.”
(d) Jn 6:47, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has eternal life.”
(e) Jn 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.”
(f) Jn 20:31, “These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you
might have life through His name.”
(g) Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And likewise, every one of your family [can do the same
thing and be saved].”
(h) Gal 3:26, “You are the sons of God through faith in
Christ Jesus.”
(i) Gal 2:16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in
Christ that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law.”
(j) Rom 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God for salvation to every one who
believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.”
(k) Rom 3:20-22, “Because by the works of the Law no flesh shall be justified in His sight; for through the Law is the knowledge
of sin, but apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets [Old Testament], even the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.”
(l) Rom 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law.”
(m) Rom 4:4-5, “But to the one who works for salvation, his wages are not calculated on the basis of grace, they are calculated on
the basis of debt. But to him who does not work for salvation but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly [the spiritually dead person], his faith
receives credit for righteousness.”
(n) Rom 4:14, 16, “For if those who are by means of the Law heirs, then faith has been made void and the promises have been
canceled.” “For this reason, it is by means of faith, in order that it might be on the basis of grace.”
(o) Rom 5:1,15,17, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom
also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we are jubilant in the hope of the glory of God.” “But the free
gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by grace of the
one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.” “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through that one, much more those who receive the
abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through that One, Jesus Christ.”
(p) Eph 2:8-9, “For by means of grace you have been saved [with the result that you remain saved forever] through faith; and this [concept of salvation by grace alone through faith] is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God; not from works, in order that no one may boast.”
(q) Phil 3:9, “And may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ.”
® 2 Tim 3:15, “And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to
salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
(s) 2 Tim 2:11-13 teaches that we cannot lose our salvation, even if we deny our faith in Christ, “Faithful is the Word; for if we have died with Christ [and we have], we shall also live with Christ. If we endure, we shall reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will also deny us [blessing in eternity]. If we do not believe [faith-rest], He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself.” The Father, Son, and Spirit cannot deny us because they dwell in us as of the moment of salvation.
(t) 1 Jn 5:11-13, “This is the deposition that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has this life. He who does not have the Son does not have this life. These things I have written to you who believe in the person of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.”
(u) Jn 1:12, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in His
name.”
(v) Eph 1:6-7, “Resulting in the praise of the glory of His grace, by which [grace] He has graced us out in the Beloved. In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, on the basis of the riches of His grace.”
(w) 2 Tim 1:8-9, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering with reference to the gospel on the basis of the power of God, who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”
(x) Heb 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than angels for the sake of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God might taste death as a substitute for all of us.”
4. Postsalvation Grace.
a. Under the grace policy, all believers are mandated to grace orientation. 1 Pet 5:12, “I have written you briefly, exhorting and testifying, that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.” We are to stand fast in grace orientation. We are not to be confused by legalism or impressed with our works. We are to stand fast in grace.
b. The believer who fails to execute the command to “stand fast in grace” is described in terms of God’s grace policy in three ways.
(1) In Heb 12:15, such a believer “comes short of the grace of God.”
(2) In 2 Cor 6:1, such a believer “receives the grace of God in vain.”
(3) In Gal 2:21, such a believer “nullifies the grace of
God.”
c. The Church Age is the dispensation of the grace of God. Eph 3:2, “Inasmuch as you have heard about the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for your benefit.” Never before in human history has the grace policy of God provided so much for the ordinary believer. Never has the ordinary believer been so benefitted by living in the Church Age and believing in Jesus Christ.
5. The Precedence for Grace—The Dispensation of the Hypostatic Union.
a. God has a plan for your life which is called the protocol plan of God. Its policy is grace. Precedence for the Christian way of life during the Church Age originated from the modus vivendi and modus operandi of the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ in hypostatic union. During the First Advent, the humanity of Christ pioneered for the Church Age believer the function of the three spiritual skills.
(1) Our Lord’s humanity did not depend on His deity but upon the filling of the Spirit, Heb 9:14; Isa 11:2, 42:1; Jn 3:34; Lk 4:14; Mt 12:28.
(2) Metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of
consciousness of our Lord Jesus Christ was the second spiritual skill. Jn 1:14 says He was full of doctrine. He pioneered such problem solving devices as grace orientation, Jn 1:14, 16; doctrinal orientation, Jn 1:14; sharing the happiness of God, Jn 15:11; occupation with Christ, Heb 12:2. There is no problem or difficulty too great for the problem solving devices to be able to handle.
(3) Our Lord’s humanity executed God the Father’s plan for the humanity of Christ during the Incarnation by remaining totally sinless, and therefore qualified to bear the judgment for our sins, and then by going to the Cross and bearing the sins of the world as a substitute for us.
b. The precedence for this grace policy is the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union. Jn 1:14, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we saw His glory as of the uniquely-born One from the Father, full of grace and truth [doctrine].”
(1) In the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory dwelt between the cherubs in the Tabernacle, a guarantee of blessing to Israel.
(2) Now He is a guarantee of blessing to the Church as He
tabernacles among us by indwelling us. God the Holy Spirit indwells us to provide a temple for the indwelling of Christ.
(3) Only those believers with metabolized doctrine
circulating in the seven compartments of the right lobe of the soul through the filling of the Spirit saw the glory of Christ during His hypostatic union.
(4). Our Lord Jesus Christ had grace orientation on the FLOT line of His soul as a problem solving device. He also had doctrinal orientation on the FLOT line of His soul as a problem solving device.
c. Jn 1:16, “For out from His fullness we have all received even grace [postsalvation grace] in exchange for grace [salvation grace].”
(1) The function of the spiritual skills are the fullness of Christ. This is a direct statement of precedence for the origination and the source of the unique spiritual life of every believer of the Church Age. The function of the humanity of Christ in hypostatic union is the source of spiritual life for every Church Age believer. We take our precedence for the spiritual life from the dispensation of the hypostatic union.
(2) We have all received our portfolio of invisible assets the moment we believed in Christ, and there is no exception. If you are negative toward Bible doctrine, there is no one in the world, no counsellor who can help you.
(3) The preposition ANTI plus the ablative of exchange from the Greek noun CHARIS means “grace in exchange for grace.” The first use of the word CHARIS refers to postsalvation grace. The second use of the word CHARIS refers to the grace we received at salvation.
(4) Our first cognition of the grace of God occurred when we understood that Jesus Christ became true humanity for the purpose of going to the cross, in order to become our substitute in being judged for our sins. The substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross is where grace begins for us. As the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ became our Savior. This was why He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes unto the Father but by Me.”
(5) We did not earn or deserve this wonderful salvation that our Lord Jesus Christ provided for us. In response to what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, we believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life; for believing is compatible with grace since it is a non-meritorious system of perception. Eph 2:8-9, “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that [salvation] is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”
(6) So the first grace we received was pre-salvation grace. When we were spiritually dead, totally helpless, and unable to do anything about it, the Holy Spirit made the gospel clear to us. Then, when we believed in Christ, the Holy Spirit made our faith effective for salvation. At that moment, God did forty things in salvation grace.
(7) Salvation by grace through faith demands the continuation of postsalvation grace for spiritual growth, 2 Pet 3:18.
6. Biblical Illustrations of Grace Versus Legalism During the Dispensation of the Hypostatic Union.
a. The precedent case is the woman taken in adultery, Jn 8:3-11, “Now the scribes and the Pharisees arrested a woman seized violently in the act of adultery, and forcing her to stand before the crowd, they said to Him, `Teacher, this woman was seized in the very act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman; You there, what do You say?’ And they kept on repeating this, and they persisted in testing Him, that they might have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down, and started to write on the ground with His finger. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, `He who is without sin among you, let him be the first one to throw a stone at her.’ And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And when they heard this statement,
they began to go out one by one, beginning with the leaders, finally He was left alone with the woman standing before Him.
Then Jesus stood up and said to her, `Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’ Then she replied, `No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, `Neither do I condemn you; go your way. From now on sin no more [in this area].’”
(1) This case condemns all precedence for arrogance, legalism, and activism.
(2) The scribes and the Pharisees were officers of the Jewish supreme court, the Sanhedrin. They were both lawyers and the religious leaders of the land. They represent religious self-righteousness and the arrogance skills. They are comparable to the Christian activists of today. The witnesses in this case were the judges of the supreme court of Israel. The lawyers spied on the woman, followed her around, violated her privacy and then arrested her. As members of the court, they should not even have been involved in her arrest.
(3) The Hebrew word Rabbi means “teacher.” They say this in sarcasm, ridicule, and rejection of Christ. In contrast, this woman had already become a believer.
(4) They are quoting to the humanity of Christ what the deity of Christ had dictated to Moses on Mt. Sinai, when He gave him the Law. They are telling the One who commanded Moses. They are antagonistic and disrespectful toward our Lord. They are activists, evil, and really want to trap, discredit, and destroy the ministry of our Lord. They ended up destroying their own nation.
(a) What punishment did the Law demand? Deut 22:22-27 gives us four categories. If a man commits adultery with a married woman, both shall die, verse 22. If a man fornicates with a woman or commits adultery with a married woman, both the man and the woman shall die, verse 23-24. If a man rapes a woman, then only the man shall die. If a man seduces a virgin, and they are discovered, the guilty man will pay a fine to her father and then marry her.
