BiblicalInsights.net

Grace and holiness are often misunderstood.  Christianity Today published an article titled, “Do American Christians need the message of grace or a call to holiness?” (Dec. 2012, p. 58).  That’s a good question.  Grace is often portrayed as a pushover.  He’s the toll-free number to call in every situation.  Just call 1-800-GRACE and you get off scot-free.  Holiness, on the other hand, is viewed as outdated and prudish.  Holiness is stuffy and a real party squelcher.  How can we better understand both concepts?
Paul states, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid.  How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? (Rom. 6:1-2).  We are not the only ones who struggle with grace and holiness.  Many did in Paul’s day too.  To continue in sin is to persist in a life of sinful conduct.  Some do not believe that you can live in sin, but Paul makes it clear that you can.  Sin is a transgression of God’s law.  It is lawlessness.  If one gives himself over to a persistent life of sinful conduct, he becomes the servant of sin (Rom. 6:16).  Grace saves from sin.  It saves from the eternal penalty of sin (hell) and it saves from the practice of sin.  Grace secures our salvation and at the same time it sanctifies us to God.  To be sanctified is to be set apart for a holy use.  Jesus Christ redeems us by His precious blood.  We are bought with a price and therefore, we must glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits (I Cor. 6:19,20).
In the Gospel call, there is a call to salvation (II Thess. 2:14).  And, there is a call to holiness (I Thess. 4:7).  The same Gospel, the same call; but two objectives: salvation and sanctification.  Many desire salvation without sanctification.  Many want the blessings of salvation without the responsibility of discipleship.  It won’t work.  You cannot save the soul without dealing with the desire to sin.
The glory of grace is not diminished by the honor of holiness!  Grace is important.  Without God’s grace we could not be saved (Eph. 2:8,9).  But, grace without holiness is a sham.  The honor of holiness begins when we repent.  The Gospel call also contains the call to repentance (Acts 17:30-31).  Repentance is a change of heart.  It takes place in our heart and affects real change in God’s direction.  Repentance is a turning away from sin and a turning to God.  God’s does His part (grace), but we must do our part (repentance).  Repentance sets us out on a new course.  It puts us on the pathway of righteousness.  It is an important aspect of holiness before God.  Paul said, “we…are dead to sin.”  Repentance brings about that death to sin.  We who are dead to sin do not live any longer therein (holiness).  We become the servants of righteousness (Rom. 6:16).
Baptism changes our spiritual status.  Rom. 6:3-4.  The “old man of sin” is buried and a “new man in Christ” is raised from the waters of baptism.  This imagery denotes that baptism is an immersion in water.  A real change takes place in the waters of baptism.  Our sins are remitted (forgiven–Acts 2:38) and new life is begotten (-regeneration–John 3:3-5).  Baptism is the new birth.  We are purchased by God and belong to Him (I Cor. 6:19-20).  We become the servants of righteousness.  This new pursuit defines us in holiness.  As God is holy, so we must be holy (I Pet. 1:14-16).
The glory of grace and the honor of holiness are both a part of the Christian life.  You cannot claim salvation apart from sanctification.

One of the most important things parents can do for their children is teach them the law of rationality.  This law states that we should draw only such conclusions as are warranted by the evidence.  The law of rationality forces us to think correctly and critically.
Some evolutionists insist that the universe actually comes from nothing!  That’s right.  Everything comes from nothing.  Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist, has released a new book titled, A Universe From Nothing (Free Press) in which he claims to have proven that the laws of physics could have created the universe from nothing.  Krauss  repeats the theory that there are virtual particles that appear for a very short time and then disappear in what is called “a quantum fluctuation” by a very short time; we are talking a billionth of a second or less.  Nonetheless, space and time would have to already exist–to have been created.  Krauss makes many assumptions and so advances speculation–not science (see Does God Exist? Nov./Dec. 2012, p. 27).
Most could refute such a notion based upon common sense.  Nothing cannot produce anything.  Nothing comes from nothing!  Consider the following poem:
Once nothing arrived on this earth out of space;
It rode in on nothing; it came from no place;
It landed on nothing–the earth was not here–
It worked hard on nothing for year after year;
It sweat over nothing with mighty resolve–
But just about then things began to evolve:
The heavens appeared, and the sea and the sod;
This Almighty Nothing worked much like a god.
It started unwinding without any plan,
It made every creature and ended with man.
No god here was needed–there was no creation;
Man grew like a mushroom and needs no salvation.
Some savants say this should be called evolution
And that ignorance only rejects that solution.
(anonymous, but from Genesis, vol. I by C.C. Crawford, College Press, p. 134).
It is irrational to affirm that everything comes from nothing!  This poem pokes a little fun at the intellectual gaffes of evolutionists.

