Among man there are only two sorts of death, the death those who stand condemned under the law, and the passing on of those who, through union with Christ by faith, have already died to their sins and guilt. One is followed by a second death, the other by full entrance into eternal life. Each is irreversible following termination. Reader, mark well which death you will die.
Beatitudes: Thoughts on Matthew 5:3-11.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” None but Christ live up to the beatitudes perfectly. Yet being united with him by faith, we become partakers of every blessing which Jesus merited through his perfect obedience. Having sure inheritance does not excuse God’s people from upright living; all the more we ought to seek to live according to this high standard, being moved by gratitude and a due sense of righteousness as sons of God through grace.
Letter to a Man on the Brink of Grace
The following was written to a dear friend in the midst of his struggles to comprehend grace, forgiveness, and the Christian’s battle with sin. I pray it is of use to you.
I have spilled my heart to you in this letter. Please interpret its great length as being a measure of my love and concern, rather than mere prolixity. My aim has been to pour you a river of grace; if even a drop splashes effectually upon your ankles from my Jordan correspondence, I shall thank the Lord, though my prayer is that it may go over your head and submerge you entirely in the love of God in Christ.
Friend, I wish to be clear. Perhaps the tremendous difference between your and our experience of Christian life is that you approach God and godliness with a very different concept of what grace is. You affirmed my interpretation of your words, that grace is “the act or state of forgiveness.” But this is hardly what we understand grace to be at all. Forgiveness is one of many things grace does, but is not grace itself. In fact, forgiveness is only one half of justification. Grace as we speak of it is something else entirely.
Why Many Professed Christians Will at Last Be Condemned
Many professed Christians will at last be condemned, who have for the object of their faith, not Christ alone—His freedom to be gracious to whom He chooses; His substitutionary life and death in the place of His elect people; His application of grace to saints by His Spirit—as that upon which they solely rely for acceptance with God. They do not know God’s favor because they seek it behind veiled forms of works-righteousness. Instead of true faith, they lean upon the vain hope that one’s compliance with a set of religious terms, carried out by the power of an unregenerate will rather than resulting from a special act of God’s grace, is that which could activate God’s willingness to receive sinners into heaven.
If one of them should chance upon these paragraphs, he would likely say, “the writer describes someone else. I do not trust in keeping the whole Law like Pharisees.” Yet no matter how seemingly insignificant the duties are which false converts think move the Lord to bestow mercy, they always look to something within their natural selves to be the ultimate determining element in God’s choice to forgive. Whether it be the instance when they prayed a “sinner’s prayer”, walked an aisle to sign a faith-card, or swore to “live for Jesus”, they allow the very self-willfulness of these decisions to become the deciding factor in justification. But having faith in faith itself, as the fulfillment of one’s side of the terms to merit grace, is not true Christian faith at all. No, crediting man’s willingness to respond as being that which makes God willing to receive makes the gospel call into a works-contract, and is therefore only subtle legalism.
True faith looks entirely outside one’s self, to the mercy of God eternally fixed in Christ alone. It declares with humble reverence, “I may not know exactly why the Father receives me, but I know it has nothing to do with anything I’ve done, whether good or bad, and everything to do with what God has done for me, and in me, by grace alone through Jesus.”
If you have turned to Christ for your whole righteousness and life, know today that you have been loved with an everlasting love. Old things have passed away and all has become new; this is a morning of new mercy. To the extent you believe it, you will feel it, but even your feelings do not change the facts of your calling in Christ.
Keeping one’s eyes on Jesus means knowing his teachings and promises in scripture, and believing they represent truth and life, not just for others, but for oneself. And by faith in his Word, deriving energy from the Spirit to persevere in the upward calling.
Keeping Your Eyes on Jesus
There are many phrases in popular Christianity which can be difficult to decipher for any practical meaning, an example of which is “keep your eyes on Jesus.” Whatever it means, certainly the idea is not to peer into the sky. The words come from Hebrews 12:1-2, which say, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” So then, keeping one’s eyes on Jesus means knowing his teachings and promises in scripture, and believing they represent truth and life, not just for others, but for oneself. And by faith in his Word, deriving energy from the Spirit to persevere in the upward calling. For instance,
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” [Heb. 13:5] To every believer, this promise is as true as Christ’s own existence.
“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” [Matthew 25:23]
Remember the thief on the cross, the one who mocked Christ but afterward repented of his unbelief. He was a saint in this world for mere for hours. During his brief Christian life, the little with which he was faithful was only to believe Christ’s promises of forgiveness, and once or twice compel his fellow robber to repent. Yet this converted thief was greeted that same day in the Kingdom, a victor with Christ over sin and death. He looked to Christ and was saved.
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” [Isa. 45:22]
“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” [1 John 5:4]
If not to indulge our lustful appetites openly, the world tempts us in every way to look to our own efforts to be right and approved in God’s sight. Yet faith overcomes this temptation by looking beyond oneself, one’s own circumstances and history, to the finished work of Christ on behalf of believers, finding satisfaction and confidence in all Jesus has promised Himself to be.
For more on what it means to “look unto Jesus”, I recommend this excellent article by J. C. Ryle.
By his dying, Christ defanged and beheaded the serpent of death in all its forms. Through faith, physical death becomes a door into bliss; spiritual death gives way to new birth and indwelling of the Spirit of life; the sentence of eternal death is commuted and life everlasting granted. Life triumphs over death in Christ!
Christians are often grieved and troubled by backward glances at their temptations and failures, but ought to look even further back, before the foundation of the world, to see Christ from eternity plotting their redemption, restoration, and glorification.
His mercies are new every morning.” [Lam 3:22-23] Christ rose in the morning to announce victory over sins and death. With every sunrise we find our consciences newly cleansed from condemnation as beneath a fresh sheet of dawn frost. Let your waking be a remembrance you have entered a new world and new life in Him. “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” [Psa. 118:24] Every morning say to your soul, ‘today is full of new mercies.’