(b) Notice that the man is always emphasized and there is male involvement. But the officers of the court did not bring the guilty man before our Lord. The man is just as guilty, if not more so as the initiator. Because only the woman was brought before Jesus, this appears to be a case of conspiracy against the woman. The judges of the Sanhedrin have themselves violated the Law by indicting the woman and not the man and are guilty of the sins of arrogance, which are far worse than anything the woman has done. The Sanhedrin was prejudiced against this woman. The law is no greater than those who administer it.
(5) Jesus could not condemn the woman without condoning the evils of religious activism. They want Jesus to say she is guilty so they can bring a blasphemy charge against Him and stone both of them at the same time. Our Lord isolated himself from religious activism. He gave the Sanhedrin the silent treatment, which condemned them. Jesus had no intention of condoning their evil and joining their activism against the woman. What Jesus wrote on the ground with His finger is not the issue in this passage and beside the point. We do not know what He wrote. It is not important. It was an act of divorcing or isolating Himself from these
legalists and religious activism. Jesus could not condemn the woman as they wished without condoning the greater evil and sinfulness of religious activism. Grace and activism are mutually exclusive.
(6) Our Lord spoke to present the higher issue related to the spiritual life and the objective: to avoid activism, civil disobedience, crusading. The fulfilling of the protocol plan of God for the Church is far greater than any system of whitewashing the devil’s world, such as Christian activism. It was the Jewish law that the chief witnesses against the accused had to be the first ones to throw the stones to stone the accused to death. In this way, witnesses in court took the responsibility for their testimony in court and what they had seen. The law is no greater than those who administer the law. While Jesus does not condone the woman’s sin of adultery, neither does He condone the greater sins of legalism and activism.
(a) Religious activism is manifested always by the use of the arrogance skills (self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption). Religious activism uses the arrogance skills to justify self, deceive self, and become preoccupied with self.
(b) There is nothing wrong with the Mosaic Law, but there is something terribly wrong with those administering it. Jesus calls these judges of the Sanhedrin hypocrites in Mt 23:14, 16, 23, 25, 27, 39. Hypocrisy reaches its peak in the function of the arrogance skills. Mt 23:27, “Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. For you are like white-washed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and uncleanness.”
© There never was any grace orientation in the function of religious activists during the dispensation of the hypostatic
union, nor will there be any grace orientation by religious activists during the dispensation of grace (the Church Age).
(d) The religious activists sought to destroy our Lord’s ministry.
(e) The mandate of the word of God during the Church Age is to use the spiritual skills to execute the protocol plan of God and
not to enter into Christian activism, 2 Pet 3:18.
(f) Religious activists used the law as an instrument to attempt to destroy our Lord’s ministry, to discredit, to malign, to judge, to create a public lie about the impeccable person of the humanity of Christ. They used the guilty woman as the bait in the trap, the evil motivation to discredit both the living Word—Jesus Christ—and the written word.
(g) Only Jesus Christ was qualified to throw a stone. He was a witness to this act of adultery in eternity past as omniscient God. He was without sin in His perfect impeccable humanity.
(7) The woman called Him “Lord.” She was a believer and recognized Jesus as her God and savior. 1 Cor 12:3 says no one can call
Jesus “Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. The arrogant officers of the court only called Him “Teacher.”
(8) Our Lord did not condemn her because of the divine policy of grace. He commands her to stop sinning in this category of sins. It does not imply sinless perfection, but another area of sin overcome by the function of the spiritual skills. For the positive believer, God’s grace policy is a greater deterrent than the condemnation of legalism. People respond to grace, but react to legalism. The grace policy of our Lord provides a far greater self-motivation to resist temptation than the fear and guilt function of the emotional complex of sins.
(9) This woman would shortly live in the dispensation of the Church. Her death would have cut her off from the opportunity of self-determination related to rebound to recover her fellowship with God along with other believers when the Church Age began. This would deprive the woman of her equal opportunity and equal privilege to execute the protocol plan of God.
(10) This passage is definitely a part of the word of God. This passage is not found in Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and was apparently removed from Codex A and C. It is found in Codex D; Codex 225 places it after Jn 7:36; another places it after Jn 7:44. Jerome says that in his day it was contained in many of the Greek and Latin manuscripts. Augustine said, “This text was thrown out by enemies or weak believers from fear that it might encourage their wives to infidelity.” tract 33. This passage was omitted in some manuscripts as an attack on grace.
(a) The story could not have been invented, as it runs contrary to the ascetic and legalistic tendencies of the ancient Church, which could not appreciate it. Legalism lives in fear that a grace passage of Scripture will somehow corrupt believers. For example, 1 Jn 1:8-10 is not liked by legalists.
(b) Because of the function of the arrogance skills, legalism cannot stand or appreciate grace in any form of the grace orientation concept. Grace teaching and grace orientation attack self-justification. Self-justification rejects grace, resulting in self-deception. Self-deception results in self-absorption, causing pseudo works and Christian activism, which is dead works and evil.
© The arrogance of legalism cannot stand the grace policy of God and is, therefore, distracted from the protocol plan of God. Therefore, legalism lives in fear that grace will somehow corrupt believers. But the legalist Christians are actually the corrupted ones.
b. Jesus and The Prostitute in Lk 7:36-50. “Now one of the Pharisees kept asking Him to dine with him. And He entered the Pharisee’s house, and reclined at the table. And behold, there was a woman in the city who was a prostitute; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet, and anointing them with the perfume. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, `If this man were a prophet [but he is not], He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, because she is a prostitute.’ And Jesus answered and said to
him, `Simon, I have something to say to you.’ And he replied, `Say it, Teacher.’ `A certain moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii [a Roman silver coin worth one day’s wages], and the other fifty. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him more?’ Simon replied and said, `I suppose the one whom he forgave more.’ Then He said to him, `You have judged correctly.’ Then turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, `Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not stopped kissing My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, because she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.’ Then
He said to her, `Your sins have been forgiven.’ And those who were reclining at the table with Him began to think to themselves, `Who is this person who even forgives sins?’ Then He said face-to-face with the woman, `Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’”
(1) This incident is not the same as the incident in Jn 12:1-8, when Mary anointed the feet of Jesus in the house of Lazarus. Nor is it the same incident as occurred in the Simon the Leaper, when an unknown woman anointed the head of Jesus, Mt 26:6-13; Mk 14:1-3.
(2) This Pharisee was not hostile, but a user. He wanted to use Jesus to gain some sort of power with the crowds following Jesus. Legalistic people are always users. They use people and discard them when done with them. It is interesting to note that the Pharisee held the banquet Roman style.
(3) This prostitute had been following Jesus, become a believer, and wanted to give something back to the Lord for what He had given her. Her weeping was a gentle, continuous weeping. She had fantastic humility and was very feminine. There is no grace orientation without humility. She had bought the cheapest perfume, which indicates that she was probably no longer working as a prostitute.
(4) The Pharisee thought to himself that Jesus could not possibly be a prophet, since He let such a person touch Him. He thinks she is doing something terribly wrong. However, she is doing nothing wrong. Legalistic people always make wrong assumptions because all of their thinking is based on self-justification, self-deception, and self-absorption. Jesus was a prophet and a king-priest after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus read the Pharisees’ thoughts and answers his thoughts
with a parable.
(5) Simon had bored indifference to the parable. Simon’s answer condemned himself. Jesus turned his back on Simon and spoke to Simon. Jesus did not make an issue out of her former prostitution. The issue was who followed good manners, the aristocratic Pharisee or the former prostitute? She had class; Simon was a jerk. A kiss was a customary welcome or greeting. She know the right thing to do and did it.
(6) The moment the prostitute believed in Christ, her sins were forgiven forever. She loved Jesus a lot, but Simon never got around to loving Jesus. When Jesus told her that her sin had been forgiven, He used the Doric Greek form of the verb, indicating that she is already a winner spiritually.
(7) The rest of the people at the banquet were negative to the gospel along with Simon. They had the same opportunity to believe as she did. The perfect tense of the Greek verb SOZO (to save) not only indicates eternity security but also self-motivation to continue her spiritual growth. We have been saved by grace through faith; let us continue to live by grace through the function of the spiritual skills.
(8) So that she would not be harmed, Jesus gave her a command to go. Negative, arrogant, legalistic people are dangerous. There was harmony between her developing capacity righteousness and divine blessing.
c. Our Lord’s association with tax-collectors and prostitutes made an issue out of grace.
(1) Mt 9:10-11, “And it came to pass that as He was reclining at a table in a house, behold many publicans and sinners came and joined Jesus and His disciples at the table. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with the tax-collectors and prostitutes?”
(2) Mk 2:16, “And when the Scribes and the Pharisees saw that He was eating with prostitutes and tax-collectors, they said to His
disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax-collectors and prostitutes?”
(3) Mt 11:19, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Behold, a gluttonous man and a wine-gulper, a friend of the tax-collectors and prostitutes!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” The Pharisees and scribes are an example of vituperation and vilification, creating a public lie about the only perfect person who ever remained so on this earth. They could not discredit Him, so they lied about Him. Our Lord ate food, but was not gluttonous. They did not call Him a drunkard, since they could never find Him drunk. So they compromised and called Him a wine-gulper. Everyone drank wine in the ancient world.
(4) Mt 21:32, “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.” Rarely did a religious person believe in Christ during the Incarnation.
