God's Grace Is Sufficient

             Grace Stands Alone!

"The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold

and his cohorts were gleaming like purple and gold" (Lord Byron)

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Assyria.. your middle name was cruelty! The Assyrians believed in making an example of the leaders of a city or nation as they began their very determined and ruthless 

assault: Usually that took the form of stringing 100 men up outside the walls and whipping them until they died from nerve shock, loss of 75% skin tissue or blood loss. Jonah had seen it all. It was rehearsed over and over in the psyche of every Israelite.: They had grown up with it in their head and in their hearts and in their history: Oh how he hated those savages! Oh how he longed and prayed for vengeance! (Psalm 137:9)

No wonder Jonah behaved like he did when word came from God to go to Ninevah and warn them of coming destruction. Warn? Jonah knew that if God is fore warning then in fact He is saying there is still hope. Even the Ninevites knew that much and I'm sure Jonah had figured it out also. "Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? the king of Ninevah pleaded: "Over my dead body!" Jonah must have thought "I just want to see them burn!"

Jonah was convinced he knew better than this" gracious and merciful God of great kindness" and his plan was if he got as far away as possible then just maybe those wicked  Assyrians would be wiped out: Nobody in Israel would shed a tear: Good riddance!

So he decided to travel 2500 miles in the opposite direction to Tarshish and abandon the Assyrians to their doom: Let the wrath and Destruction begin! It was obvious God was making a basic mistake, and someone had to stand up for justice and truth!: Feeling totally vindicated he slept soundly even as massive turbulence rocked the boat.  "Better for him to die" he thought, than see that lot of sinners escape their "come uppance" or deserved punishment!

Forward a few thousand years to 2017 and I hear similar self righteous pronouncements:" Look how wicked and ungodly people are today. Look at the lack of integrity in business, the attack on the very foundations of marriage and  family life and so little interest in Godly things. Surely God must be very angry at this generation! He could never offer salvation free of charge to people who have no time for Him?" Wrong reasoning friends as it insinuates that our good lifestyle makes us more saveable than others: Jesus was crucified for all sinners: All are lacking God's glory, Not just the usual suspects.

N.B I don't condone sin or irreverence of any kind but Law has failed to deal with sin for over 6000 years: Law was given so sin would get worse!  Death puts an end sinning! (Hitler is sinning no more!) Resurrection put an end to Sin itself. Grace uses teaching (not preaching) to elucidate these matters,tease them out,  renew the mind  and trains us (Titus 2:12) to say no to sin. 

       

Peter was dumbfounded when God sent him to the house of Cornelius. There the most amazing thing happened: Peter was gob smacked! His mind. his upbringing and his traditions could not take it in. How could Salvation be so different for gentiles to what it was for Jews?   "Paul made the distinction very clear in Gal 2:7 " But, on the contrary, perceiving that I (Paul) have been entrusted with the Evangel  of  the Circumcision, according as Peter  the Gospel of  the Uncircumcision  New Wine?... ".

Was God saying that Peter's message and that of James and John (Gospel of the Circumcision) was essentially different to the Gospel of the Gentiles? Or did the Holy Spirit err and mean to say "the Gospel to the circumcision" and the "Gospel to the uncircumcision"? No way!
Later in his life, in 2 Peter 3;16, Peter calls Paul "beloved" but records that even at that point some of the things Paul  (Apostle of the gentiles .. Romans 11:13)) wrote were difficult to understand. Even today some lovely believers struggle to understand this basic difference and try to square the circle between the two messages.

Luke records Peter's words as follows in Acts 10:15ff  (Remember up to now Peter had witnessed that the gift of tongues only fell on repentant baptised Jews who were saved and worshipping within the existing structures) But watch what he is about to experience:

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"Now as I begin to speak, the holy spirit falls on them, even as on us also in the beginning. Now I am reminded of the declaration of the Lord, as He said that 'John, indeed, baptizes in water, yet you shall be baptized in holy spirit.' If, then, God gives them the equal gratuity as to us also, when believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I -- able to forbid God?"

Before his eyes Peter was witnessing salvation of gentiles in a non traditional way: How could this happen? Did the gift of God-Faith somehow make redundant the former need for repentance and water baptism: (Peter, not fully grasping or understsanding, felt that God needed a little correcting.  So he had them belatedly baptised: Happy now Peter? Not really! He was still very uneasy about it all! It just did not sit easily from his Jewish perspective.

Fast forward now another 12 years and Peter had come to understand that being "cleansed by faith" was indeed a totally new evangel and not an add on to the old. Yes it had taken 12 years for the penny to drop that in the case of Gentiles water baptism and repentance, were still necessary but now came all pre-packaged within this gift of God-faith : If you were gifted God-Faith you also displayed repugnance and repentance towards previous sinful lifestyle: If you had the son you became aware of a baptism into Christ not made with hands 2000 years previous! (Not vice versa) The cross achieved far more than Peter had even dreamed of up to this point. "The times they were a changing!" and it was not easy! 

P.S. When God graciously grants God-faith (Phil 1:29) it comes fully pre- loaded with suffering, repentance and turning away from sin. Baptism becomes a new awareness of being dipped into the death of |Christ 2000 years ago. It also comes with a fresh revelation of what Grace really means: Calvary alone makes it possible to say: "Saved By Grace Alone!" ... and mean every word of it: