We have been talking about grace in the context that God is seeking to reveal his secrets, which are called “mysteries” in the New Testament, meaning truths previously unknown or truths poorly understood but now more clearly revealed.
We have talked about the mystery of iniquity—the source and the meaning of evil. We have talked about the mystery of godliness, which really is goodness and (we have come to see) is really God’s grace. The mystery of grace and the revelation that God is the God of all mankind converged in our discussion, and we have been talking about grace as the fundamental component of our religion.
But how we understand grace for ourselves, and how to share grace with others—a matter of evangelism—is what we have been talking about for the last couple of weeks. Last week, we talked about religion as it is centered on God and not on us. We asked: Can religion be centered on the grace of God alone or, as Sharon suggested, is grace too abstract a concept to be institutionalized?
We so much wish to make our religion about us, about what we do and don’t do, what we believe and don’t believe, what we hold sacred and what we hold profane. Religion centered on us, and what “I” do, is futile and fatal religion. But if we’re saved by grace, not of ourselves but as the gift of God (as Ephesians 2 says) we must then be converted to a religion of grace, not of works. We must be converted to what God does and not what we do. Our religious experience must be centered on God and not on ourselves.
Evangelism as we practice it, however, is almost exclusively about what we do, about what we believe. It’s about changing our behavior from one set of rules to another set, and changing our beliefs, which is often difficult for us to do. Instead, we must convert others and ourselves from works and beliefs, to a religion of grace, to convert to religion centered on God and not on ourselves.
We turn back to the Book of Acts again today for more insight into the conversion to grace. It addresses the subject of grace being available to all mankind:
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a noise like a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And tongues that looked like fire appeared to them, distributing themselves, and a tongue rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with different tongues, as the Spirit was giving them the ability to speak out.
Now there were Jews residing in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and they were bewildered, because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty deeds of God.” And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others were jeering and saying, “They are full of sweet wine!” (Acts 2:1-13)
Peter then goes into a lengthy sermon, quoting from the Book of Joel, and concluding by comparing David to the Messiah, to Jesus Christ:
“Brothers, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. So because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. It is this Jesus whom God raised up, a fact to which we are all witnesses. (Acts 2:29-32)
He then goes on to talk about the effects that the whole Pentecostal experience has on the 3000 that were there:
… Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what are we to do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on urging them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all the believers were together and had all things in common; and they would sell their property and possessions and share them with all, to the extent that anyone had need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:37-47)
Here we see the Holy Spirit as the embodiment of grace, as a visible manifestation of grace being given at Pentecost. Note first that the receiving of grace can be a strong sensory experience. There’s a sound of wind and the appearance of flames of fire, that break out in tongues, speaking new languages, even different dialects. When you receive grace, when you come to understand grace, when you realize the reality of grace, it is an overwhelming experience. It is (verse 12) something that puts them in awe and amazement. They stand there “amazed and astonished”.
Grace, as we’ve noted before, elicits very strong emotions. The story we discussed last week of the healing of the lame man showed us the unbridled joy of grace:
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.But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, “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? (Acts 3:8-12)
You see, this is a picture of unbridled joy and coming together of the person who’s been healed and the healers and those who have been standing around watching. Notice the active words of grace: Leaping, standing, walking, praising, wonder, amazement, holding on to one another, running together, marveling.
Grace, properly understood and experienced, is transformational. It elicits joy. It prompts a sensory experience and, as we’ll see later, it fosters community. Note too the significance of every man hearing in his own language. Grace comes to everyone in their own language. Nothing defines a person more than their language. It is our most powerful cultural element. If you know my language, you know a lot about me.
The Greek word here is really more precise than that. The real translation is dialect. It’s a better translation than language, giving I think even more meaning to this passage. All languages have different dialects, allowing even more precise identification of who you are. If you know my dialect, and you speak my dialect, you know my history, my background, what I eat, how I was educated, what songs I sing, what entertainment I enjoy. In short, there isn’t much about me that you don’t know if you know my dialect. It’s a very strong link to who you are.
Here we see grace coming to everyone in his or her own culture, stories, history, ideas, emotions, and feelings. Is it possible to say that grace could even come in one’s own religion? This is a question we must wrestle with today: Is grace something that can come to anyone in any religion? Or is grace something that’s only for Christianity?
