Sovereign Saving Grace

Common Grace and Special Grace in Soteriology

Well, we are back in our study of Soteriology, which if you will remember is the study of the doctrine of salvation. And so tonight we are going to be continuing the second part of our study on the subject of common and special grace.

Now I know that each week we are, very few of us here because of everything that's going on and I'm not sure how many of you actually took the time to watch last week if you weren't here, but there is some necessary things that you need to know before I get to the second part.

So I'm going to just give a very quick overview of last week to ensure that we all understand what we learned and to be reminded so that when we go into tonight's lesson that we will be better prepared.

In the meantime, you can be turning in your Bibles to Romans chapter 9, Romans chapter 9. Last week we began to discuss the subject of grace and we said when it comes to the subject of grace, we have to distinguish grace from justice and mercy.

Mercy, justice is getting what we deserve. If a man stands before a judge and the law demands that that person receive a life sentence, the judge has not in any way been unjust by giving that man a life sentence if that is what he deserves.

Mercy is a pardoning of justice. So if the man is due a life sentence and the judge decides to give him 20 years with the possibility of parole, that's an act of mercy. Not giving him everything he deserved.

Or, as we've seen with our president who has the power of the pardon, if the president were to see a man who he believes deserves a pardon, or maybe doesn't deserve it but maybe he wants to grant it, he has the power to grant mercy.

He has the power to pardon. But grace is neither justice nor mercy. Grace is gift. Grace is not giving you what you deserve, that's justice, and it's not holding back what you deserve, which is mercy, but it's giving you something that you don't deserve.

It's giving you something that you have not earned. It is granting to you a profit that you truly do not and have not been able to produce for yourself. So grace is different and grace is amazing. We talked about that last week, the writer of Amazing Grace, John Newton, and how God had changed his life and how God had shown him what grace looks like and therefore he was able to say, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

So, that is the three categories that we're dealing with and primarily we're focused on the subject of grace. And when we get to grace, we have to again distinguish into two separate categories. And so this is where we looked last week.

Common Grace in Creation, Restraint, Conscience, and Blessing

In the category of grace, we have what is known as common grace and special or saving grace. Common grace would be grace that is enjoyed commonly. What do we mean by that? Enjoyed by all men everywhere regardless of the disposition of their heart.

All men enjoy four different ways in which God demonstrates grace. And I wrote them on the board last week. I'm sorry we're not doing handouts right now. I'd be happy to email you a PDF if you are so interested in keeping up with a notebook.

But the four areas that we looked at last week that God demonstrates common grace is first in his providential care in creation. Matthew 5, it rains on the just and the unjust. The Bible says in the Psalms that God is good to all of his creation.

That he has demonstrated goodness in all. I think we see that in things like medicine. Medicine works for believers and unbelievers. Surgeries work for the living and the dead in the sense of the spiritually living and the spiritually dead.

And so we can see providential care in God's creation which extends to all people commonly. And therefore we call it common grace. Not common in that it's not special. It's still very, very, very special.

But it's common in that it reaches a common audience. And it's not limited only to believers. The second is the restraining of sin. All men have a restraint on their heart. Even the most evil of men is not as evil as he could be.

Hitler could have killed a little more. And I've always joked. I say even Hitler loved his mama. You know, I mean there's a little bit of restraint of sin even in the most wicked of men. And the next is the conscience.

The conscience is what causes evil and wicked men to do good to one another. Even unbelievers will do good to one another. Now they don't do good towards God. And if we define good by that which is of faith, then we could say they never do any good at all.

But in the sense of common goodness, it's sort of like the old analogy that I've used in the past. The analogy of the pirate. Pirate is a bad guy. He's a maritime criminal. But he does good to the other people on the ship.

Because that's what you have to do to survive. That's what you have to do to live. And therefore the pirates are good to other pirates if they're all on the same ship. And we're all on the same ship. And therefore even unbelievers, because of their conscience, know that they are to do good to one another.

And they do. And that's an example of God's common grace. And the last one is blessings. There is a common sense of blessing which is enjoyed. And some people would argue and say, well God doesn't bless unbelievers.

Well it depends on how you define blessing. The very heart beating in their chest is a blessing. The very fact that they can go and eat food and they can enjoy that food is a blessing. In fact the Bible says those kindnesses should lead them to repentance.

Romans chapter 2 says the kindness of God should lead them to repentance. And the fact that it doesn't is an example of the depth of the depravity of man. The very fact that they don't eat an orange and have that juice run down their throat and taste the sweetness of it.

And enjoy that great wonderful piece of nature candy. And they eat it and they don't immediately repent of their sins and realize that God of the universe has been gracious to them. Then that's an example again of the depravity of the human heart.

And so we see these examples of common grace. But tonight we're going to look at what we call saving grace or special grace. Certainly God has a universal common grace which involves everyone. But he has a special love relationship for those people with whom he enters into a covenant relationship with.

And that is the key to tonight. Who are the recipients of the special grace? Those whom God chooses to enter into the relationship by way of covenant. Now you all are familiar with the word covenant. It comes very early in the scriptures.

God uses that word to regard his promise. When God makes a promise it's a pact, it's a contract, it's a covenant. It cannot be broken. When God made his covenant with Abraham it was not based upon Abraham's ability to fulfill anything.

It wasn't based on Abraham's ability to do anything. It was based on God's goodness. In fact Abraham tried to fulfill it himself, didn't he? His wife said, here's my handmaiden. I can't have a baby. Have a baby with her.

That was man's attempt to try to get God's blessing by his works. And Paul would later in Galatians say, no that's what works looks like. Grace is when the elderly woman well past bearing children is by God's grace given the ability to have a child.

And therefore the picture of Sarah and the picture of Hagar is the picture of God's blessing by grace. And Sarah, God's blessings tried to achieve through works with Hagar. And so we see the difference.

You cannot work for the grace of God. It's God who chooses to be gracious and enter into covenant with us. And so we see this in Romans 9. I've invited you to turn there. And in Romans chapter 9, I really wish I had time to go through the entire chapter.

This is of course one of the most influential passages regarding the issue of Calvinism versus Arminianism, reform theology. In fact, Michael Brown was debating Dr. James White. Michael Brown is an Arminian.

James White is a Calvinist. And they were debating on the subject of Calvinism. And one of the questions that was asked during the Q &A portion was this. Dr. Brown, what passage of scripture do you think is most difficult for your side?

Meaning the side of the Arminian. What passage do you think most clearly explains the Calvinistic or the reformed side? And he said Romans chapter 9. Without even really having to debate or to have to think about it much.

He said Romans 9 is the one. And I remember sitting with this passage in my old house. It was right across the street down the road here. Jennifer and I lived there in a little two bedroom house. And we lived there before we had the kids.

And I remember having been introduced to reformed theology. And the person who introduced me to the doctrine of grace and challenged me. He said just read Romans 9. He said spend some time with it. Roll it over in your mind and get what it's saying.

And I began to do that. And I remember sitting on my couch. Jennifer was in the kitchen. We lived in a little shotgun house. The front door and back door sort of matched up. And you could walk right in the front and right out the back.

It was a very small house. And I would shout at her from the living room. And I would say, hey baby. Don't this sound like what Brother Jim's talking about? And then I'd read her a section of Romans 9.

And she'd go, yeah. And I'd read a little more. And I'd say, hey baby. I think they might be right. That's 2004. Say how long ago that was. But this passage is so powerful. And like I said, I wish I had time to go through it all.

But the point of tonight is not to prove Calvinism. The point of tonight is to simply look at what this says about God's freedom to choose to save whom he will. Because that's special grace. All right.

God's Sovereign Choice in Romans 9

So beginning in verse 6. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. Why would Paul even say that? Because the accusation is if God wanted to save all of Israel, most of Israel is not believing in Jesus.

All right. That's the point. So if God wanted to save Israel, most of Israel does not believe in Jesus. So that means God's failed. Or God's word has failed. All right. So he says, it is not as though the word of God has failed.

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel and not all the children of Abraham because they are his offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. Stop right there. When God made his covenant with Abraham, he said it's for you and your children.

But it wasn't for all of his children. It was for the child of the promise. It was through Isaac that the promise would come. Not through Ishmael, the child of works, which we discussed a moment ago. Neither would it be through Eleazar of Damascus, his adopted son, who he had before he ever had any physical children.

And it would not be through the children of Kithorah, the wife that he had after Sarai died. If you read in Genesis, you'll learn that he had another wife after Sarai. And he had many sons and daughters with her.

But it would not be through those lines that God's promise would come. The line of promise would be through Isaac. And that was God's choice. And God chose Isaac. And he doesn't stop there. He says this means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return and Sarah will have a son. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told, the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

So here is what the Apostle Paul is doing. He is making an analogy. He is saying, see, God has a choice. And God makes a choice. And God makes the choice prior to a person's having done anything good or bad.

And somebody says, but wait, God knows what they are going to do. God knows what they are going to do. And therefore God can make a choice before they do anything good or bad, knowing that they are going to do good or bad.

And so God is still influenced by their good or bad because he knows what they are going to do. But that is the exact opposite of Paul's argument. Paul's argument is very clear. God is choosing before they are born to show that he is not choosing based upon one being good and one being bad.

But he is choosing to show that his election is what causes his choice, not their goodness or their badness. And might I add, if you were to look at Isaac's two sons, Jacob and Esau, and you were to compare which one was most bad, maybe I should have said worst, would you not come away saying Isaac's son Jacob was the scoundrel?

I mean, Esau certainly had his problems. I mean, he was willing to sell his birthright for a pot of stew. But the reality is Isaac had another son named Jacob, and Jacob was no better than his brother.

He was not better in the sense of being more virtuous. In fact, he was less virtuous. He was willing to have his mother glue onto his arm's hair so that he could trick his father into believing that he was his hairier brother.

Oh, what a scene! It must have been. To go and to fool the aged Isaac, the one whose eyes had become dim and could not see his own son but could feel his arms. You sound like Jacob, he says. No, feel my arms.

It's me. It's Esau. How did you get the animal so quickly? I'm just that good of a hunter. As so many theologians have pointed out, I know Dr. Sproul has pointed out, and many others, when we read Romans 9 .13, and it says, Jacob I loved and Esau I hated.

We should not be surprised by Esau I hated. We should be surprised by Jacob I loved. We should not be surprised that God could have a relationship of animosity or enmity with an individual because God has enmity with all of us because of sin.

We should be surprised that He would enter into the relationship of grace and love and mercy with any of us because none of us deserve it. That's the point. That's the point of the whole passage. It's that God didn't choose this person because He was obligated, but because of His purpose of election, He chose before they were born so that He could say, I'm not choosing based on what they've done, but I'm choosing twins.

I'm choosing one of two to show that it's my choice. You see, people don't like that. People don't like the idea that God is free in grace. You know that's why we call the church what we call it? What's the name of our church?

Sovereign Grace. What is sovereign? I had a guy challenge me this week on one of our YouTube pages. He saw me sitting in front of the sign and he goes, Oh, you Calvinists, you don't know what sovereign means.

I said, Oh, nay, nay. He backed the truck up. I didn't engage with the guy. He seemed a little... But the point of the matter, sovereign means the one who rules all. But we don't just call our church Sovereign Church.

We call it Sovereign Grace because what we are most focused on in the title is that God is free to show his grace to whom he wills. That's what we mean when we focus on Sovereign Grace. Read along a little further with me because after verse 13, Paul really drives the point home.

He says, beginning in verse 14, What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? I love that question. Because this is the heart of the question, by the way. And by the way, if you are... Paul is the master at anticipating the objection.

All through his writings, he'll say something and then he'll say, But you will say to me this. Jesus was that way, too. Jesus would say, But you will say to me. And he will respond to the objection before the objection is even raised.

That's the mark of a good teacher. When the teacher knows what the student is going to ask before the student even has the ability to frame in his mind his question. And so when Paul says, God has chosen Jacob.

He has not chosen Esau. He has loved one and he has hated the other. And by the way, just so I don't forget this because I did kind of go past it quick. A lot of people give a hard time and they say, That doesn't mean God hated him.

It means he loved him less. Well. I don't have time to go into that right now, but let me say this. Even if that were so. Even if that were so. And that was how you interpret Romans 9 .13. God loved Esau less.

What that does show us is that there is a distinguishing characteristic in the love of God. He can choose to love whom he wants, how he wants. I had a guy tell me one time, God loves everybody equally.

No distinctions. God loves everybody the same. And I said, Jacob, I loved Esau. I hated. He said, That means love less. If you just told me God loves everybody equally. I say, Jacob, he loved Esau. He hated.

He said, That means love less. I said, You got to go home and take a nap. Sorry for those at home. I just hit this. This microphone is really hot. I bet it just drives me nuts because he's not very thoughtful.

If it means love less, it means love less. That means not love the same. All men have common grace. We could say that's a form of love. We could say that's a form of God's love. Not all men have special grace.

Not all men have saving grace. That is the love of God that changes the heart. And so we read. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? The question right there is simple. What shall we say?

Does that mean God's unfair? Keith, you said God doesn't love everybody the same. Does that mean God is unfair? By no means. Now you might think, verse 15, he's going to say God's fair. No. In fact, he's going to double down.

He's going to double down so hard it's going to hit you in the face if you've never thought about it. Listen to what he says. Verse 15. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

Oh. Know what he said? Is there injustice on God's part, Paul? By no means. Because God gets to do what he wants to do. And he don't need your approval. By no means. God has said I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.

That's unfair. Fair is where you go and get bad food and ride bad rides. Fair has nothing to do with justice. Because if you got what was fair, you'd all go to hell. The only way to understand the saving grace of God is to understand the fact that every one of us deserves the unmitigated fury and wrath of God forever.

And the fact that he would even extend an olive branch at all, the fact that he would extend grace at all is an act of sheer love and mercy. And this text is very important because I remember when Dr. James White pointed this out years and years and years ago when I was first really coming to understand these things.

And he pointed out the fact that verse 15 when he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, I have compassion on whom I have compassion. The word mercy here is the verb which we don't have in English.

If I said, Daisy, I'm going to have mercy on you and I'm going to do something for you because you have a need. That's to have mercy. But in Greek I would say I'm going to mercy you. And it would be active.

The act of mercying is a verb in Greek. It's not a verb in English. We don't typically talk about mercying people. So that being said, reading the text this way, it actually says, for he says to Moses, I will mercy whom I will mercy and I will compassion on whom I compassion.

I will. It's an act of God to mercy someone. And he goes on in verse 16. So then this is one of the ones I shouted to Jennifer at. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

What is it? The act of God showing grace is not based on what I do, but it's based on him. He's the one who chooses to do it. He's the one who actively does it. He's the one putting forward the effort.

He reaches after me. I don't reach up to him. My arms are, as it were, tied to my side in my sin and I don't want to even look up. And God reaches down into the muck and the mire of my sin. I'm dead in trespasses and sin and God reaches down into the deadness of my sin and he picks me up and he saves me.

And it's an act of grace, special, saving grace. And then he uses two examples. He uses the example of Pharaoh and, in a sense, the people of Israel are Moses because he says this. So for the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So then he mercies whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. The picture there is Pharaoh and he says to Pharaoh, I hardened your heart. Why? Because I'm God. I made a decision to do this. I'm not unfair in doing it.

You had the desire to hate me anyway. I did not put fresh evil in your heart. All I did is, as I talked about several weeks ago, when God hardens the heart, all that means is the removing of any common grace in the heart, causing that heart to become, as it were, a stone, like taking moisture out of a piece of clay, takes all of the softness out of it and makes it hard like a piece of rock.

When God removes that grace from the heart and the person's heart is hardened, God's will to do that in the life of Pharaoh. Somebody might say, well, that is tremendously unfair because he was so gracious to Moses.

But again, you're back into the category of justice. And what do we deserve from God? Nothing but wrath. So when you start saying it's not fair, you're arguing with Paul. When you start saying it's unjust, Paul would say to you, if you got what you deserve, it wouldn't be grace.

Because grace is unmerited. Now he goes on in verse 19. You will say to me then, why does he, that is God, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? Now you understand the question. Remember, Paul is anticipating the objection.

And the objection is the person who says, Paul, if what you're saying is true, then why does God find fault with us? If we're just doing what he made us to do, if we were created this way and we didn't really have a choice, why does he still find fault with us?

Have you ever heard that argument against Calvinism? Boy, I have. I've heard that a thousand times in a thousand different ways. And you know, it's easy to want to respond to the objection with some kind of very philosophical answer.

Well, we have to understand the idea of causation, primary causation and secondary causation and the fact that our sin is still our desire and our choice and we're still acting on the desires of our heart.