(5) Lk 15:1-2, “Now all the tax-collectors and the prostitutes were coming near Him to listen to Him. And both Pharisees and scribes were constantly complaining about it, and they said, `This man constantly welcomes prostitutes and dines with them.”
d. The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, Lk 18:9-14.
(1) “Then He also spoke this parable face-to-face with certain ones who had trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and regarded others with contempt: `Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself in this way, “O God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, evil doers, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” But the tax-collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but he kept striking his chest, saying, “O God, be propitiated toward me, the sinner that I am!” I say to you, this man went down to his home having been justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.’”
(2) One of the big thrusts of psychology is “to trust in yourself.” They call it self-esteem. It is part of the modus operandi of the arrogance skills. It is very subtle arrogance. Once you are born again, you can forget all about human self-esteem. We are totally dependent on the Lord Jesus Christ and absolutely not trusting in yourself. Trusting in yourself is human viewpoint. Your personal sense of destiny is your spiritual self-esteem and is far, far greater than human self-esteem. There are no weaknesses in God’s plan; all of the weaknesses are in us. Therefore, the importance of humility, not self-esteem. You do not need human self-esteem; you need humility and doctrine circulating in your soul. You need to depend on what God has provided.
(3) A publican was a tax-collector.
(a) Publican was a dirty word. The publican was employed for a tax contractor. The ARCHITELONES was a chief tax-collector or publican. The other type of tax-collector was a TELONES. The chief publicans were Romans and hated by all patriotic Jews. The chief publicans were contracted by the Senate to collect money from their district. If he were a Roman, he was already a loser back in Rome, and sent to Judea to try and make his fortune. They hired Jews to work for them collecting taxes, who were equally hated. Whatever they could collect beyond what was required in taxes, they could keep in their own pocket. The word publican became a bad word. The actual publicans were divided into two categories: the GABBI were those who collected general taxes, like income tax; the
MOKHSA were those who collected taxes on imports, exports, road taxes, bridge taxes, harbor taxes, town taxes, pack animal taxes, axil taxes.
Taxes were a terrible burden on the people and the economy.
(b) The publicans were despised and hated as a class of people, so that their unpopularity was only exceeded by the Pharisee and scribe hatred of the prostitutes. Prostitutes were hated by the wives, scribes, Pharisees, and others because they were users. Users were men, including scribes and Pharisees, who relieved their sexual tensions with prostitutes, and then, in the function of self-justification, excused their evil with the arrogance skills. The religious crowd were users. The publicans were out to steal money. The publican was generally a loser at home, who came to Israel as a renegade, managing an arbitrary tax system to extort money and make his fortune was he was collecting taxes. If he was a Jew, he was despised as a traitor to his country and an enemy of the people.
(4) This parable illustrates a condemnation of the modus operandi of the arrogance skills. To maintain their position, the Pharisees practiced every form of evil from religious activism, hypocrisy, self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption to tyranny. To protect your self-justification you must deceive yourself by denying your own flaws and projecting them on others. This is self-deception and practiced by the scribes and Pharisees. In his self-righteous arrogance and self-justification, the Pharisee assumes in self-deception that God is impressed with his works. He has created a role model out of himself, and he assumes that God agrees with him. The Pharisee was a religious man only trying to impress God with how good he is. The tax-collector was a humble man, who recognized his need for eternal salvation.
(5) The publican in the parable could have been either a Roman proselyte or a Jew. He was probably a Jew because he was going into the Temple. The Pharisee was not going to pray to God about his needs or pray for others, but he is going to tell God how good he is. The Pharisee’s self-deception was that he thought that he was not a sinner like other people. Self-deception results in denial and projection, malice, vilification, revenge, bitterness, implacability, hatred, self-pity. The
arrogance skills all start to work together in religious activism.
(6) Notice that the tax-collectors and the prostitutes did not criticize our Lord for dining with the self-righteous religious Pharisees and scribes, but the scribes and Pharisees criticized Him just as soon as He dined with the tax-collectors and the prostitutes. The Pharisees are users. Users despise both those whom they use and those with any power or authority over them. When people gain power and try to keep power which is not legitimately theirs, it is inevitable that they will produce a maximum amount of evil and confusion. This is what the Pharisees were doing.
(7) The Pharisee is maligning the tax-collector for being a tax-collector while he is telling God how good he is about paying his taxes under the Mosaic Law. We superimpose on God our false values as a part of the function of the arrogance skills. He is saying that he never cheats on his income tax.
(8) The tax-collector was positive at God consciousness; the Pharisee was negative. The tax-collector had genuine humility. He came to God with nothing but his own need to be saved and helplessness to do anything about it.
(9) The aorist passive imperative of the Greek verb HILASKOMAI means to be merciful, gracious, or propitious. The tax-collector is asking for a propitious sacrifice which will satisfy God the Father regarding its efficacy. Here is Jesus Christ presenting the gospel in the most fantastic way to religious activism. The tax-collector is saying, “There must be a sacrifice which satisfies God and I can trust in that sacrifice.” God can only be gracious if there is a perfect sacrifice
which is propitious. God the Father is absolutely satisfied and pleased with the work of Jesus Christ, bearing our sins on the cross. If God the Father was not satisfied with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, there would be no salvation. He is the only sacrifice that satisfied the Father, Heb 2:17, “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” The statement of the tax-collector anticipates the salvation work of Jesus Christ on the cross in some manner. He knew and understood the Levitical sacrifices.
(a) There are two Levitical offerings related to the propitious sacrifice of Christ for our sins: the burnt offering of Lev 1:1ff (this teaches propitiation with emphasis on the salvation work of Jesus Christ), the food or grain offering of Lev 2:1ff (this teaches propitiation with emphasis on the impeccability of the humanity of Christ which qualifies Him to be judged for the sins of the world).
(b) Propitiation addressed to the entire human race is found in 1 Jn 2:2, “and He Himself is a propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the entire world.” Propitiation addressed to believers is found in 1 Jn 4:10 and Eph 5:2, “and begin walking in the sphere of virtue-love, just as Christ also loved you, and delivered Himself over as a substitute for us, an offering [food offering of Lev 2—propitiation with emphasis on the person of Christ] and a sacrifice
[propitiation with emphasis on the burnt offering of Lev 1—work of Christ] to God as an order of fragrance [propitiation].”
(10) The tax-collector refers to himself as “the sinner that I am.” The definite takes this man’s sins and separates them from everyone else’s .What a contrast between the Pharisee’s attitude of arrogance and the tax-collector’s attitude of humility.
(a) When the tax-collector entered the Temple, he did not demand the impossible from God—that God be propitious toward him because of a perfect sacrifice for sin, but the Pharisee demanded the impossible—that he be saved by means of his works.
(b) The tax-collector recognized the grace of God extended to him through the doctrine of propitiation as he learned it from the Levitical offering.
(11) The tax-collector was a believer. He had been justified by his faith. Grace is the function of the sovereignty of God which establishes the policy for God’s relationship with mankind. Faith is the function of human volition in response to grace. Faith is total dependence on the work of God, therefore, the exclusion of human merit or human works. Grace excludes all human works and merit both before, during, and after salvation. Faith is Christ does not denote human commitment. The commitment is made by God, not by us. Faith is not a commitment but total dependency.
B. Common, Efficacious, Salvation, And Postsalvation Grace.
1. Grace is all that God is free to do for mankind without compromising His essence or His divine attributes. Divine love is the motivation for God’s grace policy toward mankind. Grace is undeserved blessing, which God freely gives to mankind. Grace is the divine system that permeates biblical theology and all Christian experience.
2. Grace includes the provision of God for mankind in eternity past related to the doctrine of divine decrees. This is emphasized in common grace, so-called because it is common to all mankind. The benefits of common grace are experienced by all mankind without discrimination or prejudice toward anyone.
a. The work of Jesus Christ in sustaining the universe by the word of His power is a manifestation of common grace. Col 1:17; Heb 1:3.
b. The function of the universe to both the just and the unjust is another manifestation of common grace, Mt 5:45.
c. Everything that God does to prevent the human race from self-destruction is a manifestation of common grace.
d. The greatest manifestation of common grace is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in making the gospel perspicuous to the spiritually dead
unbeliever.
3. Salvation grace is motivated by divine impersonal love for the unbeliever, who is in the status of spiritual death. Jn 3:16; Rom 5:8. Impersonal love for the spiritually dead unbeliever becomes personal love for the born-again believer because of the imputation of divine righteousness. Grace also means that all things from God, including salvation by grace through faith, are received from God totally apart from any form of human merit or human works.
a. Part of salvation grace is antecedent grace. Antecedent grace emphasizes the fact that God’s grace precedes and has preceded human life on earth. All human decisions of history and works and endeavor of mankind are preceded by the grace of God.
(1) Motivated by divine love, God’s antecedent grace takes the initiative in eternity past based on His divine omniscience. God knew all the knowable in eternity past and made provision for every situation in life.
(2) Grace does not start with mankind. Grace started with God. Therefore, grace is not earned, merited, or deserved by human beings. It is freely given to us, totally apart from any human resources, any merit, any ability. Grace is the initiative of God.
(3) 1 Jn 4:10, “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”
b. Salvation grace takes cognizance of the hopeless and helpless state of mankind from the point of his physical birth.