If the cornerstone of religion is grace, if the foundation of Christianity is God’s grace given through Jesus Christ, then the very essence of Christianity must prevent Christians from proclaiming that Christianity is the only way to God. God’s grace is overwhelming and all-encompassing. It is given widely and freely in every dialect, in every culture.
Is one language better than another language? Is one dialect more accurate than another? Is one accent preferable? The sheep fold of God is very large, but still there are other sheep, he says, not of this fold. The Book of Revelation describes that multitude in the new heaven:
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all the tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands;and they cried out with a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9-10)
This, you see, is the essence of true religion. Salvation comes from God. This is grace. Peter in his lengthy sermon affirms this. After listing all the people who could hear in their tongue, he said what they heard speaking was the “mighty deeds of God.” (Acts 2:11)
This is a message of grace. It’s very simple. We hear people speaking in our own dialect about the mighty deeds of God, the wonderful things that God has done. What God has done is to make religion centered upon God. It is not a religion centered upon us. It is our own salvation, the result of the works of God.
Note that in the story both the speaker (the disciples) and the hearers (the audience) are filled with grace. As we’ve said before, it is a miracle of both speaking and hearing. And like Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10, which we studied a few weeks ago, there is grace-filled conversion for both the disciples and for the multitude. Both are filled with the Spirit. Conversion is always a two-way street. Conversion is just as much about the converted as it is about the convertee.
These 3,000 Jews from all over the known world were in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Pentecost, which is 50 days after Passover (Pentecost means 50). The overwhelming likelihood is that they were educated people with the money and leisure to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and would therefore have spoken Greek, the lingua franca of their known world. So why speak to them in their native dialect?
The reason is because that is what grace does. It meets you where you are: In your culture, your religion, your dialect. Most importantly, the God of all mankind speaks in every language. Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor in 9th century Europe said that to speak a second language is to have a second soul. Your language is your soul, and grace meets you where you’re at. Just as every dialect is different, so too the message of grace is different. It’s just what you need for your soul.
The fire seen setting upon them in verse 3 is significant as well. Throughout scriptures we see God as a consuming fire: Deuteronomy 4:24 says “My God is a consuming fire.” But here we see fire that does not consume, it does not burn. Fire that does not burn is grace. Moses has an encounter with a burning bush that won’t burn. The three Hebrew worthies don’t burn in Nebuchadnezzar’s fire. The coals from the altar that cleanse the lips of Isaiah (Isaiah 9:6) do not burn. And here in Acts 2 we see fire that enlightens but does not heat. We see non-consuming fire. This is what grace does.
Seeing the effects of grace, the wind, the fire, and hearing the voices in their own languages, the Pentecostals ask Peter the $64,000 question: “Brother, what shall we do?” This is the question that grace elicits. Grace always prompts a response. Peter’s response was: “Repent, and be baptized.”
Here again, you see the contrast between works and grace. Repent, as we discussed last week, is a Greek word metanoiea meaning a change of mind, a change of thinking so powerful that it changes the very way of life that we live. It is not turning from bad works to good works, as we have often believed, and we are often taught; it is a turning from all works, even your best work. All that you do is to turn from work to grace, turn from what you do to what God does.
Being baptized is not just another work, another thing that we do. It symbolizes the complete covering of ourselves by God’s grace. It is not an act of goodwill. It is not an act of your best effort, or a demonstration of your good intentions. It is a pure act of grace. It is a conversion from works to grace. It is turning away from your works to let God cover you with his grace. This turning, as we see, drives us into community, and that’s where the story ended up in Acts 2, in fellowship and sharing and soul searching. A deep sense of awe, it says, came upon the people.
So the questions remain, can a religion be fundamentally founded and sustained on the concept of grace alone? Does religion need a construct, as Jason suggested last week? Can you envision an evangelism of grace? Can you convert from works to grace?
C-J: The 12 steps speaks to what you just said. It’s not a religion, it’s the transformation of letting go of old ways. So it doesn’t have ritual or a predetermined belief system other than grace, grace being allowed to transform and the practice of accountability and that the people who are recovering, whatever that is. Most people think of it as a drug of choice. There are many ways that people are recovering. It can be trauma, it can be many, many things; but the steps are the same. The first one is to admit that “I cannot do this alone. I need community to help teach me and give me a safe place where I am accepted as I am being transformed.”