The first systematic theology in America to be written from a liberal point of view was published in 1898 by William Newton Clark (1840-1912) and entitled, An Outline of Christian Theology.  Clark’s life illustrates the shift from one biblical view to another.  He was the son of a Baptist minister.  He grew up respecting the Bible.  Studies at Hamilton Theological Seminary confirmed his convictions that the Bible was the inspired Word of God and incapable of error.  He graduated in 1863 and entered the ministry.  He spent 27 years in ministry.  Early in his ministry, his views remained constant until he moved to Newton Center, MA in 1869.  Contact with liberal faculty members at Newton Theological Seminary convinced him that the Bible was not verbally inspired.
In 1880, Clark transferred to Toronto and began reading biblical criticism.  He did not resist the conclusions of higher criticism.  In 1890, he left the ministry and became professor of theology at Colgate Theological Seminary and in 1898, he wrote his systematic theology.  A summary of his views follows.
First, he affirms that textual criticism confirms our general confidence in Scripture, but slays our hope of absolute perfection.  The Bible is not inerrant (p. 107).
Second, he affirms that inspiration is not verbal, nor revelation propositional (p. 107).
Third, he states that God had inspired ideas, principles, and concepts but not words.
Fourth, he argued that the proof-text was inextricably tied to the doctrine of inerrancy (p. 107).
Fifth, he believed that the Scriptures were a very human book, complete with errors of every kind, through which God, nonetheless, still spoke (p. 108).  (The Bible in America, Nathan O. Hatch, Mark A. Noll, “Fundamentalist Use of the Bible,” by Timothy P. Weber, pp. 101-120).
Some observations concerning the above material are in order.
First, if we do not have an inerrant Bible, we do not have the truth of God’s Word today!  This is an important fact.  Inerrancy is equivalent to truthfulness.  If the Bible is full of errors, then it is unreliable and untrustworthy.  Why believe a book that isn’t true?
Second, Clark affirms that textual criticism has destroyed the doctrine of inerrancy.  The correlation between textual criticism and the veracity of scripture is important.  Who can deny that textual criticism has eroded confidence in the veracity of Scripture?  What is textual criticism?  Basically, textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with finding and removing errors in the texts of manuscripts.  J. Keith Elliott represents the thinking of theological liberals today.  He states, “The sooner that the language of inerrancy is dropped in the context of textual criticism the better it will be for scholarship” (Perspectives on the Ending of Mark, ed. by David Alan Black, pp. 100-101). Elliott is professor of New Testament Textual Criticism at the University of Leeds.  What is the consequence of such thinking?  The Bible is a human work, not inspired of God, not inerrant.  If this is the case, how could we say that it is the word of life? (John 6:63).  Inspiration and inerrancy have a connection to salvation.  John 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
Third, not only is salvation at stake in this discussion, but so is preaching.  Why preach from a Bible full of errors?  How could preaching a Bible that is not true establish faith in God in the hearts of men?  see Rom. 10:11-17.  Preaching would be in vain.
Fourth, not only would salvation and preaching be in vain, but we could not confidently claim true religion.  True religion is based upon the sure Word of God.  Destroy God’s Word and you have no foundation for true religion.  The Great Commission confirms this.  Disciples of Jesus Christ are made by teaching and preaching the Gospel (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-16).  If we do not have a true Gospel, then, we cannot be confident that we are making true disciples of Jesus Christ.  The Gospel, the Word of God and the truth are all synonymous terms.
The doctrines of liberal theologians would destroy Christianity.