(1) Human life begins at physical birth. Only God can create human life. Biological life is the result of procreation. Whatever man can create is not human life. When biological life emerges from the womb, God creates soul life and imputes it to biological life, which begins human life. Simultaneously, God imputes Adam’s original sin to the genetically formed sin nature. The result is that all members of the human race are born spiritually dead (with the exception of Jesus Christ, who was born without a sin nature due to the virgin pregnancy and birth).
(2) Spiritual death means total separation from God, total depravity, and total helplessness.
(3) Salvation grace means that Jesus Christ, in a state of impeccability, was judged on the cross as a substitute for us. Salvation grace means all things that God has done for us to provide eternal life. All things from God are received from God totally apart from any form of human works. Therefore, salvation grace can only be received on a non-meritorious basis—by faith alone in Christ alone.
4. Efficacious Grace.
a. Efficacious means effective as a means of having or showing the desired result; producing the desired effect.
b. There are two categories of efficacious grace.
(1) The salvation work of Christ on the cross is efficacious in that it is a combination of unlimited atonement and propitiation. The grace aspect of unlimited atonement means that Jesus Christ was judged for all the sins of the entire human race and God the Father was satisfied with that work. The implication is that every member of the human race has the same equal opportunity for salvation. Because our Lord was judged for every sin in human history on the cross, sin is no longer the issue in salvation.
(2) Faith alone in Christ alone is efficacious for eternal salvation. God the Holy Spirit takes the faith of the spiritually dead unbeliever and makes that faith effective for salvation.
c. Efficacious grace is related to the salvation work of Christ on the cross as illustrated by unlimited atonement and propitiation. The preposition HUPER plus the genitive of advantage always connotes substitution. The genitive of advantage indicates the person(s) on behalf of whom something is done in a substitutionary sense. The object of this preposition is the anarthrous construction (no definite article) from the adjective PAS used as a substantive, which always means “everyone without exception.” (See Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Second Edition, page
632, point 2.)
(1) Heb 2:9, “But while He was made inferior to angels for a brief time, we see Jesus, who now has been crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that He, by the grace of God, might taste death as a substitute for everyone without exception.”
(2) 2 Cor 5:14-15a, “For the love for Christ keeps on motivating us; in fact, we have reached this conclusion, that One died as a substitute for everyone without exception, therefore all died; and He died as a substitute for everyone without exception...”
(3) 1 Tim 2:6, “who gave Himself a ransom as a substitute for everyone without exception, ...” The result of unlimited atonement is the fact that God the Father is satisfied with the efficacious, substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Furthermore, God has given everyone equal opportunity for salvation, first through God consciousness, and then through gospel hearing.
(4) Rom 5:6, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died as a substitute for the godless ones.” Godless means the human race. The result of unlimited atonement is propitiation, 1 Jn 2:2, “And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for the entire world.”
d. Common grace and efficacious grace combine under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Eph 2:8-9, “For you have been saved with the result that you keep on being saved forever by means of grace through faith; and this [salvation (the demonstrative pronoun is in the neuter rather than the feminine)] not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”
e. Grace depends entirely upon who and what God is. Grace is undeserved blessing from God based on the function of all three members of the Trinity. Grace is the divine side of salvation; faith is the human side. Grace has all the merit; faith has no merit at all. Grace is the decision of the sovereignty of God; faith is the non-meritorious decision of the human being.
5. The Church Age believer is saved by grace and mandated to live by grace. Grace is the manifestation of the virtue, holiness, power, mercy, compassion, patience of God.
a. Postsalvation grace is motivated by divine personal love because the believer possesses the imputed righteousness of God. This makes the pattern of postsalvation grace logistical grace. Grace is undeserved blessing from God based on who and what God is.
b. Postsalvation grace is unmerited favor, the total divine provision of the persons of the Godhead for the believer’s fulfillment of God’s plan, will, and purpose for the Church Age.
C. Antecedent Grace.
1. Definition.
a. In the English language, the word antecedent means the action of going before, preceding, existing before, and has the connotation of precedence. This is called prevenient grace in theology. Prevenient means “going before, existing before.”
b. Dr. Philip E. Huges’ definition on page 480f in The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology is very good. “Prevenient grace is grace that comes first. It precedes all human decisions and endeavors. Grace always means that it is God who takes the initiative and implies the priority of God’s action on behalf of needy sinners. This is the whole point of grace: it does not start with us; it starts with God. Grace is not earned or merited by us. It is freely and lovingly given to us with no
resources or deservings of our own. ...God took action. Moreover, when we were helpless, without any ability to help ourselves or to make any contribution to salvation. The sinner’s state is one of spiritual death, that is to say, total inability. That is why the apostle reminds the Ephesian believers that salvation came to them when they were dead in sins. From which there follows only one conclusion, namely, it is by grace they were saved. Both now and for all eternity, the Christian will be indebted to the immeasurable riches of God’s grace, displayed in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. But for the prevenience or priority of divine grace all
would have been lost.”
c. For our study of grace, it means that which precedes and exists both in eternity past, in time, and in the future. This concept applies to post-salvation grace just as much as pre-salvation and salvation grace.
2. Antecedent grace is the divine initiative in the exercise of God’s grace policy to establish a relationship with mankind totally apart from human merit, human works, or human resources. Antecedent grace is the divine initiative in providing grace blessing from God to mankind, dating back to eternity past as illustrated by the believer’s escrow blessings for time and eternity. Antecedent grace excludes any human merit before salvation, at salvation, or after salvation. We have nothing to brag about. We could not do a thing. So God took the initiative. This is also true about the Christian way of life.
3. There are two categories of antecedent grace: the divine initiative of eternity past, and the divine initiative in time. Man responds to divine initiative. God always takes the initiative. He did so in eternity past and continues to do so in time.
a. Antecedent grace includes the divine initiative in eternity past. This is God’s grace provision for the postsalvation modus operandi of the Church Age believer. This includes our very own portfolio of invisible assets, everything we need to live our very own spiritual life. Billions of years ago, God provided a grace portfolio with our name on it. It includes our very own spiritual life, the spiritual skills, the uniqueness of the Church Age, the equality we have in the execution of the protocol plan of God.
b. In the divine decrees, the omniscience of God knew simultaneously all the knowable about human history and made special provision for every Church Age believer to have equal privilege and equal opportunity to execution the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. This is the major issue in resolving Satan’s appeal trial of eternity past. Eph 3:2, “since you have heard about the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for your benefit.”
c. Antecedent grace is dramatized by the fact that every Church Age believer has equal privilege and equal opportunity to execute the protocol plan of God. Antecedent grace includes election and predestination.
(1) Election is the expression of the sovereignty of God in eternity past as a part of antecedent grace, in which every believer has been made a royal priest and been given logistical grace.
(2) Predestination is the provision of the sovereignty of God in eternity past as a part of antecedent grace. It is the provision of the sovereignty of God for every Church Age believer under equal privilege of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and subsequent positional sanctification, in which we are placed into union with Christ and created a new spiritual species, and given the equal opportunity of being entered into your very own palace, the divine dynasphere with a portfolio of invisible assets.
d. Antecedent grace includes the divine initiative in time. Grace orientation can only respond to the divine initiative of antecedent grace in a totally non-meritorious manner. Whatever the response is to postsalvation grace, it must be the same non-meritorious response as occurred with pre-salvation and salvation grace.
4. The Scope of Antecedent Grace.
a. Pre-salvation grace includes the creation of soul life and its imputation to biological life, the imputation of Adam’s original sin to the genetically formed sin nature, God-consciousness, and common grace. Efficacious grace at the moment of salvation is antecedent grace with reference to postsalvation grace. We respond to common grace by listening to what is said. We respond to efficacious grace by believing in Christ for salvation. Both hearing and believing are non-meritorious.
b. Postsalvation grace includes the doctrine of precedence for the Christian life. The grace policy of the hypostatic union, God’s grace to Israel, the salvation work of Christ on the cross, the precedence for the spiritual life of the Church Age are antecedent grace to us in the Church
Age.
c. The response to common grace is non-meritorious. The response to efficacious grace is non-meritorious. The response to postsalvation grace is non-meritorious—learning and applying the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. All the unique characteristics of the Church Age are a part of antecedent grace.
d. Postsalvation grace includes all that God has done for the believer apart from human merit. This means that the Church Age believer is saved by grace and that he is mandated to live by grace. Grace is the manifestation of the holiness of God, divine virtue, including the power, the mercy, the compassion, the patience of God.
e. Postsalvation grace is motivated by divine personal love based on the fact that the believer receives and possesses forever the imputation of divine righteousness from God at the moment of salvation. Because of the baptism of the Spirit and subsequent positional sanctification, the believer in Christ shares the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. This gives us capacity righteousness in two categories, so that we have capacity for blessing from God.
5. The Human Response to the Divine Initiative of Antecedent Grace.
a. There are two categories of antecedent grace: divine initiative in eternity past and divine initiative in human history.
b. Human response to antecedent grace must always be non-meritorious, excluding human works and all energy of the flesh human resources.
c. Human response to the divine initiative of antecedent grace begins with the decision to hear the gospel message, therefore, positive volition toward common grace.
d. Human response to the divine initiative of antecedent grace continues with faith alone in Christ alone, therefore, positive volition at the point of efficacious grace.
e. Human response to the divine initiative of antecedent grace concludes with consistent function of the spiritual skills, resulting in the execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church, therefore, positive volition toward postsalvation grace.
f. Therefore, human response to the divine initiative of antecedent grace begins with hearing the gospel in common grace, faith alone in Christ alone in efficacious grace, and both learning and using the spiritual skills in postsalvation grace.
D. The Function of Grace Orientation as a Problem Solving Device.
1. This is the function of grace orientation as problem solving device on the FLOT line of the soul.
a. The divine initiative is antecedent grace means there are two sources of grace orientation as a problem solving device: the divine initiative of eternity past and the divine initiative in time (precedence from the function of the humanity of Christ during the dispensation of the hypostatic union).
b. Grace orientation as problem solving device can only function in relationship to doctrinal orientation (another problem solving device on the FLOT line of the soul).
c. Grace orientation emphasizes the divine side of postsalvation grace, while doctrinal orientation emphasizes the believer’s side of postsalvation grace.
d. In grace, God initiates and the believer responses. The initiation of grace demands the response of grace.
e. Response to divine initiation of antecedent grace is grace orientation.
f. Grace orientation completely eliminates any form of legalism, human merit, human ability, human works, human resources.
g. Therefore, grace orientation as a problem solving device is the correct and accurate response to antecedent grace.
h. Grace orientation teaches the believer how to respond to the divine initiative of antecedent grace.
2. Grace orientation always functions on the basis of precedence from the modus operandi of the humanity of Christ in the dispensation of the
hypostatic union.
a. Jn 1:14-17 tells us that grace and truth were problem solving devices used by our Lord. They functioned together. Our Lord received the
function of His spiritual skills from the divine decrees, from the divine initiative of eternity past. In eternity past when Christ agreed to go to the cross, God the Father provided everything for the humanity of Christ to execute the plan of God for the hypostatic union. This was antecedent grace.
b. We take our function of the problem solving devices from the divine initiative in time, that is, from the modus operandi of the humanity of Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. Our Lord had eight problem solving (He did not need to rebound or be occupied with Himself.) He used these problem solving devices to establish precedence for us. We have two things going for us: the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past and precedence from the function of the humanity of Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. You have the same assets that the humanity of Christ had, when He walked on this earth.
(1) The humanity of Christ functioned under the filling of the Spirit, 9:14; Isa 11:2, 42:1; Jn 3:34; Lk 4:14-18; Mt 12:28; Heb 9:14, “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the agency of the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
(2) The humanity of Christ functioned under grace orientation and doctrinal orientation, Jn 1:14, 16.
(3) The humanity of Christ functioned under impersonal love, Lk 23:34, “But Jesus kept on saying, `Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.”
(4) The humanity of Christ functioned under perfect happiness, Jn 15:11, “I have taught you many things that My happiness may be in you, and that your happiness may be made fulfilled.” The ultimate precedent in the dispensation of the hypostatic union is sharing the perfect happiness of God. Sharing the perfect happiness of God is the most fantastic experience the believer can have. Grace orientation and doctrinal orientation start to produce occupation with Christ and perfect happiness. Heb 12:2 says that Jesus Christ is the originator, pioneer, and perfecter of our doctrine, “Be concentrating on Jesus, the originator of our doctrine, who because of His exhibited happiness He endured the cross, and disregarded the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
c. The humanity of Jesus Christ voluntarily restrained the use of His own divine attributes in the pressure situations of the dispensation of the hypostatic union in order to establish precedence for the spiritual life of the ordinary believer in the dispensation of the Church. This is the basis for encouragement in the problem solving device called grace orientation.
3. The challenge of grace orientation in the Church Age is the result of the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past in the provision of our portfolio of invisible assets and divine initiative in time or the precedence from the dispensation of the hypostatic union.
4. Grace orientation and doctrinal orientation always work together. Grace orientation emphasizes the divine side of postsalvation grace, whereas, doctrinal orientation emphasizes the believer’s response to grace. There is no growth except in the sphere of grace, 2 Pet 3:18, “Keep on growing in the sphere of grace and in the sphere of knowledge about our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Glory to Him both now and in the day of eternity. Amen.”
a. Grace orientation is the sphere for growth. When you get outside the sphere of grace (through sin, legalism, etc.), you stop growing spiritually and become a loser. You cannot fulfill the Christian way of life outside of the sphere of grace. Christian service is not divine good apart from the function of the spiritual skills. Without the sphere of grace and gnosis we cannot glorify God.
b. Doctrinal orientation begins when you use grace orientation to metabolize doctrine—faith perception converting gnosis into epignosis. Doctrinal orientation is epignosis doctrine circulating in the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness. Faith perception brings grace orientation together with doctrinal orientation. You cannot have grace orientation without doctrinal orientation or doctrinal orientation without grace orientation.
5. The doctrine of precedence emphasizes the uniqueness of the Church Age and the grace provision for the ordinary believer, hence, the divine initiative of antecedent grace in human history. Eph 3:2, “If you have heard about the dispensation of the grace of God (and you have), which was given to me for your benefit...” It is for our benefit that we are in this dispensation.
6. The encouragement that comes from grace orientation is found in 2 Thes 2:16-17, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God the Father, who has loved us and has given to us eternal encouragement and confident expectation in the sphere of grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen your spiritual life in all [spiritual] production and good of intrinsic value doctrine.”
a. God’s impersonal love toward us is a part of the eternal comfort of grace and a problem solving device on the FLOT line of the soul. God’s love toward us is divine self-esteem in eternity past, the divine initiative of antecedent grace, divine impersonal love of eternity past, divine personal love in human history to those who have believed in Christ.
b. Eternal encouragement is the divine initiative of antecedent and future grace. God has provided encouragement for the lowest moments in our lives. Good of intrinsic value confident expectation in the sphere of grace is the anticipation of the escrow blessings of the eternal state. This may be classified as the divine initiative of eschatological expectation, the anticipation of future grace in the eternal state.
c. You have no encouragement apart from the divine initiative of antecedent and future grace. We do not need comfort; we need encouragement.
Encouragement of heart comes from metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness. The Greek word PARAKALEO means to encouragement, to comfort,
to exhort, to summon someone for help or advise. All the meanings are pertinent to the function of grace orientation. In grace orientation, the believer summons metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness of the heart for encouragement, for comfort, and for self-exhortation of the soul. There is no greater power than the power of the infallible word of God circulating in your stream of consciousness, where it forms grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. Grace orientation functions in the soul long before it functions in your life.
d. The Greek word STERIZO (strengthen) means to fix something so that it stands upright and immoveable. This came to mean someone who was strong in their spiritual life. God has provided the grace so that you can stand upright in your spiritual life, not phased by the stresses, adversities, and pressures of life.
e. The good of intrinsic value doctrine produces an invisible production that changes the course of history. Production here emphasizes the creation of the invisible hero with invisible impact in the Church Age. Metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness must precede the production of divine good. Spiritual skills must precede production skills for the performance of divine good. Production skills minus spiritual skills equal dead works, human good, and the believer producing evil. Evil from dead works includes Christian activism, social engineering, civil disobedience, the intrusion upon the privacy of the individual and the
destruction of human freedom.
f. You are to encourage your own hearts in sphere of grace and strengthen your spiritual life in the sphere of invisible production and good of intrinsic value doctrine. The doctrine is invisible in the soul; the production is invisible. It is your own free will that must respond to grace orientation. It is your own free will that must learn doctrine in order to respond to grace.
E. The Panorama of The Divine Initiative of Antecedent Grace.
1. The purpose of the divine initiative of antecedent grace in the Church Age is found in 2 Thes 1:12, “in order that the person of our Lord Jesus may be glorified by means of you, and you by means of Him on the basis of the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.”
a. Our Lord Jesus Christ is glorified when the Church Age believer responds to the divine initiative of antecedent grace. The function of the spiritual skills and the execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church is the major concept. You being glorified by our Lord is the inevitable result of the divine initiative of antecedent grace with historical impact of the invisible heroes, the pivot of mature believers. The conveyance of escrow blessings for the eternal state at the judgment
seat of Christ also fulfills the principle.
b. We are glorifying eternal God when we glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Life becomes very meaningful when you realize there is a grace way of glorifying God. The purpose of the divine initiative of antecedent grace was to give you a life of meaning, purpose, and definition, a life where you can have the most wonderful things and glorify God by means of them.
c. Grace orientation is the basis for getting ready to develop in your life a personal sense of destiny.
2. Common and efficacious grace are related to the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past, 2 Tim 1:9, “[Our Lord] who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of His very own purpose and grace which has been given to us for our benefit by Christ Jesus in eternity past.”
a. At the moment of faith in Christ, there is a tremendous response to the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past. Faith in Christ is a response to antecedent grace of eternity past. The forty things you receive at the instant of faith in Christ are also a response to antecedent grace in eternity past. The new believer enters immediately into postsalvation grace. Grace is God’s initiative, not ours. Our initiative is the response of total helplessness and humility.
b. The call of God is God’s invitation to believe in Christ. This is also a part of the divine initiative of antecedent grace.
c. No matter how you look at it, grace is always the work of God, the divine initiative. Grace and human works are mutually exclusive. You cannot do anything, you are helpless. God has invited us to a life on the basis of grace which was given to us from eternity past. You have the greatest individual responsibility God ever assigned to any people, but it is on the basis of grace.
d. God’s grace was given to us (PRO CHRONOS plus the ablative plural of separation from AIONIOS) “before the times in eternity.” This idiom means “in eternity past” or “before the beginning of time.”
