One can see at a glance the infinite abyss between these two descriptions of the Christian salvation. The first makes Jesus Christ the minister of sin, and Divine grace God's excuse for the ungodly behavior of His people. The second makes Jesus Christ the source of the new righteous creation and Divine grace the Presence of God through Christ to transform people and bring them into untroubled rest in the Father's Person and will.

We should have known that God would never give a covenant that saved men by belief in certain doctrines while they continued in their fallen, adamic state.

Well, we didn't, and we have a morally chaotic world to show for it.

We Christians have been wrong. What else can we say?

The Law was given by Moses. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The grace of God brings about righteousness, first by forgiving our sins on the basis of the blood atonement, second by enabling us through the Holy Spirit to gain the victory over sin. The first is useless without the second, in terms of the new covenant. The grace of God does this without the Law of Moses. The only role of the Law of Moses is to keep breathing down our neck, driving us to Christ.

The grace of God is God in Christ making it possible for people to be conformed to the moral image of Jesus Christ and to enter untroubled rest in the will of the Father. Grace is not a substitute for our becoming a new righteous creation in Jesus Christ, a substitute for entering untroubled rest in the will of the Father. Grace is a substitute for, an alternative to, the Law of Moses. Divine grace brings truth not possible under the Law of Moses.

To make Divine grace a substitute for moral transformation and obedience to God is to miss the point entirely, which we have done in a tremendous way.

Contravening the Warnings of Jesus and Paul

I don't like to use unfamiliar terms like "contravening" but it so fits the situation I am tempted to use it. In case the word is unfamiliar to you, to contravene is to "act or be counter to, to violate, to oppose in argument, to gainsay" (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language).

Jesus and Paul warned us clearly concerning our behavior. Today we are assuming that grace contravenes these warnings. We have been taught that Divine grace supersedes the warnings of Christ. This is terribly, terribly, incorrect. All the commandments and warnings of Christ, as far as I know, can be found in one form or another in the Epistles. How could it be otherwise seeing that the Spirit of Christ was in the Apostles?

The philosophy of Dispensationalism, I am told, implies that all such warnings are to the Jews after the flesh. This is a totally unscriptural idea, completely impractical in application.

The warnings we will soon mention are all—without exception—directed toward the Lord's servants, the saints, the elect, the members of the Church, the Body of Christ. They are not addressed to any unbeliever, including Jewish unbelievers, they are directed toward us who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, who are serving Him.

To be continued.