We Are His Workmanship, Part 2

Introduction: The Capstone of Salvation by Grace

0:03 Now let us turn in the scriptures to Ephesians, the second chapter.

0:10 Ephesians, the second chapter.

0:14 I shall read again, as we have for a number of weeks, verses 8 through 10. Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 8 through 10.

0:32 For by grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God aforeprepared that we should walk in them. We come today to our concluding study in these verses, which I have called a compendium of salvation by grace. A brief.

1:10 Yes. A comprehensive statement of what it means to be saved by grace. And last week, our attention was focused on verse 10, the capstone of the apostles' demonstration that salvation must be all of grace and all of God, because, as he tells us in verse 10, we are his workmanship, created in Christ, unto good works, therefore we cannot be our own workmanship, nor can good works be the basis of our acceptance with God.

1:50 And all I attempted to do last week was to open up the teaching of verse 10 with very little application. And I set before you that verse 10 contains a fundamental assertion, and then the answer to three very practical questions that grow out of that assertion. The assertion is, we are his workmanship. An assertion in which the dominant idea is that we cannot contribute to our salvation because our very standing in grace is a manifestation of God's handiwork.

The Biblical Principle of Demolishing Error

2:26 And the emphasis upon God's work is in the text, by the very position of the pronoun, his workmanship we are, and by the use of the noun workmanship or handiwork, which simply means, the thing made or created. Well then, three very practical questions grow out of that assertion. Question one, how are we made his handiwork? And the answer of the text is, by being created in Christ Jesus.

2:58 We are made his handiwork by the exertion of creative omnipotence. We are created in Christ Jesus by the establishment of a redemptive relationship. We are created. In Christ Jesus.

3:14 Second question, what's the purpose of this new creation? And he answers, for good works. Good works are the noble and the inevitable product of the new creation, therefore they cannot be its ground or its cause. And what then, question three, is the nature and origin of these works, unto which we've been created?

3:37 Why they are works which God aforeprepared, that we should walk in them. Having opened up the text, we made but one basic application last Lord's Day, namely, the fact that a Christian is someone who defies all explanation, but that God has put forth in his life, creative omnipotence, and has established in his life this redemptive relationship. Today, I desire to demonstrate that this text is unusually suited to establish certain fundamental truths, and to demolish certain fundamental errors that have plagued the church throughout its history,

4:21 and continue to plague the church to this very hour. Now let me give a little polemic, a little demonstration of the rightness of showing what the text establishes and what it demolishes, the positive and the negative. And we need turn nowhere other than the 119th Psalm to see this biblical principle vividly illustrated. In Psalm 119 and verse 104, the psalmist says, Through thy precepts I get understanding.

4:57 That's positive. Therefore, I hate every false way. That's negative. Every new understanding of truth, the apostle, I'm sorry, the psalmist says, creates in him a new dimension of hatred for error.

5:16 The same thought is found in the 128th of the same psalm. Therefore, I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way. The more he came to appreciate the rightness of God's precepts, the more he hated everything that was a deflection from those precepts. And then verse 163 in the same chapter, I hate and abhor falsehood, but thy law do I love.

5:53 And the mature Christian, the Christian living in the light of the full orb of biblical norms, will always have these two things, a growing love for truth and a growing hatred for error. Now, some people err. By temperament and background and association, they're all positive. They love the truth.

6:16 They say they do. But they have an indifference with respect to error. They have no holy hatred for error. I question the genuineness of any professed love that does not have a direct proportion of capacity to hate.

6:32 And there are others, you see, who are strong on hatred for error. And they're all out for snuffing out heresy under every blade of grass. But they show very little positive understanding of the truth and love for the truth. I suspect that it's more temperament entering in than principle when there's all hatred and no love.

6:53 But the balanced Christian will be the one who can say with the psalmist, I esteem all thy precepts in all things to be right, and therefore I hate every false way. So this morning, having expounded verse 10, I wish to demonstrate some tremendous truths which this text establishes, loving its precepts, and certain errors that it demolishes, hating every false way. And I'm going to collate the material under the figure of the truth of God being likened unto a beautiful temple. If we take the whole counsel of God and liken it to a beautiful temple,

Pillar 1: Salvation is All of God as to its Origin (Monergism vs. Synergism)

7:39 with all of the parts in proper relationship to each other and to the whole, and that temple, of course, a reflection of the very glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, what we're going to do this morning is to look at one major section of the temple of God's truth, that section called God's salvation of needy sinners. And that particular section of the temple dealing with how God rescues needy sinners, rests upon three tremendous pillars. And those pillars support the whole of this section of the temple.

