The Grace of Remembering

Forgetting something important is one of the most frustrating experiences in life. If we forget an appointment, a birthday or directions we are painfully made aware of how damaging forgetting can be to our relationships. The act of remembering is vital to our making progress in life. In the same way, so much of our Christian life is stunted by the act of forgetting and is fueled by the act of remembering the promises, presence, power and provisions of God in Christ.

In the Scriptures, the first example of the call to remember is found immediately after God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt. In Exodus 13:3 we find Moses telling the Israelites, ‘Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place.’”  The exodus (i.e. the typical Gospel in the Old Testament) became the redemptive-historical event that Israel was repeatedly charged to call to mind throughout their pilgrimage through the wilderness and toward the Promised Land. The antitypical exodus (i.e. in our deliverance from Satan, sin and death in the exodus of Jesus) is what we are to constantly call to mind as we make our way through the wilderness of this world and onto the Heavenly Promised Land (Luke 9:31; Romans 6:11; Galatians 3:1-4; Colossians 1:5-6; 2 Peter 1:9; Revelation 1:5-6).

God commanded Israel to remember the typical Gospel of the exodus in Deut. 5:15 where, immediately before Moses tells Israel to “keep the Sabbath day…,” he said, “remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm…” The holiness of the people of God is fueled by a remembrance of the Gospel. God was calling Israel to remember His redemptive grace and power when they heard the call to obey Him. When Israel faced the prospect of conflict with the Canaanites in the land that the Lord promised to give them, God told them, “If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’— you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt” (Deut. 7:17-18).When God told Israel to let their indentured servants go free with possessions after 7 years, He told them, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today” (Deut. 15:15). We see this over and over again throughout God’s dealings with the Old Covenant church (e.g. Deut. 6:12; 8:11-14; 16:3, 12; 24:18, 22)

When Israel finally came to the point of taking possession of the land, Joshua charged them to remember the promises of God. He said, “Remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is giving you rest and is giving you this land” (Joshua 1:13).

So much of the revelation of God in the Psalms is founded on this very same principle. In Psalm 77:11 we read, “I will remember the works of the Lord; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.” This is one of the chief ways that the Psalmist stirs up his soul in praise to God. In Psalm 111:2, the Psalmist wrote, “The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them.” Surely to “study” the works of the Lord is to remember and meditate on the redemptive power and grace of God that was operative in the first generation of Israel.

Isn’t it wrong to live in the past? Doesn’t the apostle Paul tell us to forget what is behind and to press forward? What Israel was actually being called to do was remember the LORD who had redeemed them according to His promise. Behind the redemption was the promise of God and the God of promise. The God of redemption and the act of redemption must always to take center stage in the minds of God people. Whenever Israel forgot the redemption that they had experienced, they were forgetting the LORD who had redeemed them. Whenever they forgot the LORD they lived in sinful rebellion.  We see this clearly in Judges 8:33-35, “So it was, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel again played the harlot with the Baals, and made Baal-Berith their god. Thus the children of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side; nor did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (Gideon) in accordance with the good he had done for Israel.” There is a direct correlation between Israel’s remembering the previous gracious  and powerful dealings of God and their rebellious idolatry. When they remembered, they trusted Him for present grace and power; and, when they forgot, they lived in sinful rebellion.

Forgetting God is the sinful default setting of our souls. Even believers often forget the goodness and power of God and live with contentions and anxiety rather than turn to Him for grace and provision. We see this in the disciples’ response to Jesus’ call for them to feed the 4,000 in Mark 8:1-21. Just a few days prior they witnessed Jesus miraculously more than 5,000 with five loaves and a few fish. Now, there was a crowd that had been with Jesus for three days and had nothing left to eat. Jesus told His disciples, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.” The disciples should have said, “Well Lord, we have seven loaves and a few small fish. You can certainly turn these into enough food for the people–just like you did a couple of days ago.” Instead they said, ““How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?” Even as the statement came out of their mouths it should have called to their minds the unbelief of Israel in the wilderness after having seen God’s redemptive power and grace. Richard Trench explained this when he wrote:

All former deliverances are in danger of being forgotten; the mighty interpositions of God’s hand in former passages of men’s lives fall out of their remembrance; each new difficulty appears as one from which there is no extrication; at each recurring necessity it seems as though the wonders of God’s grace were exhausted and have come utterly to an end. He may have divided the Red Sea for his people, yet no sooner are they on the other side, than because there is no water to drink, they murmur against Moses, and count that they must perish for thirst, crying, ‘Is the Lord among us, or not’ (Exod. 17: 1-7)? Or, to adduce a still nearer parallel, He who opens his hand and fills all things living with plenteousness may have once already covered the camp with quails (Exod. 16:13), yet for all this even Moses himself cannot believe that He will provide flesh for all that multitude (Num. 11: 21, 22). It is only the man of a full-formed faith, of a faith which Apostles themselves at this time did not possess, who argues from the past to the future, and truly derives confidence from God’s former dealings of faithfulness and love (cf. 1 Sam. 17:34-37 ; 2 Chron. 16: 7, 8). Nothing then but a strange unacquaintance with the heart of man could have led any to argue that the disciples, with their previous experience of one miracle of this kind, could not a second similar occasion have been perplexed how the wants of the multitude should be supplied ; that we have therefore here an illustration of the general inaccuracy which prevails in the records of our Lord’s life, of a loose tradition, which has told the same event twice over.1

Simon Peter brought this home to bear on the everyday quest for growth in grace in the Christian life when he wrote: “Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,  to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (2 Peter 1:5-9). Notice that he lays the blame for a failure to grow in grace at the feet of “forgetting that you have been cleansed from your old sins.” When we forget the Gospel we become spiritually paralyzed and backsliden. All of this can be summed up in the Apostle Paul’s words to Timothy: “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David” (2 Timothy 2:8). If we forgot who He is and what He has done, we will fail to make the progress in the Christian life that God calls us on to by His grace.

Grace that is greater than all my sin...

Grace that is greater than all my sin...

...the common assertion, "You just need to believe the gospel more," essentially undermines the position of the antinomian... - Antinomianism, Mark Jones

Yesterday, I was speaking with a young student about his faith and he was describing a church he'd attended when he was in high school. He said that, while wrong on a number of Biblical truths, the church "got grace."

A few minutes later, he spoke of the first Sunday he attended another church. He'd been displeased by the preaching because it focussed on specific Biblical truths. As he saw it, specific truths weren't needed as much as simple faith in Jesus, so he left the worship service angry. Another student met with him during the following week, and as he described it, "(John) did an excellent job helping me to see my pride. It was the first time I saw my sin. Grace."

Yes, that's precisely how he said it. "Grace" came out sort of under his breath, as an afterthought. He didn't say, "It was the first time I saw my sin and God's grace." He didn't say, "It was the first time I saw my sin and understood grace." He said, "It was the first time I saw my sin." Full stop. Then a soft and almost imperceptible... utterance: "grace..."

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide.
What can avail to wash it away?
Look! There is flowing a crimson tide,
Brighter than snow you may be today.

Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin.

The problem with many churches today is not that there's too much grace, but that there's no grace. Remember my young Christian brother had just said a couple minutes earlier that his earlier church "got grace?" Yet, just a few minutes later he said that it wasn't until a man pointed out his pride to him that he came to see his sin "for the first time." So in what sense did his prior church "get grace" if he'd never been brought under conviction of his sin there?

Let me tell you what I suspect. The earlier church had made a big show of "getting grace" and their marketing worked. Everybody told everybody they were the church that "got grace." And in the church that "got grace," everything was "grace" this and "grace" that and "grace" the other thing. But it was an empty mantra because that church didn't preach God's perfect law and man's perfect depravity and Christ's perfect righteousness. This seems the best explanation of this brother telling me the first church "got grace," but then a minute or two later uttering "grace" almost subconsciously after explaining his first realization of how sinful he was.

Many Protestant churches today are led by pastors who are opposed to calling men to repent. These men are antinomian ('anti' meaning "against" and 'nomos' meaning "law"), but they certainly don't announce it. The sheep would be scared off.

Instead, they patter on and on about "grace" this and "grace" that and "grace" the other thing, with the occasional "Ya'll know you need grace, right?" thrown in for good measure. They are enemies of the holiness without which no man will see God, hiding their hostility underneath grace-patterned camo.

Ask them how the souls in our churches come to know they need grace if God's Law and His coming judgment are never proclaimed, and they answer:

"People already know they're sinners. People are materialistic and selfish—they get it. Everyone gets it! People don't need the law—they need grace. They don't get grace. They think they have to perform better, to be better, to try harder, to make themselves good enough. But no one can ever be good enough for God. It's grace they don't get! The church is all about performance, so I'm calling people back to the wonderful grace of God, to freedom in Christ. That's my calling."

Thus souls seeking relief from ennui, angst, and alienation are pacified with cheap grace, never coming to the knowledge of God's holiness and their depravity, and thus never coming to any knowledge of grace. They sing and talk of it. They drone on about grace being their deepest passion, but they're graceless because they've never been under the preaching of God's Law and judgment.

Any explanation of God's grace to sinful man must begin with this explanation of the ministry of the Holy Spirit given us by Jesus:

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:7, 8).

In certain circumstances when the sin is serious and has become public, our elders require the repentant soul to confess his sin publicly before the congregation. Anyone who has had the privilege of being a part of those services will testify to you that they have never seen or felt the power of God's grace more than then. Those services of worship are not punitive or moralistic or Pharisaical, but joyful and holy and pure and joyful. All of Heaven rejoices and it's contagious.