And Paul doesn't do any of that. He says, who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? His answer is, you are a man. And God is God. And the moment you think for a second that you can come to him with an objection to his will, you have misunderstood who you are and you have misunderstood who he is.

In fact, the Greek actually begins, oh man, who are you? The idea is focusing on the man. The fact that he's creature. And he goes on, Will that which is molded say to the molder, why have you made me like this?

And he goes on to talk about the potter and the clay. If you've never read it, I would encourage you to read Dr. James White's book, The Potter's Freedom. It's a very good book and it really does, it takes you through Romans 9 and it helps to understand what he means by the potter and the clay.

But the key is in the title. Is it not the potter's choice to take the same lump and make two vessels? One vessel for common use and one for special use. And the answer, of course, is yes. Now it goes on like I said, I don't have time to go through everything, but the point of it is when we come to the issue of special grace, what you have to understand and the thing I'm trying to put across to everyone tonight is it is special first and foremost because you do not do anything to deserve it.

If you are saved tonight, you need to get down on your knees, you need to thank God that He extended to you saving grace because you certainly did not earn it yourself. Neither did I. The great thing about saving grace, the key thing about saving grace is that it's freely given by God to whosoever He chooses.

Assurance of Salvation, Regeneration, and the New Birth

Now, somebody might say, well, how do I know I'm one of them? And that's a good question. And it's a very important question to be able to answer because I've heard it said, well, if you're a Calvinist, you can't ever have any assurance because you are going to spend your whole life wondering am I one of those elect?

Am I numbered among those ones God has chosen? God has given us a way to know. In fact, the whole book of 1 John, these things have been written that you may know that you have eternal life. Read the whole book.

I have chapters long over and over and over telling you how you can know but the primary way that you know, that you know, that you know is that at some time in your life you went from being a child of death, a child of this world, a child of darkness, and you were brought into the family of God.

And it was by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus. And you say, but wait a minute, those are things I do. You just said God does it. Let me tell you, folks, and we're going to talk about this a lot more in the weeks to come.

Repentance and faith are both a gift of Almighty God. Your heart couldn't do it. Your heart wouldn't do it. But if you have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is because God, by His sovereign grace, gave you the gift of regeneration.

You have believed because the Lord opened your heart to believe. When Lydia met Paul, she heard a man preaching something she'd never heard before. And the text says in the book of Acts, God opened up her heart and she believed.

Jesus said, unless a man be born again, he will... Oh, let me show you this. It'll be the last verse of tonight. Go to John chapter 3. You know this passage, but here's the part most people miss. Jesus has Nicodemus come to Him at night.

We know the story. Nicodemus begins to tell Jesus how good He is. You know, we all know that you're man sent from God. Jesus says those faithful words. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus says to Him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb? Jesus answered, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water in the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. Now, verse eight is the key, often overlooked. The wind blows where it wishes.

You hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. You say, what's he talking about there, Pastor? When a person is born again, you can't see the birth, but you see the results.

And the result of the spirit of God moving on a person is like the results of wind hitting the trees. We see the wind hit the trees and the trees move. When the spirit of God hits the heart of a man and gives him the new birth, he is changed.

Have you been changed? Has God changed your heart? Beloved, have you been brought to faith and repentance? If so, I can say, on the authority of the word of God, you do not need to live in doubt as to whether or not you are one of the elect.

Now, I will say this, the Bible says we should make our calling and election sure. We should examine ourselves to see if we are trusting in anything other than the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we should always do that.

But at the end of the day, my assurance is not in what I have done, but my assurance is in what Christ has done for me. And he verifies it to me in the spirit who lives within me and by which I cry out, Abba, Father.

The spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. Praise the Lord. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time of study, Lord. I thank you for Brother Andy and the devotion in the Psalms.

And I pray, Lord, that you will continue to bless our teaching together. I so enjoy it. I thank you for this text and the opportunity to study together. So, Lord, may it be that you just continue in the weeks to come to open more doors for us to be back together.

And, Lord, for those who have come tonight or maybe who are listening online who have never received the Lord Jesus Christ by faith and repentance, that even now that you would open up their hearts to believe because only you can do it.

Lord, we call them to repentance, but we know that they will never receive it. They will never come until you do that work in their heart, Lord. So we trust you and we ask you to be merciful to those who hear, Lord.

May they come. In Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.