Grace-Based Religion?

When last we met, we looked at the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. We’re trying to answer the question: What does it mean that God is the God of all mankind, that none are excluded, and that it’s a learning experience, it seems, for both the apostles and the Gentiles—those who are the unexpected recipients of God’s grace in the book of Acts? 

In the process of this discussion we are seeing principles, guidelines, and methods used by the apostles and influenced by the Holy Spirit, about why and how to share our faith, and about who is being converted. And we see that conversion has effects on both the converter and the convertee. Both, it seems, need a conversion of grace. 

A key point to be grasped, I think, is that in those days people excluded from the temple, from worship, from belonging, from being part of the community of faith, were usually people who could do nothing about the reason for their exclusion. They were the lame, the diseased, the non-Jews, the racially different, the wrong gender (female), those with birth defects—all were excluded from the center of worship in the temple and all had “defects” that they had no control over. 

There’s no way to repent of being blind, or being lame, or being a woman. For those of us who traffic in the difference of ideas and beliefs and doctrines and understanding, these things can be changed through conversion, but physical “defects” and physical conditions cannot be.

A question asked a few weeks ago in reference to Peter and Cornelius was: What were these men being converted to? The same could be asked of the Ethiopian eunuch: To what was he being converted? This, it turns out, is a critical question and needs careful thought and consideration. If we are “saved by grace, and that not of ourselves, but as the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8), then we must be converted to grace, and not to some different work. We must be converted to what God does, and not what we do. Our religious experience must be centered on what God does, not on what we do or do not do. 

Our evangelism is nearly exclusively based on changing what it is that we do and think; on changing what we do and don’t do. Frankly, it is based on religion centered upon us. We must, it seems, convert others (and indeed ourselves first) from works to grace; to religion centered not on us, but religion centered on God. True conversion is to come to see what God does, not what we do or shouldn’t do; not what we believe or what we don’t believe; not what we hold to be sacred or what we hold to be profane. We so much wish to center our religion on ourselves, and even our well-meaning evangelism on ourselves, and not on God. It brings up the question: In an economy of grace, what does it mean to be born again, which represents a reversion to dependency, to not doing something for yourself—in short, a conversion from works to grace? 

We must rid ourselves of the notion that conversion is about our doing something different. Conversion must be about something that God does, which is saving us by grace. All of the beliefs and practices of religion are centered on what “I” do. This is a faulty and fatal religion. “Do I believe this?” “Do I practice that?” All religion is based on me and what I do. But true religion is based on what God does. It is important to emphasize that this is not to say that what I do or what I believe is not important. But it cannot be the central foundation of my religion. 

We turn again this week to the book of Acts to get more insight into what the God of all mankind means and to understand better the subjects of evangelism, conversion, and the way of grace:

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. And a man who had been unable to walk from birth was being carried, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order for him to beg for charitable gifts from those entering the temple grounds. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple grounds, he began asking to receive a charitable gift. But Peter, along with John, looked at him intently and said, “Look at us!” (Acts 3:1-4) 

(It is worthy of note that this event occurs at “the ninth hour.” In Scripture, many incidents happen at the ninth hour. Cornelius encounters the angel, who tells him to send for Peter, at the ninth hour. Here, John and Peter find the lame man at the gate Beautiful at the ninth hour. Elijah calls down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel at the ninth hour. Perhaps most significantly, Jesus utters the words “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” and gives up the ghost at the ninth hour. The temple curtain is rent between the holy and most holy place at the ninth hour. The common theme here is that the ninth hour seems to be an hour of grace. It is an hour of God’s intervention.)

This man was born lame. This brings to mind the man in John 9 of born completely blind at birth. It shows a congenital problem and is associated, in John 9, with sin—either the sin of himself or of his parents. Asking for alms is a request to underwrite our own work. Here we see money as a symbol of work, not of grace. By giving the beggar money, he could put it to work on his own behalf. It could enable his effort. It could underwrite his own work. It could support his attempted achievements. Whatever we do with money, it’s done with “my” work. 

Peter and John have a different plan. We’re about to see another conversion here in Acts, but the conversion is to grace and not to works:  

 And he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I do not have silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk!” And grasping him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God; and they recognized him as being the very one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg for charitable gifts, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the portico named Solomon’s, completely astonished. (Acts 3:5-11) 

“Look at me,” Peter said, “Look at me.” We say it to our children to get their undivided attention. It is a way of demanding focus. It is a way of emphasizing a point. If the eyes are the window to the soul, it is a way of penetrating all the way to the soul. The lame man wanted money, something that he could put to work for himself; but what Peter and John had was grace—”Better,” Peter said, “than silver or gold.” It was unexpected and unmerited. 

What else does grace do? We can see from the story that it completely transforms life. The lame beggar’s bones are strengthened, his joints are re-hinged, his muscles are empowered. No longer is he carried by others, no longer is he left at the gate of the temple on the outside looking in along with the blind, the eunuchs, those with skin diseases, those with deformities. 

Grace transforms him and now he’s walking and leaping and running. He had hoped for alms that he could do something with on his own effort that could make his life better, but instead, his life has been completely transformed by grace. We are the lame—all of us—waiting on the outside of the gate named Beautiful because only the beautiful can enter through it. With just a little bit of help, just a few alms, we envision ourselves putting the money to work on our behalf to get us through. We don’t realize that even with silver and gold, we’re still left lame, powerless to walk, and—unfortunately—still in charge of our own future. 

But God calls us to look at him, to into his eyes, to allow him to penetrate our hearts, our soul, to transform us by his grace. Even given alms, we are still crippled beggars. Even with all the silver and gold in the world, we still cannot walk. We’re on the outside looking in. Grace makes us whole again, completely transforms us, allows us to leap and run back into the community of faith, on the inside looking out. Why are we so surprised by this? Peter asked that very question: 

 “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why are you staring at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. (Acts 3:12-13) 

This is true religion, to recognize and to accept that conversion is the work of God. When entrance into the temple is dependent upon our own work, our own effort, and our own conditions, then it is impossible for us to be free enough from blemish to get in. But with the transforming power of God’s grace, everyone who accepts that grace is beautiful enough to get in. 

Right after his baptism by John, Jesus pronounced his mission statement: 

 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

The Greek word for repent is metanoéō—literally, “think differently afterwards”. It means a change of mind, of thought, so powerful that it changes even the very way of life. But this does not come by our own will. This does not come by our own good intentions, or even by our best efforts. It only comes by grace. We need a grace conversion. We need a grace evangelism. We need to turn away from the idea that what I believe or what I practice somehow saves me. Even our very best doctrines, even our most truth-filled and preciously held beliefs still leave us like silver and gold, lame without grace. 

So I ask you to consider, based on our studies so far in the book of Acts on the God of all mankind: Can religion run on grace alone? Can you envision an evangelistic series based on grace? Can you convert yourself or others from works to grace? Can you repent—as an act of metanoéō, of accepting God’s matchless grace? 

David: It occurs to me that the notion of what is being converted into goes together with Mark’s statement that “the kingdom of God is at hand”. Last class, we saw the eunuch converted into seeing the world as being a good place after all—despite having been cruelly treated in it. He must have been pretty cynical about a world with so much evil in it, but suddenly he is shown the good in the world. 

To suddenly see the good in the world and be blind to the evil is like being born again. The kingdom of God is at hand not just in the sense of imminent, almost within reach (as I have always thought) but it is here, now, if only you open your eyes to see the goodness—to see God. That’s surely a cause for rejoicing and leaping up and having a good time.

Donald: Could there be such a thing as a grace evangelism? Can those two words even be used in the same sentence? It seems like we impose something else upon grace and call it evangelism. Billy Graham truly did seem to want to bring people to God. He was not there to convert you to anything else other than that. Maybe that might be the answer. But generally speaking, from my point of view, evangelism is not that; it is something different. 

Conversion is to the Gospel, to Christ, to God, but we have made conversion out to be something more than that, and added our own baggage to it, which is burdensome. This world’s a troubled place right now and I am always grateful to be reminded that there is more goodness in this world than evil. Certainly, if you watch the news, there’s more evil, but news does not represent the masses, it represents crisis. 

Anonymous: A thought has come to my mind concerning the difference between the lame man before and after being healed. Of course, it is works versus grace; however, as believers, we want a lifeline to keep us going, something like alms. That is what the lame man needed constantly before his conversion, whereas afterwards, he got it all—he got so much more than he asked for. He got life, he got health, he got strong legs. 

It is exactly what happens when we ask God for something. It’s like asking for alms—something for today: “Safeguard my journey, let my business deal go through, heal my illness” and so on, and God replies: “No. I’m not giving you enough for you to keep going or for this day or for the occasion or for the situation you’re in. I’m giving it all to you, now.” After this, how can you help but run to God?! “Before, I couldn’t run, but now I can, so I will go to God and love will rule in my life; not need, but love.” 

We don’t need church to evangelize. If I experience the grace of God I cannot help but show it. It’s like being pregnant: The belly shows, and everybody sees it. So I don’t have to do evangelistic meetings and preaching and all that because wherever I go—whether among family, neighbors, and acquaintances or among strangers, a yeast-like leavening agent is working in me. And that is grace. It shows without my even saying anything, but what could be better than saying: “It happened by the grace of God.” 

C-J: I think grace is the first step. But we need to be in relationship and relationship comes by knowing the Word of God and staying in community with like-minded people that lift us up, that speak truth, bring correction to how we’re thinking, give us the foundation stones that we’re going to be building our house on. Because if we do not fellowship, our light dims because we pick up the dust of the earth and we get distracted by everyday things. There’s a lot of things that could cause us to say: “Where’s God in the mix?” It’s a lot of work for me. My relationships that are the healthiest require work. And I think that applies to God too. ”Come to me daily, come to me frequently” is the message of God; “Know me.” That takes time, that takes effort, that takes a laser focus of “Why have I come?” Not for a litany of prayers that you’ve already heard. “Why am I here?” To learn and grow.

Michael: The traditional gospel of evangelism often sounds to me more like a gospel of sin. It preaches what is sinful and what is moral, what I should and should not believe. It’s not the gospel of grace. What is the evangelism of grace? I don’t know how to answer this question, or even if we actually need an answer. In this class, I’ve learned a lot about grace. Maybe here is where we are learning the gospel of grace, but I’m not sure that we need to learn it. Maybe we want to understand it, intellectually, but I’m not sure we actually need to. Whatever the case, this class has been a gospel of grace, more so than anything I’ve heard in any church.

C-J: I think the gospel of grace in part is extending that by example, with those who need grace, and they don’t really know it’s out there. Those who have sinned greatly, to whom much is given, much is required. Pick up your bed and walk. It is a message of restoration. 

If we don’t exercise our muscles, they atrophy. We need to exercise grace in ourselves. That messaging we sent: “I’m such an idiot, I don’t deserve this. How come that person has that and I have this?” All those internal dialogues, but my grace is sufficient—”This will pass away.” But that relationship of unmerited forgiveness and a new way of being is priceless and endless.

Reinhard: In both the story of the healing of the beggar by Peter and John and the story of Jesus healing a blind man, the men healed were interrogated by the Pharisees. They never mentioned the kingdom of God. John the Baptist preached that the kingdom of God was at hand. When Jesus started preaching, to them it was like a new religion, but actually is not was because it was, of course, God himself. 

Healing was a most effective way of converting people to become followers of Christ. Early in his first missionary  journey, Paul healed some people and this was a very effective way to attract attention, to get people to listen to the good news, to believe it, and to be converted to followers of Christ. Grace abounded during the early church expansion, including among people with different backgrounds, as we see from the stories we have studied recently. God’s grace underpinned the evangelistic spreading of the Gospel. 

The Jews believed in following the law, in doing works; the revelation of grace—that faith in him is what really needed—seemed to them like a new religion, yet it was not—it shared the same God. The Greek Jews Paul converted continued to believed in the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but as Peter told the centurion, faith and grace—moreso than law and works—were the right way to worship him. 

The apostles showed that they had not only the authority from Jesus to preach the gospel, but also the power to heal even the sickest people with conditions incapable of cure. Upon being healed they became witnesses to the people around them, evangelists of the message of grace that Jesus wanted to bring to all humanity.

Sharon: I really like the gate Beautiful, because it’s only through Christ’s robe of righteousness that anybody can be saved. You cannot institutionalize grace. Grace is an experiential attribute of a personal walk with Jesus Christ, who takes our weak brokenness and through that brokenness makes something beautiful out of us through his strength, not through anything that we’ve done or anything evangelism can do. 

I think it is a deeply personal, qualitative experience. To evangelize or institutionalize grace is beyond the realm of reality, because it’s an existential, internalized experience; a personal walk with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and what he gave us with his atonement on the cross of Calvary.

Jay: The concept of a religion based on grace alone is difficult for that reason—the interaction is so personal. As fallen human beings we really struggle to institutionalize, to build a community around, something so completely abstract. So the question becomes: If grace is a foundation upon which a religion could be built, what would supply the concreteness necessary to support the structure? What can couple with grace without contaminating it, perverting it, contaminating it, or minimizing it in the slightest? 

It seems that an evangelism of grace must emphasize that grace is the foundational component of an experience with goodness, an experience with God, but on top of it I must place a concrete construct that gives me the power to act. As a fallen human being, I feel I have no choice but to operationalize, to hold accountable, to identify, to define. Is there a concrete operational construct that I can put on top of grace that doesn’t pervert it as (it seems) most things have? 

It seems as if whenever we try to do that to grace, we pervert it somehow. The question is: Is perversion inevitable, or is there a solution? If there is, then yes, you can evangelize grace. You could have an evangelistic series, a movement, a tent meeting, whatever you want, around grace, to convert people to this construct that helps them understand, utilize, and relate to grace and God. But if you can’t put that construct on grace, then I don’t think you can evangelize it. 

Carolyn: Think of the freedom the paraplegic man experienced when he was healed! Grace gives us a freedom we did not have before. But a freedom to do what? Freedom to go through the gate Beautiful and partake in worship and praise God in our own way, certainly. We gain a freedom that comes—that’s given to us—only by accepting God’s grace.

David: To me, it frees us to turn the other cheek, to see our enemies as friends. It is not simply showing us the world through rose-tinted glasses: It truly shows the world as it is—essentially good. And with that understanding we become free to act in a completely different way than we acted before. Think of a born-again Vladimir Putin realizing that the Ukrainians and Europeans are not really evil after all, and stopping the war. It frees us to see our fellow human beings as also children of God, as our brothers and sisters. 

Don: What about Jason’s question of how to operationalize grace? Can grace be operationalized?

Michael: It might be simplistic but it seems to me that Martin Luther and indeed the whole Reformation represented a movement away from institutionalizing God and towards grace. But how did it all end up?—It didn’t work at all! The Protestants ended up in a place worse than the Catholics. The Catholics threw grace out of the window but the Protestants came up with terrible concepts such as cheap grace.

Donald: Community is important but putting a box around grace is different from forming community around it. When you share what grace has done for you with another person, you’ve now got two people with grace. There’s no need to put a box around that. If they just keep sharing their grace with others, community will emerge and exist of its own accord. But we want to build something beyond that, we want to have a construct that’s larger than that. That’s human nature, and that may be the source of our struggle.

C-J: I think it’s a mistake to talk about grace in terms of cookie-cut Christians, to think that grace on you is going to look different than grace on me. We cannot measure like that. “He or she calls himself or herself a Christian!” or “If that were true, why are they doing X?!” Grace is complete in its initial investment. We are an investment of God. Our relationship, our walk, what gives us purpose, how far we can go down that road… 

Some people are devoted all of their life, once they have that encounter, while other people are satisfied just halfway there: “I live a good life, I’m married, I try to be a good father, a good employee, a good community member, I play by the rules. I don’t need any more than that. In fact, I wouldn’t even know what that looked like or might look like.” So I think in religious communities, spiritual communities, we have a tendency to look out and measure one another. But that relationship with God is very personal, even though it’s a piece in this huge expression of God and his grace.

Anonymous: I can understand that to God the Creator, all creation—everybody—belongs to him. Now, if I want to understand it from the point of view of “everybody”: Is God the God of the universe? Of course the believer thinks so, but do unbelievers? 

Don: Should they? 

Anonymous: Probably not. If they come to believe in God, then they see themselves included in him being God of all nations. But not everybody believes.

Don: If you don’t believe in gravity, does that mean gravity is not there?

Anonymous: What you’re saying is: It’s the rule, whether they accept it or not. God is the God of all nations. 

Don: Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

David: I equate God with goodness, an attribute unbelievers generally don’t deny exists; therefore, though they won’t admit it, they accept that God exiats. Therefore he is the God of all humankind, whether humankind knows it or admits it or not.

Don: But is it possible that even those of us who are believers are somehow culpable in presenting a God that is unbelievable to some people? That by what we’ve taught, by what we’ve preached, by what we’ve evangelized, by how we’ve tried to convert, we’ve left an impression so skewed about God that it can’t be accepted by some people? Is it possible that we could be culpable?

C-J: We’ve also left out that Christian history is pretty marred with horror. We crucify people, we burn people at the stake, we do all kinds of terrible things if they don’t convert and don’t play by our rules. Christianity has a terrible track record. We speak grace, but really it’s the work of God and God transforming us. If I self identify as a Christian, most people don’t want to hear it. It’s everywhere. This is a foundation stone. This country was based on the Puritan tradition, what later grew closer to Calvinism— a very strict, very rigid litany of Do’s and Don’ts. Nowhere in there is that given as grace. It’s not until later that a different flavor of Christianity began talking about grace. 

Don: We’ll have more discussion next week on conversion, grace, the way of grace, and evangelism. We’ll study another passage from the book of Acts.

Michael: I see with a lot of millennials that the church has turned them off towards God. I think that’s especially true of younger people in the West.

Don: That is something that should give us considerable pause, I would think.

Michael: Maybe the gospel of grace would get to them. But it has to be the gospel of grace, not the gospel of some evangelist or church. It has to be the gospel of God. 

Don: That’s that sounds like a challenge, Michael! 

* * *