Grace

                  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 Christmas 2018 and I hear a chorus of similar sentiment:
" 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. 
"Hell is not hot enough nor eternity long enough to deal with such scumbags ..."  
Our God  is extremely  angry at this generation! He would never offer salvation and especially salvation free of charge to people who have done such crimes? "  

Wrong reasoning friends as it insinuates that our good lifestyle makes us more saveable than others: Jesus was crucified for all sinners: All of us were lacking God's glory, our only boast is that someone came along and gave us free of all charge a wonderful Gift: We boast only in that Giver  Jesus Christ!

N.B I don't condone sin or irreverence of any kind but Law has failed to deal with it for over 4000 years: Law was given so sin would get worse! It has done a good job: Wherever Law is preached today sin flourishes:  Death is the only thing that puts an end to sinning! (Hitler is sinning no more! Pol Pot is no longer sinning! He's dead!) Resurrection put an end not to sinning but 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. Oh how we long for good teaching! Simple powerful teasing out, expounding of the unchanging Word

       

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?. Yes! Totally new!

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? The message is forever the same: The presenting or dispensing radically different:  Look - the good news was birthed in the heart of God even before Time began: How could  that good news change: It's set in stone:  But how it's presented or doled out or Dispensed changes as God wills:

 David had even struggled with this when on one occasion he got a fleeting glimpse of something and said:"Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin" (Psalm 32:2) David probably then put down his quail, went in and had a long think to himself  "Where did I ever get such an idea from? Crazy"  And that concept of God not imputing sin does not surface again until Romans 4:8 when Paul gingerly broaches the subject: How was David to know that a new time was coming when God would use a different approach in eradicating sin: Nobody that time would tolerate such heresy! Many even today look on it as some form of heresy: However God is supreme! He makes the rules: He alone can change the rules: Is 46 V 10 says that He alone is God and He plans and purposes everything: 
"My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please"
Today God is dispensing Grace, Not a religious mixture of Grace and Law: We are not Jews: We are not smarter than God: We are of the Gentiles and saved by G R A C E  alone! A hard blow to the Ego and to our pride: ! I know! But take it on the chin!




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 Paul and James /Peter / John:  Between the Gospel of the un-Circumcision and Gospel of the Circuncision: Friends, they differ on at least 25 vital areas but only sound teaching will open that seal.

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 stayed 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: