The Great Giver: Grace at Bethlehem and Golgotha

(This article was written in 2001)

It could be said that the value of a gift is commiserate with the value
of loss to the giver. At times the intent of the giver can be ascertained by the gift given.
This is not conclusive in every situation because some gifts that are given are bathed in an array of simplicity.

But the Christian story is ripe with both value and simplicity.
The value is the quality of the gift. 

The simplicity is the environment and the packaging of the gift.

The case could be made, even with the simplicity surrounding the gift, of the inclusiveness of the giver...meaning that while the gift that is given is exclusive, the manner in which it is given hints at it's
inclusiveness. In other words the gift is given to all but any who wish to possess it's benefits must receive the gift. Also the gift does not entail, in this instance, any value upon the recipient. Instead the value is intrinsic to the gift and the giver alone. For instance, during the Christmas season gift-giving is a cultural norm. We give to friends and to family because in some respect they are worthy of that attention. They have earned, through friendship, our endeavors to please them. 
But what if we extended the same gratitude to a complete stranger that we shared no common connection with other that what is common among humanity?
A gift given without any hope of return is a gracious gift, indeed. Instead of giving to receive or giving while knowing that we will receive, this kind of selfless giving comes from an abundance of plenty. When the giver's account is greater than the receiver then the giver gives on account of his wealth.

This is grace.

When the weak, the despised, and the wretched are endued with gifts even though they have no right to expect them then this is an occasion of great generosity.

But when it comes to God's gift of His Son, simply saying that the recipients are weak, despised or wretched does not go far enough in the description of these types. Not only are they unsavory characters but they are evil in nature. They are not simply in moral stasis but they are constantly in motion in the opposite direction. There is a relationship here between the giver and the receiver but it is a relationship bourne between enemies.

I've heard it said that not only does God throw the grenade in our bunker of depravity, in order to eliminate His enemy, but He jumps on it himself to save us from His own causal destruction.

At Bethlehem, melodies, cute animals, a glowing mother, and a precious little baby.
Nice, sweet hallmark moments.

But...at Golgotha God meets us on the field of battle and turns the sword....on Himself

Sola Gratia

The Great giver's ability to give derives from His right to give. To give or not to give is solely His choice. He is not indebted to those who receive. He is not leashed to us, and to say or even assume that He is, is an annulment of grace. It destroys the very meaning of grace. When the those who are dead in trespasses are lifted from the quagmire of their own will and passion, the rock on which they are placed does not derive it's existence, right or power from that same will and passion.

The Ephesian account of this gift giving is contradictory to such a propostion. Paul
here encapsulates the effect of grace by saying in verse 5 of Ephesians 2,   "even when we were dead in our transgressions, (God) made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)."

Sometimes grace can be very messy for it is receiving something which is not deserved.

Let me be more exhaustive though...this grace is an earned grace...but not by us, but rather by Jesus Christ.

Also, when a gift is given to one in need of that gift it should not be surprising that upon reception of the gift the one receiving it should appear as if he needed it. In other words a beggar who needs bread should look hungry. Therefore, someone who needs life should appear to be dead because before
life is rendered that's what he is, dead.
But needless to say, attention is given more to fruit instead of root at times,.

Christianity as a whole has become too moralistic. Not to say that Christianity does not have it's morals but rather than seeing them as a guide for living Christians sometimes see them as a guide for salvation. Titus 3:5 is explicit on this matter, "He (God) saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy."

Paul is considered the "apostle of grace." But in case there is cause for confusion, Jesus Christ is the "proprietor" of grace. He is the first great purveyor of sufficient and effectual grace (see John 6, & 10). Some might find some discontinuity between Paul and Jesus after reading such scripture as
Matthew 5,6. But using the "analogy of scripture" method where scripture is interpreted by scripture the two are reconciled because they both taught grace.