8:21 And they are like the pillars in that heathen temple where Samson found himself in the latter days of his life, and when he was able to pull in those two pillars, the whole superstructure came tumbling down upon him and all who were in that particular structure. Well, the doctrine of God's word concerning God's method of rescuing sinners rests upon these three pillars. And if these pillars begin to be weakened, if these pillars crumble, the whole biblical doctrine concerning God's method of rescuing sinners crumbles with those pillars. And this text, more perhaps than any other text

9:05 I've ever discovered in the Scriptures, establishes the nature of those three pillars, and demolishes every effort made by man to crumble, to attack, to weaken those pillars. Alright? Pillar number one. This text establishes pillar one.

9:26 And it is this. Salvation, or man's deliverance from sin and its consequences, is all of God as to its origin. Salvation is all of God as to its origin. Salvation is all of God as to its origin.

9:45 Now, how is this established in the text? Well, you remember, if you were here last week, that it is established by the use of these words, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. When the apostle is about to conclude this section of the first paragraph in Ephesians 2, beginning with verse 4 and ending with verse 10, in which he is describing the transformation which God has brought to pass, you remember that he began the description with these words in verse 4, but God. In other words, he says,

10:29 I'm going to tell you what God has done, and then he concludes with the same emphasis, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. And so he is telling us that salvation is all of God in its inception, because we are His workmanship, we are His handiwork, not His handiwork plus our own, not His handiwork plus the church, not His handiwork plus the sacraments, we are His handiwork and His alone. And then the very manner in which he begins that work, we are a new creation.

11:13 Now would anyone say that the concept of creation in the Bible involves cooperation between the Creator and the thing created? Can you think of the biblical concept of creation and in any way mingle the activity of the created with the activity of the Creator? Of course not. Of course not.

11:40 And that's why the Apostle uses this imagery. This is why he uses that very word which is used to describe the original work of creation, because he wants to establish once and for all pillar number one, supporting this section of the temple of God's truth concerning salvation from sin. He is telling us salvation is all of God in its origin. It is God who made us His handiwork, and He did so by a new creation.

12:14 The God who quickened us and raised and seated us with Christ. This is the God who is the agent in the work of deliverance. And even though in this passage as we saw in previous studies, our faith is given its due place in the complex of God's saving work, and even though in this very text our works are given their proper place, as the fruit and the integral part of our salvation, He is careful to emphasize as to its origin, whatever place faith may have, whatever place our works may have,

12:53 we are the workmanship of God and of God alone. And therefore I like to think of this pillar as having inscribed upon it, Jonah 2 and verse 10. Salvation. Salvation is of the Lord.

13:12 That's the great truth established by this text. Now then, what error is demolished by this text? Let us not think for a moment that this biblical truth is readily received or easily maintained in a sinful world. Satan, the father of all error, is relentless in seeking to detract from the glory of God.

13:37 And if he can somehow mar this pillar, put cracks in this pillar, cause men to doubt the existence of that pillar, then he has accomplished his own wicked designs. Now the attempts to attack this pillar have found expression in some form of what has been called in the history of theological discussion, synergism. And I want to give you a little vocabulary lesson this morning. There are two words, very similar but different in meaning, that you ought to know, and you ought to be aware of their meaning.

14:13 One is the word syncretism. Syncretism, which means to combine. And syncretism in the history of the church has been an effort to unite all professing brands of Christianity, and in our day, to unite Christianity with all other major religions. So you keep whittling down to a minimum of truth, and this is a very real threat.

14:35 There's dialogue going on between Christians, quote, and Muslims, to find areas of truth, of common consent and agreement. And there are syncretists abroad today. The whole missions wing of the World Council of Churches is syncretistic to the core. It wants to unite all religions.