(1) In the plan and purpose of God, grace and human works cannot and do not coexist. Grace and legalism do not mix in time.
(2) Therefore, God’s grace and human works are mutually exclusive.
(3) Grace excludes all forms of human works, human merit, and human resources.
(4) Where human merit and human works are inserted into God’s plan erroneously by misinformed or ignorant believers, it is no longer God’s plan, will, or purpose for the believer.
(5) The believer cannot glorify God through the function of his personality, merit, resources, works, or any gimmick or system of gimmicks which he may develop.
(6) God can only be glorified by what God has done for mankind in grace, more grace, and greater grace.
3. The divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past and in time is taught in Eph 1:6, “resulting in the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has graced us out in the Beloved [Jesus Christ].” The glory of God is seen in His essence and in the function of His grace. Each Church Age believer has a portfolio of invisible assets prepared by the grace of God in eternity past to be used in human history.
4. The divine initiative of eschatological grace in the eternal future in taught in Eph 2:7, “that He might show us in the coming ages the surpassing riches of His grace in generosity toward us in the sphere of Christ Jesus [i.e., in union with Christ].”
a. The coming ages include the millennium and the eternal state. Every winner-believer knows that he will have the surpassing riches of Christ’s grace in the future. In eternity past, God provided everything we need through antecedent grace to attain the surpassing riches of His grace for the eternal future. We could not do anything to obtain the surpassing riches of His grace. God blesses you because of what He did for you in eternity past and in time.
b. What is more important: you and anything you do or your portfolio of invisible assets? There is nothing you can attain in this world that is worth that fantastic grace God has provided for you in eternity past. There is no attainment in the world that is worth distraction from Bible doctrine.
5. The divine initiative of antecedent grace is related to the pivot of mature believers in Rom 11:1-6, “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? Definitely not! For I also am an Israelite, out from the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah, when he complained to God about Israel? `Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’ But what is the divine answer to him? `I have kept for Myself seven thousand honorable men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ Therefore, in this same way also in this present time, there has come to be a remnant on the basis of the election from grace. And if it is because of grace [and it is], it is no longer from the source of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”
a. God has not rejected the Jew. God has demanded a spiritual birth, so that there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Paul begins this passage by saying that the physical decent of nature birth is worthless for salvation. The transmission of divine promises and imputation of divine blessing are made as a result of being born again. A spiritual birth must take place. To inherit the unconditional covenants to Israel, the Jew must be born again through faith alone in Christ alone.
b. The omniscience of God knew in eternity past all the knowable of history, including the volition of His people, Israel. God knew each Jewish believer who would live in the Church Age and did not reject them. No believer, Jew or Gentile, is ever rejected by God.
c. Paul now uses Elijah as an illustration. Elijah was complaining to the supreme court of heaven about the negative volition of Israel. The northern Kingdom of Israel was about to be destroyed as a client nation to God. Elijah was involved in arrogant self-absorption by thinking he alone is left as a believer in Israel.
d. Elijah said HUPOLEIPO (I am the only one left). God said to Elijah KATALEIPO (I have kept for Myself). There were still seven thousand people in the land of Israel who were part of God’s pivot.
(1) One of the results of the divine initiative is that God always has a remnant of the elect of grace, a pivot of believers in any client nation. The only reason we are still here as a client nation is because we have invisible heroes, unknown except in heaven. They are using the spiritual skills to execute the protocol plan of God for the Church.
(2) The remnant according to the election of grace, i.e., the pivot, shrinks when the arrogant skills replace grace. Grace and works cannot coexist in the plan of God. Grace and works are mutually exclusive. Grace excludes the arrogance skills and the arrogance skills exclude grace. Where the arrogance skills prevail among believers, the pivot shrinks and the client nation to God is eventually destroyed by the supreme court of heaven.
(3) As a result of this pivot of mature believers, the client nation of northern Israel would continue for 150 more years (B.C. 871 - B.C. 721). Elijah and Elisha turned the client nation around. God continued to bless that nation only because of who and what those believers were.
e. In the same way, there is a pivot at the time of Paul’s letter, just as there is a pivot right now in client nation America. As goes the believer, so goes the client nation. Our security as a nation does not depend on the decisions of the President, Congress, or any other politician. Our security depends on the antecedent grace of God directed toward the pivot of mature believers. The pivot of Israel established precedence for the pivot of mature believers in Gentile client nations to
God in the Church Age.
f. Grace always has been and always will be the basis for the existence of the pivot of mature believers. Grace and works cannot coexist in the plan of God. Grace and works are mutually exclusive. Grace excludes the arrogance skills (self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption). When arrogance skills prevail among believers, the pivot shrinks and the client nation is judged by the supreme court of heaven. Where grace prevails through the function of the spiritual skills, the pivot expands and the client nation to God is blessed by association with those mature believers. One ounce of legalism or activism destroys grace as the only
basis for executing the protocol plan of God, Gal 5:9.
6. The divine initiative of antecedent grace is related to occupation with the person of Christ, Eph 6:24, “Grace be with all believers who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptibility.”
a. It is possible to have a superficial love for God which is strictly corruptible. The only love that counts is an incorruptible love. Believers with corruptible love do not have the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of their soul.
b. Incorruptibility is spiritual capacity righteousness, which belongs to the believer who executes the protocol plan of God through the spiritual skills provided through the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past.
7. The divine initiative of antecedent grace is related to the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. Eph 3:7-8, “Through which gospel, I have become a minister on the basis of the gift from the grace of God which was given to me on the basis of the function of His power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace has been given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable wealth of Christ.”
a. The function of all spiritual gifts are based on the function of divine power.
b. Invisible God plus invisible power plus invisible assets equals invisible heroes.
F. Grace Related to Human And Spiritual Freedom.
1. Human Freedom.
a. Human freedom is the sphere of operation for human volition. We operate within the framework of our own volition. In order to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict, the sovereignty of God and free will of man coexist in human history. Mankind has one thing in common with the angels—human volition. Freedom is the true environment for the function of human volition.
b. There are two categories of human freedom: establishment freedom for both the unbeliever and believer and spiritual freedom for the Church Age believer only. Spiritual freedom is designed to give every believer equal privilege and opportunity to execute God’s plan, will, and purpose for the Church Age.
(1) Freedom under the laws of divine establishment includes the following factors.
(a) Volition. The function of human volition in the soul, the state of human volition as the uncaused cause of human modus operandi. Freedom is the legitimate self-determination, exemption from necessity apart from human consent or human self-fulfillment, and exemption from arbitrary control and exploitation from others.
(b) Privacy. Privacy is the environment for the establishment of freedom.
© Property. Property is the right to possess, to enjoy, to benefit, or to make profit from acquired things in life. Ownership of tangible things is a part of the concept of property. Profit is a good word in the Bible. Profit is the basis for true economy. Socialism is evil because it destroys human freedom and self-determination. Property is defined as the sum total of one’s own possessions, tangible and intangible. Under freedom, the individual has the right to make a profit as
well as the right of possession of personal and real property.
(d) Authority. Authority under the laws of divine establishment includes personal volition, marriage, family, and government as divine institutions. Parental authority is the fifth commandment and is a part of this concept. When you have authority without freedom, that is tyranny. When you have freedom without authority, that is anarchy. The word of God does not subscribe to either tyranny or anarchy.
(e) Life. The laws of divine establishment recognize the sacredness of privacy, property, and life as the means of the function
of human freedom.
c. Human freedom cannot exist or be effective apart from human responsibility. The freedom of a nation is no more effective than the morality, the virtue, the integrity, and the sense of responsibility among its citizens.
d. The enemies of freedom under the laws of divine establishment are twofold.
(1) The internal enemy is criminality. The eighth commandment (You will not steal) recognizes the sacredness of property. The sixth commandment (You will not commit homicide) recognizes the sacredness of human life. Law enforcement is that part of establishment which is designed to apprehend and punish crime. Once a person is convicted of a crime, they have no rights until they have served their sentence. Capital punishment is authorized by the Scriptures, Gen 9:5-6; Mt 26:52; Rom 13:3-4; Ex 21:12; Num 35:30.
(2) The external enemies of a nation are other nations who are power oriented and function under some system of tyranny against nations who are freedom oriented. Part of establishment law is protection of freedom oriented nations from power oriented nations through the biblical principle of freedom through military victory.
2. Spiritual Freedom.
a. Ps 119:45, “And I will walk in freedom, For I seek Your doctrines.” This is the function of spiritual freedom in perception of doctrine.
b. Jn 8:32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” This is a reference to spiritual freedom.
c. Gal 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Keep standing fast in that freedom and do not become entangled again in the yoke of slavery.” The yoke of slavery is faith plus works for salvation, the arrogance skills, legalism and activism, the distractions of human viewpoint and false doctrine.
d. Grace is involved in our spiritual freedom, 2 Cor 4:17, “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.” Spiritual freedom is the environment for equality of all believers to execute the protocol plan of God. The filling of the Spirit provides spiritual freedom and equal opportunity to utilize the divine initiative of antecedent grace for the fulfillment of the protocol plan of God for the Church.
e. 2 Cor 3:18, “But we all, with an unveiled face looking into a mirror to produce a reflection—the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory [the divine initiative of antecedent grace in time in which the humanity of Christ established precedence for the Christian way of life] to glory [the utilization of the spiritual skills to execute the protocol plan of God}, as it were from the Spirit of the Lord.”
