The title to this post is the answer to the great question that has been at the center of many of my recent posts, namely how can a fallen man or woman, spiritually dead in trespasses and sin, following the course of this present evil world, following the prince of the power of the air (the devil), living according to the sinful passions of our prideful and rebellious nature, thus subject to God’s eternal wrath – how can we in ourselves, do anything to be saved from it and make ourselves right with God (Ephesians 2:1-3)?
Jesus, when presented with a similar question from his disciples in Matthew 19:25-26, gives them the definitive answer, namely, we can’t – that it is impossible. And in fact, in His dealings with the religious leaders of His day who thought they could, Jesus makes it clear that their attempts to do so are not only foolish but sinful. It is essentially the ultimate expression of pride, believing that they/we as filthy, vile, detestable sinful men and women, guilty of cosmic treason and spiritual adultery, could do anything to make ourselves right with or righteous in the eyes of a holy, just and good God (Matthew 23:1-36) (Jeremiah 13:23). Our efforts to do so are essentially just another of our prideful attempts to rob God of His glory, glory that will have its ultimate revelation and expression in the person and work of God the Son, Jesus Christ, who came into this world as a man to save His people from their sin and God’s eternal wrath (2 Corinthians 4:6) (Isaiah 42:6-8) (Isaiah 48:11) (Matthew 1:21) (Romans 5:9).
Thus our salvation can and will never be accomplished by law keeping, religious ritual, good works, foreseen faith or anything in which sinful man can claim credit for and thus detract from God’s ultimate purpose in our salvation, which is the destruction of man’s pride and the exaltation of His glory, honor and praise by those who would be the heirs of eternal life, the glorious life with God for which man was created (Isaiah 64:6) (Romans 3:20) (Romans 6:23).
And how we become such heirs is succinctly revealed in Titus 3:4-7, where the Apostle Paul writes, “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
Our salvation, our being restored from spiritual death to spiritual life (regeneration), our being forgiven – cleansed from the filth of our sin, our being justified – declared right with God and restored to the glorious relationship with God for which we were created, is dependent alone upon the mercy of God.
Psalm 145:8-9 reveals that mercy is not something God has to summon up – something that is foreign to His nature as it is to ours – but that it is His very nature to be merciful, wherein the Psalmist writes “The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Exodus 34:5-7).
Divine mercy is the flipside of divine grace, wherein grace is defined as God’s free expression of His goodness toward those who have done nothing to earn or deserve it, mercy is God’s goodness shown to people in misery, who deserve that misery, which is all people (Romans 3:9-18). And as noted above, all people who reside in this world are recipients of His mercy to various degrees, as the penalty of sin, namely death and confinement to Hell, is not executed immediately upon our first, fiftieth, five hundredth or even our five billionth Hell-deserving sin. Every breath we take in this world as an unrepentant sinner is by divine mercy; every comfort, pleasure and joy we have in this world – every morning we wake up and are not engulfed in the flames of Hell are all expressions of divine mercy. Unfortunately, this universal expression of His mercy is not received with the gratitude it deserves but is continually presumed upon as an excuse for us to continue in our sin, which we will die in and reap the eternal consequences of apart from God’s intervention (Ecclesiastes 8:11).
“But God”, Ephesians 2:4-9 tells us, is rich in mercy, a mercy which proceeds from His great love, in which He brings men and women from spiritual death to spiritual life, placing us in spiritual union with Jesus as beneficiaries of all that He graciously accomplished on behalf of those He would save, that we could be justly forgiven of our sins, delivered from God’s eternal wrath and restored to the glorious relationship with God for which we were created (Romans 3:24-28).
And this gracious, merciful, infinitely glorious salvation is received and embraced only by faith in Jesus and His saving work, a faith that is not a product of our sin-corrupted hearts and minds, but is granted by God as a gift, lest any man/woman or child boast that they had anything to do with any aspect of their salvation, including coming to understand their need for it and in their receipt of it (Ephesians 2:8-9). To God alone be the glory both now and forever, Amen.
More on God’s magnificent, marvelous, majestic mercy in my next post (God willing).
Grace and Peace ×