God's Sovereign Grace: The Gift of Salvation

The Apostle is saying the two things here: it is God who puts anybody into salvation and God alone, and if a man isn't saved, it is because he has deliberately refused, rejected. Those are the two positions. Now, the important matter before us is this: why must we say that and hold on to both of those statements? [00:05:11]

If it is our belief and faith and acceptance that, after all, determines our Salvation, well then, I say in the first place that the apostle is specifically contradicting himself. He's going back on what he said in the whole of the previous part of the chapter. But more, he's not going back only on what he has said here. [00:07:16]

For by Grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of Works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto Good Works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. [00:09:37]

The position he says by which we are confronted is this: that the Gentiles, who didn't seek after righteousness, are in the church; they are saved. But the Jews, who did seek after righteousness, are outside. Therefore, the only conclusion that you can draw if you say that it is a man himself who decides it is this: that the Jews, that the Gentiles were better people than the Jews. [00:10:38]

If you say that it is a man's belief and reception that does it, you automatically have got to say that the Gentiles had a greater understanding. The Jews refused this; the Gentiles receive it, which leads to my third point, which is this: that if that is so, well then, the giving of the law of God through Moses to the children of Israel was a bad thing. [00:12:26]

The Apostle says is not that there are no wise men in the church, not many, not many. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But don't you turn that into saying that there are none and that you put a premium on ignorance and absence of ability and intellect and power. [00:22:14]

Nothing in us determines whether we are saved or whether we are not. Indeed, the Bible makes it very plain and clear to us that there is only one explanation as to how the Gentiles ever got into the Christian Church. It wasn't their ignorance. God forbid that we should have put ourselves into that terrible position of saying that. [00:23:37]

The Apostle is saying in 1 Corinthians 1, it is because some of us are so clever and want to understand even the mind of God and say, I'm not going to believe until I understand, that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. It isn't that your wisdom is a disadvantage. [00:39:36]

If you say or think that it is your believing that has saved you, you are glorying in your believing. You are saying that it is your faith that has saved you. It isn't. Thou must save, and thou alone, and it is he alone who does save. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. [00:43:08]

You are believing is a proof of the fact that you've been ordained. You are believing is the first sign of the new mind that is in you. To the natural man, these things are foolishness; you cannot receive them. The fact that you receive them means that you're not a natural man; you've become a spiritual man. [00:43:48]

By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Him that glories, let him glory in the Lord. Oh Lord, Our God, we come unto thee. We do indeed glory in thee and in thy name and in thy power and in thy Glory. [00:44:28]

We do indeed Rejoice before thee that we are what we are by thy Grace. We ascribe unto thee all the praise and all the honor and all the glory because we realize that we have nothing wherein to boast in any sense at all. Thine and thine alone is the glory. [00:45:08]