Word Sketches

Of God’s Beautiful Grace

Kiane Hill
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

[Part 1 ]

Introduction:

Biblical, Spirit-empowered, and relational knowledge of God’s grace is the very essence and heart of our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Growing in grace, and all that God has granted to us therein, is essential in experiencing the solidity of our foundation, and in fortifying the pillars of our sanctification into holiness, which is God’s righteousness for, in, and through us.

The Biblical understanding of grace is perhaps the most misunderstood concept in the Word of God.

Thus, the proper, Biblically sound understanding and application of grace as provided by the Holy Spirit, is treasurable beyond measure!!!

From the time of the early church, the Biblical concept of grace has been under attack from heresies, and from the sinful nature’s inability to understand and apply it. Such a huge amount of content amid the letters to the Churches in the New Testament, is written to clarify what God by His Spirit means regarding the truth and application of grace, as God effectually expresses it.

We Need to Avoid Fallen Interpretations of Grace…

With regard to what what grace means and how it is applied, the fallen flesh (the sinful nature) always tends to either polarize to one of two unbiblical extremes; or to try mixing the two extremes into an unbiblical jumble.

On the one hand, the sinful nature interprets grace as wrongly meaning that we actually need to live by some form or some extent of law, so as to gain or maintain salvation. The early Church was attacked with this error by a group of heretics known as the Judaizers.

Judaizers were those who went around the churches after Paul had left those churches to continue his journeys. They taught the false doctrine that people needed to be circumcised, and needed to follow Old Testament law in order to be saved.

Paul strongly refuted this incorrect and deadly doctrine, the most comprehensive letter to this effect, being the letter to the Galatians.

The second erroneous polarization to an unbiblical understanding and application of God’s grace, was introduced by proponents of the heresy known as Gnosticism.

Gnosticism taught that all that is spirit is good and all that is physical is corrupt. This heresy taught the horrible lie that Jesus was not really ever on earth in a physical body (but rather was a “phantom”)…

Additionally and resultantly, Gnostics also taught the falsehood that grace meant people can sin as much as they want with their body, as long as they also do good with their spirit…

History proves…

that whether literally, through one of these exact heresies, or through some basic notion which is essentially accordant with one of these two polarizations, the sinful nature of humans has misinterpreted God’s grace.

The sinful nature has thus wrongly interpreted grace to mean either that we are still under the law so as to “earn” or “keep” salvation;

or that grace means we can sin as much as we want;

Otherwise, many confused notions of grace equal some unbiblical mixture of these two concepts…

Those who have tried to mix the two unbiblical extremes, teach and act as though we are still under the law, while we are simultaneously saved by some confusing form of grace.

But even a mix of both polarizations does not equal the Holy Spirit’s provision of the truth regarding the all-essential Biblical doctrine of God’s saving and sanctifying grace.

Only the Holy Spirit can provide us with the gloriously freeing truth and application of God’s gift of salvation and sanctification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

[The Next Part in This Series Will Be Posted on Monday — Lord Willing. Then On Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Another Part Will Be Added Until the Series is Completed and Posted]

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