14:55 But we're not dealing with syncretism, but with synergism. And the word synergism simply means to work together. And this is the teaching that God and man cooperate, work together in the salvation of the sinner. And they work together, not so much in the outworking of that salvation, but in originating and in implementing that salvation, bringing it into the possession of the sinner.

15:24 Now this found early expression in the desire to attach saving merit to religious rituals. Why is mankind so stubborn in trying to put saving merit in the waters of baptism, or in the wine, and in the bread, or in religious ritual? For the simple reason, that if he can get saving merit in things he can do, then he can manipulate the saving mercy. He can be co-worker with God in the salvation.

15:53 Then it found a tragic expression in the early 400's A.D. in a man named Pelagius, who with two strong disciples, named Celestius and Julian of Aclanum, taught that man had inherent power to do what is right. There was no sense in which he was conceived in sin in such a way as to give him a positive bias to evil, and a moral inability to do what is good.

16:26 Every man is his own Adam. And synergism of this kind was of course refuted by the teaching and ministry of Augustine or Augustine, whichever you prefer. And then throughout the church, this constant tension has been in evidence between synergism, God and man working together for salvation on the one hand, and its opposite, monergism, that is God alone working for the salvation of his people. The error would not die with Augustine and with Pelagius.

17:07 It merged into the official teaching of the church of Rome in a form of semi-Pelagianism, in which men were taught, no, you cannot be your own savior, you're born in sin and all the rest, but you can favorably dispose yourself to receive the grace of God. You see? You do something that puts you in a more savable or salvable position. Well then further on in classic Arminianism, which is a more modified form of semi-Pelagianism, it was stated, no, you can do nothing of yourself, to prepare yourself, but God has given a measure of common grace to all men, which if they will use,

17:51 will trigger the whole process and put you in the savable position. And further on it even became more refined in what would now be called classic Lutheranism. They even go further and say it's all of grace, but when the word comes, there is such power in that word that for a moment, the sinner who hears the gospel is suspended above the downward pull of his own innate power, his innate depravity and can make a valid and free decision. And Lutheranism has gone as far as synergism can go.

18:25 Now if there are any Lutherans here who are at all aware of your theology, you would be insulted by my using the term synergism, but call it a rose is a rose called by any other name. And when you say that the difference between men remaining impenitent and men coming to faith, ultimately lies with man, you're a synergist. And you're saying in some degree, we are his workmanship plus something of our own. Well of course the classic expression in our day is the whole doctrine of free will, as it's commonly understood and believed in evangelical circles.

19:08 You've heard this, haven't you? God has done all he can for your salvation, now it's up to you. God can do nothing more, all the rest, all the salvations in Christ, but God can do nothing more to get you into Christ. You must trigger the process that will get you into Christ.

19:27 Now once you're into Christ, it's all of him. But it's you who make the difference to get you into Christ. Now I say this text demolishes every single form of synergism from modern day free willism, to classic Lutheranism, to classic Arminianism, to semi-Pelagianism, down to blatant open Pelagianism, because the fundamental flaw in all of these systems of thought is they do not square with the language of this text. Handiwork we are.

20:09 We are created in Christ Jesus. And there is no system which attempts to bring together the teaching of the Bible that does justice to these terms, but that which is expressed in the words reformed theology, Calvinism, those are mere names. And we're not here to defend names or people, but we're here to proclaim and to defend the word, and to demolish the errors which the word demolishes.

20:42 One old commentator writing on this very passage says, For here, the apostle shows that the creating of us in Adam is but a bringing of us to destruction, and therefore we must be fashioned and created anew again, namely even in Christ Jesus, who is the second Adam, as he himself calls him in the fifth chapter to the Romans and the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians. You see then, that this word create is enough to stop the mouths and put away the cackling of such as boast of having any merit.

21:26 For when they say so, they presuppose that they were their own creators. He that attributes to himself any freedom of will and takes upon himself to have any means or ability to do good of himself, certainly denotes his intention to step into God's place and to show himself to be a creator. But there is no man who does not abhor such blasphemy. The most blind and crazy people in the world regard the word creation as a holy and sacred thing and will say that God is the creator or maker of all things.