(1) The filling of the Spirit is the unveiled face. The unveiled face is the positive believer approaching the word of God through the filling of the Holy Spirit.
(2) The mirror is analogous to the word of God.
(3) The “Spirit of the Lord” is a reference to the deity of the Holy Spirit.
3. Summary.
a. Human freedom for all mankind is based on the laws of divine establishment. Human freedom recognizes the sacredness of privacy, property, and life. Human freedom recognizes self-determination as a function of human volition in the soul. Human freedom emphasizes the individual as taking responsibility for his own decisions. Human freedom is authority oriented, so that under establishment authority the principle of live and let live becomes operational.
b. Spiritual freedom is for believers only. The function of spiritual freedom is based on cognition and utilization of the three spiritual skills (the filling of the Spirit, metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness, and ten problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of your soul). Spiritual freedom is the basis for equal opportunity for every Church Age believer to execute the protocol plan of God. Spiritual freedom is destroyed by the function of the arrogance
skills.
c. Establishment freedom is the heritage of physical birth. Spiritual freedom is the heritage of regeneration. Spiritual freedom can function with or without establishment freedom, because establishment freedom or lack of it is related to public modus operandi in a nation or its equivalent, while spiritual freedom is invisible, related to the filling of the Holy Spirit. Establishment freedom is based on human merit and virtue both in thinking and action, illustrated by the function of law enforcement and military establishment. Spiritual freedom is non-meritorious because it is related to the divine initiative of antecedent grace both in eternity past and the divine initiative of eschatological grace at the Rapture and the eternal state.
G. Conclusion And Summary.
1. God’s grace initiates the believer’s grace orientation response. It takes grace orientation to respond to God’s grace initiative.
2. The divine initiative of grace occurs in two spheres:
a. Antecedent grace.
(1) In eternity past—your very own portfolio of invisible assets.
(2) In time—precedence for believer grace orientation response from the function of the humanity of Christ in hypostatic union.
b. Eschatological grace, which includes:
(1) Dying grace.
(2) Resurrection grace.
(3) The eternal state.
3. Grace orientation as a problem solving device, when it is deployed on the FLOT line of the soul, can only respond to the divine initiative of
antecedent grace or the divine initiative of eschatological grace in a non-meritorious manner. God initiates grace and has from eternity past. We respond to grace when we have the proper problem solving device of grace orientation on the FLOT line of the soul. This is when the grace response becomes effective.
4. Grace orientation responds to the divine initiative of grace through the function of the three spiritual skills (the filling of the Holy Spirit, the metabolization of doctrine, plus execution of the protocol plan of God). This is what results in maximum response to both antecedent grace and eschatological grace.
5. Grace orientation as a problem solving device only functions in relationship to operation Z.
6. There can be no believer response to the divine initiative of antecedent or eschatological grace apart from maximum metabolized doctrine circulating in the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness.
7. Therefore, grace orientation is defined as the response of epignosis to the divine initiative of antecedent grace and eschatological grace.
8. Grace orientation is defined as the correct and accurate response to and application of both antecedent grace and eschatological grace.
9. This implies that grace orientation not only teaches the believer how to respond to the divine initiative of grace but how to apply God’s perfect and matchless grace to every circumstance of life. The filling of the Holy Spirit plus human I.Q. equals spiritual I.Q. plus operation Z equals grace orientation.
10. In the grace policy of God, the divine initiative always precedes the grace response. The grace response occurs in at least six differentcategories: common grace, efficacious grace, postsalvation or living grace, dying grace, resurrection grace, and eternal state grace.
11. The divine initiative of grace always provides equal opportunity for the grace response of mankind. Man cannot create equal opportunity; only God can do so. This means that all members of the human race have equal opportunity for eternal salvation through faith alone in Christ alone. This means that all members of the body of Christ have equal privilege and equal opportunity to execute the protocol plan of God for the Church.
a. In the divine decrees, we have the sovereignty of God and free will of man coexisting in human history. The order of the divine decrees or
lapsarianism is:
(1) God decreed the creation of all mankind with free will in a state of perfection. This was done to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict and to bring many sons into glory, as per Eph 2:10.
(2) God decreed to permit the fall of mankind through the function of his own volition, mankind’s own self-determination. This duplicates Satan’s fall and the subsequent existence of all fallen angels.
(3) God decreed to provide eternal salvation for all mankind under the doctrine of unlimited atonement, 2 Cor 5:14-15; Heb 2:9; 1 Tim 2:6. Christ died as a substitute for everyone without exception.
(4) God decreed to leave the reprobate (those who remain in spiritual death because they reject Christ as savior) to their just condemnation, Jn 3:18, 36. There are two opportunities under equal opportunity for regeneration—God consciousness and gospel hearing.
(5) God decreed simultaneously in eternity past both election and foreordination or predestination for the believer only. Both election and predestination are a part of the divine initiative of antecedent grace. Election and predestination provide equal privilege and equal opportunity from the divine initiative of antecedent grace for every Church Age believer to execute the protocol plan of God.
(a) There are three elections in history: the election of true Israel, Rom 9:6, the election of the humanity of Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union, and the election of the Church as the body of Christ in the royal family of God.
(b) Election is the expression of the sovereignty of God who wills the highest and best for every Church Age believer. Therefore, equal privilege and equal opportunity to execute the protocol plan of God. Under the equal privilege of election, every believer is a priest of a royal priesthood. Our Lord is the royal high priest as a king-priest, Heb 7. Under the equal opportunity of election, every believer has equal opportunity because of logistical grace. Our royal priesthood and
logistical grace are a part of antecedent grace.
© Predestination is the grace provision of the sovereignty of God for every believer in every dispensation. Through His grace policy, the sovereignty of God has provided everything necessary to sustain every believer in every dispensation of human history. In the Church Age, every believer has equal privilege and equal opportunity under predestination for the execution of the protocol plan of God. The equal privilege under predestination is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and subsequent positional sanctification. The equal opportunity under predestination is our very own portfolio of logistical grace.
(6) God decreed to apply salvation to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ; hence, the decree to save the elect through faith alone in Christ alone, Eph 2:8-9.
b. The decrees provide the equality factor. The filling of the Holy Spirit plus human I.Q. equals spiritual I.Q. plus metabolization of doctrine equals the equality factor for every believer. There is no racial issue, cultural issue, sexual issue, social issue, or economic issue.
c. The divine initiative of antecedent grace of eternity past has provided equal privilege and equal opportunity for every Church Age believer to execute the protocol plan of God. There is no inequality in the filling of the Spirit or in operation Z (the metabolization of doctrine). Inequality occurs with the tremendous variation of thinking skills among members of the human race. However, God the Holy Spirit converts human I.Q. into spiritual I.Q., creating a system of equality for the perception and application of Bible doctrine. The six thinking skills are:
(1) Comprehension. It is the function of the filling of the Spirit to take the inequalities of human comprehension and provide equality of all believers for doctrinal perception. The filling of the Spirit converts the inequality of I.Q. into equality.
(2) Memory. The equality is provided by the inculcation and repetition of teaching. The rate of learning must exceed the rate of forgetting doctrine. The process of learning Bible doctrine combines the first two thinking skills, and the result is conditioned thought pathways or memory pathways of the soul. The rate of learning is the rate at which the believer develops new memories, printing more and more doctrine on the neurons of the brain. The rate of learning must always exceed the rate of forgetting.
(a) From metabolized doctrine circulating in the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness through the filling of the Holy Spirit, ten problem solving devices are formed and deployed on the FLOT line of your soul.
(b) These problem solving devices perform eight missions:
i. The prevention of the outside pressures of adversity from becoming the inside pressure of stress in the soul.
ii. The application of metabolized doctrine to postsalvation experience, which includes the establishing of your spiritual values.
iii. Spiritual environment of the soul, including divine viewpoint.
iv. Self-motivation for the function of your very own spiritual life
v. The basis for victory over the four great battles in the soul: the battle of stress in the soul, the battle of sin in the soul, the battle of false doctrine in the soul, the battle of defense mechanisms in the soul.
vi. The mastery and the utilization of the problem solving devices, causing the elect angels to stand up and cheer.
vii. The execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church—the attainment of spiritual maturity.
viii. The invisible impact of the invisible hero, the source of the greatest happiness in this life.
© As the number of doctrinal memories increase, the number of divine viewpoint thoughts also increase. This results in the formation of doctrinal rationales. These doctrinal rationales are applied to our experience through the function of the faith-rest drill. The same faith-rest drill that claims the promises of God takes these doctrinal rationales and applies them to our experience.
(d) When the rate of learning exceeds the rate of forgetting, the believer advances in his spiritual life under the function of the spiritual skills. When the rate of forgetting exceeds the rate of learning, there is a rapid decline in the function of your very own spiritual life.
(3) Problem Solving. Problem solving devices are a grace gift from God which replace human viewpoint solutions, such as: psychology, defense mechanisms, and other things that remove the believer from the reality of God’s grace.
(4) Decision Making. Decision making is precisely correct procedure in the utilization of doctrinal facts and relating them to the function of the problem solving devices.
(5) Creativity. This is originality in thought and expression of thought. For the believer, this is the recovery of Bible doctrine from the written page of the word of God. Many doctrines have been rejected, suppressed, distorted, twisted, so that they often remain obscured for many generations. Creativity includes the effective and powerful presentation of each truth through the filling of the Holy Spirit.
(6) Awareness. Awareness is the application of metabolised doctrine through the function of the ten problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of the soul. Awareness is having knowledge in the stream of consciousness, being informed, knowledgeable, and alert about things around you. Awareness wades through all the pressures and opposition to Bible doctrine with concentration, self-motivation, accurate spiritual values to continue advancing toward the objective of spiritual maturity and the glorification of God. Awareness becomes alert and operational, when the believer has a personal sense of destiny. Awareness rejects self-defense mechanisms. Awareness is a part of true happiness in life. Awareness is spiritual perspective of life. Awareness has to do with your thoughtfulness of others and relating to others apart from the function of the sin nature.
12. What Grace Orientation is Not.
a. As a born-again believer with a perfect plan from God, you do not need to get into psychology to solve your problems. There is a place in medicine for psychiatry. Many believers have departed from the faith because they have become enmeshed in psychology. Grace orientation has nothing to do with defense mechanisms.
b. Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person fails to acknowledge some aspects of external reality which would be apparent to others. It can be no perception of reality in certain areas or in all areas, or rejection of reality.
c. Projection goes together with denial. Projection is the function of ascribing to someone else your own attributes, faults, and flaws; hence, a mechanism in which a person falsely attributes his or her own unacknowledged impulses, feelings, thoughts, sin nature modus operandi, etc. It is the sin nature adjustment to human relationship involving the first two arrogance skills (self-justification and self-deception). Denial plus projection describes the pattern of a lot of people who are under the control of the sin nature. In projection, the believer’s tendency toward legalism or activism or both, not only demands self-justification but results in the sins of the arrogance complex, therefore, the beginning of self-deception.
d. Rationalization is a defense mechanism in which a person devises self-serving or reassuring but incorrect explanations for his or her own behavior or that of another person. These three defense mechanisms put together forms a person who has built a psychological web in which they are enmeshed. They always deny their own failures and blame others. Rationalization can be related to the third arrogance skill (self-absorption).
e. The first three defense mechanisms add up to or result in a forth defense mechanism called dissociation. Dissociation is a defense mechanism in which a person sustains alteration in the integrity functions of the stream of consciousness (you move away from normality). For the believer, this is disastrous, because alteration in the integrity of the stream of consciousness results in the suppression of any Bible doctrine that has been metabolized. Damage to the stream of consciousness through dissociation results in reversionism.
f. If you try to solve your problems by denial, projection, or rationalization, you have, in effect, rejected the spiritual skills. Defense mechanisms and the spiritual skills are mutually exclusive. You are in either one or the other.
g. In denial, the believer is divorced from the reality of divine initiative of antecedent and eschatological grace. Therefore, denial becomes the environment for self-justification. Projection results in self-deception. Rationalization results in self-absorption.
h. Each of the first four defense mechanisms makes a contribution to the arrogance skills. The result is reversionism. Reversionism begins with reaction. Any time we react to anything, we move toward the sins of the arrogance and emotional complex and become irrational in our reactions. When we react to doctrine and reject doctrine, we go in for a frantic search for happiness in our dissociation. This results in operation boomerang or the law of volitional responsibility. Emotional revolt of the soul follows. You are insensitive toward others and hypersensitive about self. You move into the emotional sin of guilt, which becomes motivation for self-justification and Christian activism. If there is spiritual recovery, then you enter into permanent negative volition. Once this happens, the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness are covered with a blackout of the soul and scar tissue of the soul. Finally, the believer substitutes the
arrogance skills for the spiritual skills and abandons all spiritual skills for the rest of his life. This is reverse process reversionism.
i. Reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which the believer in reversionism substitutes thoughts, feelings, behavior which are diametrically opposed to his previously established spiritual values. Out of reaction formation comes intellectualization, in which a believer engages in excessive abstract thinking to avoid the disturbing feelings which result from the law of double punishment. The law of double punishment is the results of volitional responsibility plus the three stages of divine discipline (warning, intensive, dying discipline). Intellectualization is a reaction in the realm of thinking. It is anti-doctrinal thinking, designed to avoid what the Lord is doing in dealing with the person. The purpose of divine discipline is to break these defense mechanisms and to bring us back to reality.
j. There are other defense mechanisms which bolster individual failure, so that the believer does not respond to the divine initiative of
antecedent grace.
(1) Isolation is a defense mechanism in which a person is unable to experience cognitive and effective components of his previous spiritual advance. He cannot apply doctrine to experience because the doctrine is gone.
(2) Autism is a defense mechanism which is the ultimate result of the function of the arrogance skills. It is self-absorption characterized by extreme withdrawal into excessive daydreaming or retreat into fantasy in the pursuit of human relationship or fantasy regarding effective action and using fantasy as a problem solving device.
(3) Delusion is a defense mechanism which is a false personal belief based on incorrect inference about external reality (doctrinal reality in the stream of consciousness). Delusion is firmly sustained despite of what the Bible mandates or teaches.
k. All of these defense mechanisms relate to the failure of the believer to execute the will, plan, and purpose of God for the dispensation of the Church. Grace orientation is not these defense mechanisms or psychological functions.
13. What Grace Orientation Is.
a. Grace orientation is a problem solving device, number four battalion deployed on the FLOT line of the soul. The function of grace orientation is the believer’s response to the divine initiative of grace in two categories—antecedent grace in both eternity past and in time and eschatological grace.
(1) Antecedent grace in eternity past is related to the believer’s portfolio of invisible assets, the divine decrees, everything provided for the believer in eternity past. Antecedent grace in time is dramatized by the precedence established for the Christian way of life through the function of the humanity of Jesus Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union.
(2) Eschatological grace is the divine initiative of grace in our future: dying grace, resurrection grace, and eternal state grace. We can only respond to antecedent grace in a totally non-meritorious manner. Grace orientation responds to the divine initiative of antecedent grace through the consistent function of the spiritual skills, resulting in the execution of the protocol plan of God. Grace orientation anticipates the divine initiative of eschatological grace through the function of those same spiritual skills.
b. Grace orientation is the correct and accurate application to both the divine initiative of antecedent grace plus the divine initiative of eschatological grace.
c. Grace orientation, by definition, teaches the believer how to respond to the divine initiative of grace and how to apply God’s perfect and matchless grace to every circumstance of life.
d. Grace orientation completely eliminates any form of human works, human merit, legalism, crusader arrogance, human achievement arrogance, self-righteous arrogance, or any form of human resource.
e. Defense mechanisms are human resources. Therefore, defense mechanisms are not compatible with grace orientation. In fact, defense mechanisms and grace orientation are mutually exclusive functions. Grace orientation cannot be divorced from doctrinal orientation. The combination of grace orientation and doctrinal orientation results in advanced problem solving devices.
14. Sharing the perfect happiness of God comes from grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. The believer who is a winner is provided God’s very own happiness as a grace provision as he uses grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. Happiness does not come from the function of the defense mechanisms. In fact, defense mechanisms postpone, either temporarily or permanently, happiness from God. Sharing the happiness of God results from the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past. Sharing the happiness of God is based on the attainment of spiritual capacity righteousness. There is no true happiness in life apart from virtue or integrity. Through spiritual capacity righteousness from the spiritual skills, virtue and happiness can never be separated. The grace antecedence for plus H is spiritual capacity righteousness.
a. Jn 15:11, “I have taught you these things, that My happiness may be in you, and that your happiness may be fulfilled.”
b. Ps 31:7a, “I will rejoice and be happy in Your grace,....”
c. Prov 3:13, “Happiness to the person who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding.”
d. Ps 43:4, “Then I will go to the altar of God, To God the happiness of my happiness; And upon the lyre I shall praise Thee, O God, my God.”
e. Ps 16:11, “You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of happiness; At Your right hand there are pleasures forever and ever.”
f. The characteristics of plus H include:
(1) Tranquility of soul—the perfect soul environment in an imperfect world.
(2) Contentment of soul—plus H insulates the believer against the injustices of life, the adversities of life, and the people who cause these things.
(3) Self-motivation in life—plus H is a stimulation factor related to self-motivation, and therefore, a source of enthusiasm, contentment, exhilaration, tranquility of soul in every circumstance of life.
(4) Capacity Righteousness—plus H cannot exist without capacity righteousness. God never blesses the believer beyond his capacity. Spiritual capacity righteousness comes from the function of the spiritual skills and the execution of the protocol plan. Spiritual capacity righteousness results in plus H and is the basis for personal love for God, impersonal love for others, and occupation with Christ. 1 Pet 1:8; Ps 128:1, “How happy is everyone who is occupied with the Lord, who walks in His ways.” Ps 146:5-6, “Happiness belongs to the one whose help is in the God of Jacob, Whose confidence is in the Lord his God. Who made heaven and earth, The sea and all that is in them; Who guards truth forever.”
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R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056
(713) 621-3740
© 1993, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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