Forget all the verbiage: where God's Law is not preached, men are not called to repentance; and men who have not repented know nothing of the precious grace of God.

Ennui, angst, and alienation are simply the sorrow of the world. 

For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. (2Corinthians 7:10)

What we must pray for and preach towards and seek is the sorrow that is according to the will of God, the sorrow that produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation. Pastors who love their sheep will preach and counsel toward that sorrow, knowing it is all of grace.

So, the reason "the common assertion 'You just need to believe the gospel more' essentially undermines the position of the antinomian" is that believing the Gospel more is, in the antinomian scheme, the work that pleases God.

Go Deep in the Grace of God

Christians, of all people, cannot be content with small visions of grace.

The message that made us is “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24), “the word of his grace” (Acts 20:32), “the grace of God in truth” (Colossians 1:6). And the life we’re called to live happens in “this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5:2), as we’re “strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1). It’s all undeserved, lavish favor from God.

So grace that is cheap, thin, and shallow will not suffice. What the Christian desperately needs — what the world desperately needs — is the true grace of God, in all its lushness and texture. To drink it in, be fed by it, be changed by it, to swim across it, and dive deep in it.

Perhaps your greatest spiritual need right now is precisely this — to let the flood of God’s prodigal grace wash over you afresh and like never before. As much as your instincts may be saying that next step is yours, what decision you make, what change you can effect, it may be that what you need most is to stand back, look outside yourself, and see the salvation of the Lord which he has worked for you (Exodus 14:13) — by sheer grace.

Such is John Piper’s hope in his new book Five Points: Towards a Deeper Experience of God’s Grace. It’s a short one, less than 100 pages, but the substance is rich and full. The vision of God’s grace here is costly, thick, and bottomless.

Piper has taught on these strange and wonderful truths for decades, and now distilled his best ways of unfolding these “doctrines of grace” in Five Points. He writes,

My experience is that clear knowledge of God from the Bible is the kindling that sustains the fires of affection for God. And probably the most crucial kind of knowledge is the knowledge of what God is like in salvation. That is what the five points of Calvinism are about. Not the power and sovereignty of God in general, but his power and sovereignty in the way he saves people. That is why these points are sometimes called the doctrines of grace. To experience God fully, we need to know not just how he acts in general, but specifically how he saves us — how did he save me?

I do not begin as a Calvinist and defend a system. I begin as a Bible-believing Christian who wants to put the Bible above all systems of thought. But over the years — many years of struggle — I have deepened in my conviction that Calvinistic teachings on the five points are biblical and therefore true, and therefore a precious pathway into a deeper experiences of God’s grace. (pages 8–9)

The Glorious Doctrine of Irresistible Grace

Those who proclaim the gospel preach in a graveyard. Lazarus cannot obey Christ’s command until he is given new life, and this is something only God can do (John 11:1-44). When Lazarus is given new life, he immediately responds and exits the tomb. In the same way, the spiritually dead sinner cannot respond to the gospel until he is given new life through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. Once he is regenerated, however, he immediately responds, placing his faith in Jesus. He is then justified by God.

Those who proclaim the gospel preach in a graveyard

Irresistible, or efficacious, grace is not a dry and dusty old doctrine that was invented by curmudgeonly Calvinists. It is, in fact, a glorious biblical doctrine, for without the efficacious work of the Holy Spirit, we would all be without hope in this world and the next. When we come to a full understanding of how serious our situation is as fallen human beings, our perspective on these doctrines changes dramatically. If we view fallen man as merely disabled or sick, we will never understand the full riches of God’s grace. When we see ourselves as God sees us, however, the truth of the matter is sobering. When we realize that we were spiritually stillborn, rebels against the Almighty and Most Holy God, the Creator of heaven and earth, wicked to our core, we will not have an overinflated sense of our own goodness and abilities. We will not delude ourselves into thinking that God chose us because of some innate goodness within us. We will not flatter ourselves in thinking that we are saved because we made the first move to come to God.

On the contrary, we will fall down on our knees and thank God every day for His amazing grace. We will thank God that He came to our tomb, when we were dead and helpless in sin, and cried out to us, “Come forth!” We will thank Him for giving us new life, for turning our wills from evil, for granting us faith and repentance, for bringing us out of the tomb and loosing us from the burial cloths in which we were bound. If we walked out of the tomb, it was not because of any power in us. It was not because we made a decision for Christ. Rather, it was solely because of the irresistible grace of God, the sovereign and mysterious work of the Holy Spirit, who gave us new life. When we finally learn this, we will, with Calvin and our Reformed forefathers, ascribe all glory to God alone for our salvation.

An excerpt from John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology by Burk Parsons.