The harshness of Jesus' words at times is a clear delineation of "law preaching".
Man's great inability to fulfill the simplest requirements ofthe Law,such as "thou shalt not commit adultery" was made more obvious by Jesus when He expanded, or explained, the commandment to include adultery in the heart. Same thing with murder. Even the most righteous among us find this type of law-keeping impossible to keep. This is why it is impossible to be saved according to our own righteousness.

Therefore, it is surprising and disappointing at times when the venom corning from a Christian's tongue makes the venom from the deadliest snake seem as sweet as honey. That is a sign that someone has forgotten what it means to be saved by grace.

In Paul's letter to the Ephesians the statement is made in verse eight that we are "saved by grace through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

When we talk about salvation we are forced to talk about the basis of our salvation.

Causation.

Let me set up a grid here.
1. God is omnipotent.
2. Christ is sufficient.
3. Christ is efficient.
4. The cross is sufficient.
5. The cross is efficient.
6. Grace is effectual
Statements 2-5 are conducive to the first. In fact they are intrinsically intertwined with the first and derive their effectiveness from the fact that God is all-powerful. Christ is sufficient and efficient because God is omnipotent. The cross is sufficient and efficient because God is omnipotent. And the benefits of each are appropriated through and by the means of the one who holds that power.

So, since He holds the sufficiency and the effectiveness in His hands, He also chooses how those said benefits are applied.

Now in His wisdom, in order to keep from compromising the sufficiency and the effectiveness of both Christ and the cross, He has to appropriate it as a gift. If there is any need for an addition by us then Christ and the cross is neither sufficient or efficient. But considering that there is nothing that we can add (i.e.works of righteousness) that would not compromise the integrity of Christ and the cross, salvation then MUST be given freely.
This is effectual grace. Grace that is effective.

So going back to the issue of causation we can see that the basis of salvation is God's grace showing forth through the sufficiency and efficiency of Christ and the cross, being appropriated by faith.

This is why God is the great giver.

We are just beggars.

The Death of Religion

(The following article is a speech I gave to a church group back around 1996. They hated it. I hope you do too.)

Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD?

Who shall stand in his holy place?

Who shall ascend into heaven?

Who shall descend into the deep?

Is this not the heart's mournful cry?

In a world so crowded does not that cry from solitude resonate hauntingly?
Where is God?
Where can I find Him?
How can I attain and gain entrance into His courts?

Grossly, and unattractive the cry is, making man somewhat of something less than the upright creature he was created to be. It breaks him. His ego is mutilated and his being is left as a hollow empty container of unrequited wishes and broken  dreams.

Because the truth is...
He can't find God.

What is religion?
Is it more than a stain-glassed gothic abode with a steeple reaching and yearning for the Heavens?
Is not that finger a metaphor for what religion really is? Is not that imagery a valid testament to the essence of religion?
Religion is man's feeble attempt, of stone, wood, and rubble, to touch and know God.
Calvary, the cross, and the Christ is then more than the death of just one man.
It is the death of that attempt.
It is the death of religion.

What a place to commence man's sometimes trivial pursuit of communion with his creator.
Eden.
Paradise.

God spoke.
God created.
God breathed.
And He saw that it was good.

Hence, a bond unbroken.
Relationship.
Friendship.
God and the man named Adam forged a kinship unencumbered by steeple, pews, or altars.
A free-flowing river of insight and intimacy. One on one, without mediation.
But in the foreknowledge and predeterminate destiny set in motion by God Himself, the communion was broken.
The forbidden was trespassed.
The fruit was eaten, and man's eyes were turned inward and heart ensnared. Because when he looked inside what he found was frightening.
He saw his nakedness.
So distressed by guilt and shame the man who was created in God's image: for as the Psalmist says "...who was crowned with glory and honour, who was made to have dominion over the works of God's hands, who had all things put under his feet..."
Well his sin made him a seamstress.
In Genesis 3:7 the drama unfolds as God comes looking for communion and finds Adam practicing religion.
Working, and sewing to cover his nakedness, his shame, his guilt, his utter barrenness before God. Trying to undo what had been done.
While Adam worked, sweating, and fretting, Grace offers a sacrifice.
Adam's attempts of covering, of righteousness, were not enough. So God clothed him.
Religion then makes man an appeaser instead of a pleaser.
We have this stark and dark picture of a holy God, a wrathful God and man; his sniveling, whining, blaming, doubting subject working to achieve Eden status again. Trying to appease an angry God.
Is this what God wanted?
Is this what God intended?

It is in man's own psychological makeup to worship. Logic and reason compel a man to acknowledge a higher, supreme power. But it is also in man's psyche to build that wanton bridge between him and that power or powers. You find this in every religion.
There is this "bridge building" in Greek and Roman mythology, the occult of the Egyptians, Hinduism, Budhism and yes as oxy-moronic, and contradictory, as it is, in Christianity.
From Nimrod and his tribute to humanistic endeavors at Babel to today. It is man's joining of his guilt, shame, and ego to put just one more plank in the bridge from him to God. It is a weary restlessness from the wellspring of his soul that causes man to "appease the gods". It is idolatry. It is religion.
What a quandary.
In Romans 7 Paul describes the inner yearnings of man that amounts to confusion...

"For that which I do I allow not: For what I would, that do I not: but what I hate, that do I."

And again he says,

"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."
Now if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."

Whew!

Even in working we just can't seem to get it right. The structure is weakened. The planks are broken, and inevitably the bridge falls, because our righteousness is as "filthy rags" to God.

First came Adam, through Adam came sin, then came Law.

Scripture says that law entered "...that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the DEEDS of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by Law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:19-20)

Court is in session. We are weighed in the balance. Gavel comes down. The verdict is given.

Guilty.

"Despite my own good works?"

Guilty.

"Despite my own righteousness?"

Guilty.

But before the sentence is rendered and handed down, into the adjudication circle, enters Jesus Christ. And a different verdict is read.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that BELIEVETH on Him is not condemned."

In the 16th century the strains of a different symphony were being heard as a man by the name of Martin Luther sung the first chords by nailing his thesis against the heretical indulgences of the Roman Catholic Church.

Thus the Reformation began.

It's battle cry was sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, sola Christus. Only scripture. Only grace. Only faith. Only Christ.

But it's message was freedom.

Freedom from works, standards, codes, decrees, indulgences.

The fabric of the Reformation was interwoven by the material of grace alone through faith alone. And it's foundation was Justification by Faith Alone.

What is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 states it clearly; it is the "...the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things no seen."

Faith is object oriented. Not a metaphysical spaying of new thought name and claim it, blab and grab it hyperbole. It is not the wishful wonderings of an "Alice in Wonderland" who is lost in a "Star Wars" mentality, and has forgotten the fervent cry of the Lord's prayer.

"Father let your will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven."

Faith is not a force. That's not to say it does not have force. But the force, or the regenerative power, comes from the object believed on. And the object, His character, attributes, and the power is the most important aspect.

The Reformers, Martin Luther, John Calvin etc... categorized faith into three categories.

Notitia.
Assensus.
Fiducia.

The notitia is a notice that has been given. Knowledge. It is the message preached.
Assensus is giving mental assent to the message that it is a historical fact or it is the truth.
Now according to RC Sproul if you have but two elements of faith that just qualifies you to be a devil, for in James 2:19 the devils believe in one God.

The fiducia is that cognitive inner regeneration. The change within the heart. The faith that is God-given that brings about repentance.

What is justification?

Justification is the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to man.

How does it come?

By faith. (Romans 3:22, 26, 28).

Now what, or whom, to believe in.

Jesus Christ.

Christ is the covering. Christ is the work. Everything He is and everything He has done is imputed, by faith in Him.

This is the heart of the gospel.

Paul went so far as to say if anybody preaches any other gospel let him be anathema. For "...we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourself it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8)

From the mouth of the eunuch in Acts to the answer given to the Philippian jailer. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved..." (Acts 16:31)

And now the bell has tolled on religion. It's time is up. Man's endeavors and labors are over. Religion is dead.

This is what is on it's tombstone.

"But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, Who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the Law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." (Ephesians 2:13-16)

"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross." (Colossians 2:14)

So, how shall we ascend unto the hill of the Lord? How shall we approach God? How shall we know Him?

By emptying our hands and minds of presumptuous works and fall before the cross of Christ.

By faith in Jesus Christ.

For He still says...

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Sorry, Cheeta...Tarzan done got civilized.

A definition of evolution, for those of us who are not so evolved, is simply change over time. With a derivation here and there it basically attempts to detail the mechanism, without giving the details, of how life gets more complex.

I would like to say that after Mozart, Beethoven, and Da Vinci, the Black Eyed Peas prove that some things just don't get...more complex. Imagine, with me, if you will, woman man (for the evolutionary process would have done away with testosteroni), two thousand years hence in an archeological dig and finding a CD of BEP. How that would set the scientific community of that time into an evolutionary apoplexic shock. The hemorrhaging would go on for decades.

But what an even more curious discovery it would be to further find that the "art" that these grown embryos are fond of regurgitating was joined together with another Neanderthalic hobby, the Super Bowl.

Explain that weird evolutionary juxtaposition, if you can, Dawkins.

(I'm not so "evolved" to say that I don't like football, but I am "evolved" enough to say I don't like BEP, but I'm not "evolved" enough to keep from noticing...those legs look pretty good.).

But I digress, which is counter evolutionary.

I'm not against evolution, per se', because I could, within the next few minutes, change my mind about this article and instead write about the self consciousness of a flea. But instead I will ignore the Big Banging in my head (even though the self consciousness of a flea sounds like an invigorating subject) and use those synapses, which have more akin with chaos than order, and press on.

Ultimately I view God on the subject of origins very practically. Whatever process He chooses to use, whether special creation, or natural selection, or aliens coming from the sky and leaving a little bitty amoeba in a volcano...which at one point, in the past... burped, and out popped...well...whatever. Whichever method is practical to God I will practically agree...that it's a good method. How very pragmatic of me.

But the real issue, when sorting through all the monkey poo, is not the process in and of itself. It's the presupposition that dictates the conclusion someone comes to when mulling the evidence. The best of arguments for God being the originator of origination can be disregarded because of a presupposition.

Such is the case in the atheist jungle. A world where no God is needed or heeded for the foliage blocks out the sun of reason. They're a king there, constantly feeding their hopeful delusion (for since they don't believe in God, then they are hopeful that they are right), waiting for that blessed day of...dying. They swing from rhetorical vine to rhetorical vine, never minding the trees that make the vines possible. They can't deny their presupposition which denies the basis for ALL reality. The Christian God. Ensconced as it is, this mental DNA, the dislodging of which would be a miracle the size of Moses and the Red Sea, does not, however, negate the accusation of Psalm 14:1.

Just a few thousand years after learning to walk upright, they beat their chest with the "yelp" of Wiessmuller, while remaining perfectly coifed like Ron Ely, and yell their accusations from the treetops to the rooftops.

"If God is good, then why is there so much evil? Since there's so much evil, then a good God does not exist."

But whilst they swing and admire their bronze-ness and muscle-ness, and while the credits start to roll...they should look at their vine and ponder the trees.

In this atheist jungle, on what basis does any little Tarzan call anything good or evil? This little king steals what he assumes, brings it back to his atheist jungle, defines his little treetop kingdom and pretends he has good reasons to call anything good or evil.

Well, Jane has left the jungle and left these little Tarzans to play games and call themselves civilized.

Now they don't have to like God.
They don't have to love Him.
They don't have to believe in Him.
They can continue, these uber mensch, these little kings of little jungles, to swing from vine to vine thinking they've evolved to a higher mental prowess, when in reality the only thing that's happened is that they've lost their loin cloth.

Maybe when God stops laughing at them, He'll reveal to them how naked they really are.


by Timothy Lewis Kegley