And there’s an incredible responsibility in that community to be present, to be consistent in “How do I do this? I will walk with you, not as a distraction, but by uplifting you and holding you accountable, but you are not alone.” This is the message we see in Christianity, that God is always in the room, that we have a text with a message that is not just fact. There is historical proof of this person. It is not just a belief that we adhere to in terms of ritual. It is not just the narrative that supports the first two, but it is community and letting grace be available and to surrender to it. Everybody experiences grace very differently, and yet it transforms. Redemption, grace, and transformation are the business of God.
David: To say that we should turn to doing what God does implies works. God does works. That is the excuse religions use for doing their works. God’s works in the Old Testament are sometimes pretty vengeful and nasty. I think we should focus not on doing what God does but on being who God is. I think it’s a very critical distinction.
Who then is God? God is goodness, God is good. So being good is fundamentally what we’re called to do, and this is what grace, I think, gives the individual. I agree that community is important, but community arises out of the goodness of the individuals who (without premeditation) form it. Community arises naturally among individuals who are good, who turn to being as God is—at least, as like as they can.
Anonymous: It’s hard for me to separate grace from works. Faith without works is dead according to James, and when God fills us with his grace, change is inevitable and follows the change of actions. So how could I accept grace and still do the things I did before? It has to be a change of works as well, doesn’t it?
C-J: We are clay in the potter’s hand. If the works are done in the flesh, then the “I” is there. But if the work is done spiritually, then the light is revealed. The flame is alive and shines brightly. We may say that person is a good person, a spiritual person, but really I think the thing that shines the most is the humility. It’s easy to say “Praise God,” or “God is doing the work in me” but it is through the humility where there’s no room for “I” and that light is so evident that it bears witness of the grace of God. It’s rare, but I think it’s in our prayer closet. It’s when we labor in communion with God that it is the most evident.
In the 12 step program, number 11 is in prayer and meditation; that we don’t just recognize where we have fallen short but understand where that stumbling block was. “How did I miss the mark, I was doing really well?” But they’re focusing on not participating in the thing they’re trying to get rid of, instead of the relationship or relationships that they surround themselves with—the relationship with God, people, places, and things.
I think this is the messaging that we see in all faiths that produce evidence of transformation that can only be done by something that is not tangible in this time and space. It can only be done by God. It’s just irrefutable. “Wow, how did you do that?” “I didn’t. The only thing I did was surrender.” And that takes humility, prayer, and meditation.
Robin: I think that what we need to come to terms with or understand is that works have a place, but to assign them or allow them to be assigned by God to the proper place. Because as human beings, in business on this earth, you earn or you are promoted according to your works. So you earn, and that’s so ingrained in us. But when our spirits are converted by the Holy Spirit, then the works, the change in our attitude, in our motivation for works, is turned on its head. And instead, it’s a result of the love that God pours through us, God pouring his spirit through us rather than us as human beings thinking: “If I can only just be good enough for God”. You never will be.
David: The Good Samaritan did not set out on the road to Jerusalem looking for a good deed to do. He was not on some pilgrimage, some mission, some knight errant’s quest to do good works. He was simply a good man walking along the road on a business trip. But when he saw something that needed a “work”, the goodness—the God—in him prompted him to do it.
The point of the Good Samaritan parable, it seems to me, is not about his good deed, it is about his being good. The point is that the Samaritan was a good man, while the rabbi and the Levite were not. He was more like God than they were.
Kiran: The question Anonymous asked (“How can I accept grace and still do the things I did before?”) is a wonderful question that I have asked myself several times. To really understand it, maybe you have to be an Adventist, of whom I’d say one quarter have this problem, especially in Michigan and Tennessee. I think what Anonymous is referring to is our Adventist belief that once you accept the grace of God you have to keep his commandments, which means you cannot sin anymore. That is the theology I learned back in India when I became an Adventist, and that is the theology we were taught several times in the ministries: “You have to be excellent in God, you cannot be any more sinful, because otherwise there is no God in you.”
And they constantly quote Jesus: “If you love me, keep my commandments. If you’re not keeping my commandments, that means there is no love in you.” So we struggle with this quite a bit. I’ve read books that talk about last-generation theology. Ellen White commented that Jesus is waiting for the last generation of 144,000 sinless people. But in the 1940s or ’50s, the belief changed to: If you accept Christ as your personal Savior, then you will attain a perfect character of Jesus Christ in this life. Other Protestant churches believe that you achieve the character of Christ only during glorification, which is when you go to heaven.