22:03 And you, hypocrite, confess the same with your mouth, and yet you only lie, since you think you have some free will to advance yourself to good and to salvation, and so you deny the first article of your faith, for you make God only half a creator. You see his argument? If you destroy the concept of creation in redemption, that it is by a creative act that we are brought into Christ, then you must have necessity to destroy that of which it is a reflection, namely the original creation when God brought all into being out of nothing. And I promised I wouldn't read the further commentary in which he used real strong language.

22:45 He says that any who teach this ought to be spat upon in their faces. Well, I don't know if I'd go quite that strong living in a different age, which is not quite socially acceptable, except if it was fitting in people's faces. But you see what happened is, the man who was looking upon this passage found his soul merging with the soul of the psalmist who said, I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, therefore I hate every false way. But we're being told in our day, look, these distinctives of your quote, reformed faith, it's all right to believe them, just don't preach them.

23:24 Just don't seek to, to inundate the world with them. Friends, listen, I have absolutely nothing, nothing in my spirit that wants me to defend names and movements. But as a preacher of the word of God, I must be honest with these words. Here in workmanship we are in Christ Jesus.

23:46 What do those words mean? If they do not teach the strictest form of monergism, then they teach us nothing. And so the first pillar in this grand temple of God, God's truth, that section of the temple in which is displayed His glorious salvation, that pillar stands and is established by this text. God and God alone is the author of our salvation.

Pillar 2: Salvation is All in Christ as to its Foundation (Christ Alone vs. Galatianism)

24:17 Salvation is all of God as to its origin. Now we come to the second pillar. And that pillar is this. Salvation is all, in Christ, that it might be all of grace.

24:36 Salvation is all of God as to origin. It is all in Christ as to foundation. And it is in Christ that it might be of grace. Now how is this established in the text?

24:52 Well, let's look at it. When Paul says we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus, who are the we? Well, the we are those described in verses 1 to 3. They were described as being utterly devoid of the life of God.

25:10 Verse 1, dead on account of trespasses and of sins. They were described as bound by the world, the devil, and their own lusts. They were described as children of disobedience. They were described as those who were exposed and justly liable to the wrath of Almighty God.

25:35 Now in that condition, dead, bound, condemned, there was absolutely nothing to produce deserved intervention. There was nothing in us that could create concern, could coerce God to design or to execute a salvation on our behalf. There was everything in us to call forth His judgment, everything in us to call forth His judgment. Therefore, if anything comes from God to creatures described in verse 1 to 3, other than judgment, then the basis must be grace,

26:18 and it must rest upon a foundation outside of ourselves. And that's why this text says that the whole work of the new creation has as its sphere union with Christ. Look at it. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus.

26:41 In other words, the only sphere in which God's mighty work of creative omnipotence operates is the sphere of Christ Jesus, the sphere of those redemptive realities that are found in the person and work of Jesus Christ, our Lord. It is in union with the Redeemer and in union with Him alone that we are made new creatures. And so this second pillar is wonderfully established. The salvation which is of God in its origin, pillar one, is the salvation which is to be found in Christ and Christ alone.

27:25 And it is therefore a salvation by grace and by grace alone. Now, what error then is demolished by this text? And again, let none think that pillar number two has stood without vicious attacks upon it. Well, the efforts made to attack this pillar, to mar this pillar, to demolish it, have always found expression in some form of what I am calling Galatianism.

27:56 And let me explain why I'm using the term. I'm using the term Galatianism because it identifies what I'm attempting to say with the book of Galatians and in particular the heresy that the apostle had to attack when he wrote the book of Galatians. And the heresy at Galatia, if we bring it to its simplest terms, was this. Christ is not enough.

28:23 It was not. Christ is no good. Christ has no place. Christ is not needed.

28:31 The heresy with which the Judaizers, Judaizers were infecting the church at Galatia or the churches in Galatia, was the heresy that Christ is not enough. Whatever grace is in Christ, whatever place that grace may have in our salvation, it is not complete without circumcision and certain aspects of the ceremonial law. And so the apostle says, he observed days and months and years, he says, you that would find salvation in circumcision, you're binding yourself to a salvation of works. And if you are circumcised, understanding the intent of it,

29:15 Christ shall profit you nothing. There is this constant warfare in the book of Galatians between the statement Christ is enough. Christ is not enough. Is it Christ alone or is it Christ plus?

