For ye are saved by grace. This is truth for all times. All men who
have ever been saved have been saved by grace and by grace alone. It has
never been by works. Nor has it ever been by grace plus works at any time.
No man has ever deserved salvation. The natural man can do no work that
could be pleasing to God. The flesh, the natural man is not subject to the
law of God, neither can be.
Salvation has never been forced on any man in any age or administration.
Peter recognized the universal truth of this when he said,
Whosoever believeth in Him (Acts 10:43) and to that also agrees
John 3:16 which uses the same wording. So salvation comes by faith
or belief. That faith may be only like unto a mustard seed for size at the
beginning, but God can make it grow. Man can choose life or death.
He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath
not life. This is the principle given. Faith is not a work, but
simply the acceptance of a work that has been done and finished on Calvary.
And this salvation is not of works, or out of works, lest any man should
boast. Why? So that no man can cheat our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of
the glory of His finished work. He is to have the preeminence. He is to have
the glory.
For we are created in Christ Jesus. When we believe, then there is
a new creation. A new man or new nature is put in us. And all for a purpose;
that it might be unto good works. Here is where the works come in. It is
after the creation of the new man. And this is logical, for we have seen that
the old nature cannot do good works. But here is something that can. It would
be very unusual for a man to work before he was hired.
There is a further purpose in this new creation. It is to walk. The new creature
has a walk as well as the old one. The old man once walked in trespasses
and sins according to the course of this world, according to the prince of
the power of the air, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
In other words, the flesh is subject to the powers of the world, the flesh
and the devil.
We are to walk in these good works for which we were created. An extended
discourse about the walk is to be found in chapters 5 and 6. There is the
3-fold walk; walk in love, walk as children of light, and walk circumspectly.
The walk in love applies especially to husbands and wives. The walk as children
of light applies to parents and children. And walk circumspectly applies
to masters and servants. Here is the practical Christian life.
It would be too bad to have a new creature and find that it could not walk,
but doomed to be a cripple forever. But there are many spiritual cripples.
Some are paralytics. Some are blind. Some have the palsy. They never learn
the walk. God's purpose is not fulfilled. And both God and this miserable
creature are finally disappointed.
If you are saved by grace thru faith and become a new creature, then walk
worthy of the calling.