This is a big and frankly depressing problem among a lot of my friends. We are struggling. We ask: “Why am I doing everything I am told I should but God is not giving me victory over many things?” We think everybody’s a hypocrite and they don’t understand the pain we’re going through. Everybody’s talking about grace, but what else do I have to do? They tell you to do three things: Read the Bible, pray, and evangelize, but no matter how much you do those things, you still sin. So we go back to asking “What is wrong with me?” It seems we are not alone.
Janelin: I think it’s difficult to separate those two—being like God and doing what God does. They are intertwined and it’s really hard to separate them and point to a distinct difference between them. Something in the Good Samaritan triggered or urged him to do the good thing. He did not do it for attention; he did it because if you strive for goodness, you will want to do good. You just can’t separate the two.
Reinhard: We’ve talked about sola fide and sola scriptura. Martin Luther mentioned sola gratia They are interrelated—grace and faith very much so. During the early evangelism, the early teachings of the apostles after Jesus left, the emphasis was on salvation by faith. The Jews did not like the teaching of Jesus or his healing on the Sabbath or his turning of the other cheek, when the Old Testament taught a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye.
In the Old Testament, God dealt with people in harsh ways. He executed people who disobeyed him, who rebelled. Ancient Jewish civil and religious law reflects this severity. But in the New Testament, God changed the tune. The 10 Commandments and the law were a necessary basis for the transformation in the New Testament. People had to know the ground rules before God came down in person to teach the real way, to show what God really wants from us.
In the Old Testament, during worship sacrificial offerings were required, to teach people to repent and to respect God. So they knew from the Old Testament that in order to do God’s will they had to be righteous. They did not talk about salvation, about the life to come (the Sadducees did not believe in resurrection).
But in the New Testament, God revealed more of the purpose of his creation. When Jesus said he came before Abraham, the Jews would not accept it and they totally rejected him, and when the disciples continued his teaching they stoned one of them (Stephen) to death. To them, to be righteous mean to do works. But Paul said:
Do we then nullify the Law through faith? Far from it! On the contrary, we establish the Law. (Romans 3:31)
So the law is still valid, still the law. Faith helps us to fulfill the law. Obedience can only take place when we have faith. So by the grace of God, the law is still valid, although the sacrificial law, being a civil law in the Old Testament, is not practiced. The law’s punishment for those who rebel or who sin, like the adulterous woman, was to be stoned to death, but Jesus showed that we can love even the least of people. The civil law might demand an eye for an eye, but through faith in Jesus we can overcome the law. Paul always emphasized faith, but eventually, we fulfill the law when we have faith. I think that’s what the New Testament is talking about, focusing on the grace of God and salvation through faith.
Kiran: You’re saying that if you accept the grace of God and have enough faith, your righteousness will be perfect, like that of Jesus Christ. But I’m saying that if you accept the grace of God, he will take away your filthy robe and give you a robe as clean and white as that of Jesus.
C-J: I think throughout the entire text that we refer to as the Bible, the whole process that we see, the Ten Commandments are the boundaries, they keep us safe. But the whole purpose is to coalesce this community. As Kiran says, tt is nothing that I can do. I can read that book, memorize that book, but it’s a book, it’s a narrative. The relationship is something that is extremely personal. We are constantly growing in God if we’re paying attention, because that’s the desire of our Creator, to constantly be molded and shaped; and the language, the dialect that is personal to each of us, to our experience, our time and place, all the people that God brings to us, enlarges our borders in terms of the depth, the height of how we will be transformed as we interface with those who are not like us.
That’s the beauty of Pentecost. That’s the beauty of this transcendence. This narrative is so important. We only have in this consciousness a lifetime that is limited by tick tock. But with God, we don’t really know. It’s an act of faith, what that transition is actually going to be like, or my place in my father’s house, where there are many mansions. I don’t even think about that. I know the narrative. I know the hope. But my relationship is here and now. “What are you doing, Lord? What do you want me to be doing? What am I missing? What should I be hearing? Should I be still? Are you doing a work? Humble me Lord so that it can be revealed.”
That is much more powerful than holding up a book and saying “This is my standard. This is my ruler and my measurement of am I good or bad? Am I really worth this? Or am I just deceiving myself? If I stand in this building, does that mean I’ve arrived?” No. If I’m going to be caught up holding a book, I’m going to miss a really phenomenal journey. I’m going to miss community, I’m going to miss the purposed intention that God has said, “Connie, I have a job for you to do. Are you willing? Are you able? Do you hear my voice in the wind?”
This is relationship with God, this is what God wants to transform us into. Not, “I didn’t make it.” No matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. I do it well, for a while, and then I fall again. But when you leave that in God’s hands, you’re not ahead of God. The whole thing is to let God. It doesn’t come from a book. Think of all those thousands of years, there was no book. It was oral tradition, it was seen through the eyes, there, where they were, how they lived, where they saw God in nature. I think they were a step above us in terms of not being stuck with a book that says “See, this is what I’m telling you.”
Jay: Using Acts 2 as kind of a case study to look at the two questions that you proposed—Can religion be based on grace and can you then evangelize?— is really interesting. If you take the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the tongues of fire, everybody hearing everybody in their dialect, and equate all that to the receiving of grace, then you have a movement.
Look at what happens right after all that activity: There’s an immediate question: “What do I do now? As a human being, I need to operationalize this. I’ve received this grace, I’ve had this outpouring on me, I need to do something.” Peter responds: “Repent and be baptized.” Looking at why they’re baptized, or what they’re baptized for, is critical for that operationalization of grace and making me able to do something with it. But the next paragraph—verses 42 through 47—is really key, because right after it there’s repentance and baptism and they form community.
Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all the believers were together and had all things in common; and they would sell their property and possessions and share them with all, to the extent that anyone had need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:37-47)
The question I have is: When did it become religion? We see a checklist:
- Repent,
- baptize,
- look at teachings,
- gather together,
- help one another,
- worship, and
- add people to your number.
Sounds like a religion to me. There are a lot of characteristics of a lot of religions in there. If the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the tongues of fire, those things described, is the outpouring of grace, is this a religion? Is it based upon grace? Are they evangelizing? (That’s a really robust conversation to have.) And if it is all of the above, is it a potential model for us today? If not, why not?
And if it is, we as human beings need to put a construct on top of grace. But do we pervert it? Do we taint it? Does it become tainted at some point? Is it tainted here in the story? Does it become tainted later on? What is the process by which that happens? Being reflective on that I think has a lot of application for us, as we look at how to operationalize what we’re talking about and make it real in our lives today, as many of us belong to religious institutions.
David: Acts 2 describes a group of guys who get together and decide on what’s what. The lonely adulterous woman was visited by grace (I think we’d all agree on that) and all she had to do then was to go and sin no more. That’s it. She wasn’t expected to whoop it up and form a religion. That’s what grace does, and it does it to the individual. She wasn’t told to go form, or even join, the Adventist church or any other. She was simply told to go and be good; to go, and sin no more.
Michael: I just want to say to Kiran that I think God’s swings so many buckets of grace through him. In my life there have been so many times and moments where I received God’s grace through him. I just want to tell him that maybe he has to take seriously into consideration that the people who taught him about God, including Ellen White, were perhaps misguided. I find good nuggets in her book but much of it seemed to me misguided. There is so much grace in, and passing through, Kiran’s life, which I don’t think is accidental.
Sharon: I was thinking that grace is a green space, an incubator for our spiritual growth, our social growth, a place where we can feel inclusive. I loved what you said about the dialogues: “And once you know my dialogue, you probably know me”. I think grace creates that freedom, that green space, that incubator of innovation where you’re free to come together in partnership with God in really becoming all you can be as you connect to his infinite wisdom, his infinite power, his omniscience. All of those things create an amazing environment in which we thrive spiritually, socially, and all of the above.
Don: Those who are concerned about leaving works behind should not get the impression from reading these stories that works are negligible. As a matter of fact, as Jason pointed out, and as I alluded to in my comments, the very first question that comes to the mouth of those who have been transformed by grace is: What should I do? That the question of works. But the answer to that question is the critical piece of information we seek. I think it’s something that Michael and Kiran both were alluding to, as well as Robin.
We have much more to discuss. Next week we’re going to discuss grace gone bad and see what lessons we can learn, taking Acts 2 as a case study.
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