29:30 So you see the progression of heresy. If synergism errs in saying, I can get into the saving fountain by myself, God plus me get me in, Galatianism says that the fountain must have something other than Christ himself. Synergism says God plus me work to get us into the orbit and when you're in it, the saving virtue flows from Christ plus. Circumcision, work, ceremonial, legal, or even evangelical, as we intimated several weeks ago.

30:10 Now this text will not bear such an understanding. Early in the church it found expression in Galatianism and as church history unfolded we see it wasn't long before circumcision, I'm sorry, superstitious ideas attached themselves to baptism and you first of all had clinical baptisms and then you had infant baptism and then you have the magical notions attaching themselves to the Lord's Supper until in those dark ages when Rome, as it were, ruled the religious world, there was such a blurring of this with indulgences and all of these other trappings of medieval Rome. Then during the period of the Reformation

30:53 this truth was once again brought out in its full apostolic glory that we are saved on the basis of the work of Christ alone. It is the perfection of His obedience, not ours. It is the perfection of His atonement, not our penance and flagellations and pilgrimages. It is the efficacy of His intercession, not that of the saints and of other human beings.

31:22 It is the acceptableness of His righteousness and not our own. It was this grand and glorious truth that the only ground of a sinner's acceptance is to be found in who Christ is and what Christ has and does presently do for needy sinners. Well, you see, this error of Galatianism that would add something to Christ, it cannot stand before verse 10. We are His workmanship created in what sphere?

31:53 The sphere of Christ Jesus plus nothing else. Christ alone, Christ only, Christ in the perfection of His work, Christ in the satisfaction He has rendered to the Father. And let us not think that this error has died. In attending this Catholic Charismatic Movement Thursday night, you know what we began with?

32:21 We began with some real fundamentalist music. We started with, I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, sung with guitars. A little modification of the last phrase, I want to share it with you, instead of feed it down in my heart to stay, as I want to share it with you. And then there was some singing of a few psalms.

32:43 But then it was interesting. You know what the opening prayer was? It was a prayer addressed first of all to the Lord Jesus, and then without a break, we found ourselves praying to Mary, followed with a Hail Mary. And then the whole thing was concluded.

33:00 And everything led up to the Mass. And in between there was Bible reading, Bible quoting, singing psalms. But the core of the heresy of Rome remained untouched.

33:14 Christ plus the saints, Christ plus Mary, Christ's sacrifice plus the Mass. Is it Christ plus my trip down the aisle? Christ plus my raised hand? Christ plus my decision card?

33:32 Christ plus? No, no. The issue that is set forth in this text is that it's Christ, and Christ alone. And then we come to the third grand pillar that is set forth in this passage of the Word of God, and it is this.

Pillar 3: Salvation Results in a Transformed Life (Transformed Life vs. Notionalism/Antinomianism)

33:48 Pillar number three. Pillar one, salvation is of God alone in its origin. Salvation is Christ alone in its foundation. Thirdly, salvation results in a transformed life.

34:06 How is that established in the text? Well, look at it. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before prepared that we should walk in them. What was our condition?

34:22 Our actual practice, to use the contemporary terminology, what was our lifestyle prior to the new creation? We go back to verses one to three. We are described in verse two as walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind. What's this a description of?

34:54 It's a description of a real lifestyle. A lifestyle that is based upon a walk governed by the devil, by the world, and by lust. Our native spiritual habitat was the world, the devil, and carnal lust. But now our text says, we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God before prepared that we should, and it's the same word used here as you find in the first part of verse two, that we should walk around in them, would be a literal translation.

35:33 Works that we should walk around in them, that is good works, will be our native spiritual habitat. No longer walking according to the course of this age, but of the age which is to come. No longer walking in works dictated by the prince of the power of the air, but by King Jesus. Therefore verse ten establishes that these works are the necessary fruit of the new creation.

36:04 They are an integral part of God's salvation. As surely as he created us in Christ, he shall realize that goal, not to perfection in this life, but in principle, yes, for wherever and whenever the seed falls upon good soil, it will bear fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some a hundredfold, but bear fruit, because if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is past, and the new has come. Now having established that third pillar,

36:45 that salvation always results in the transformed lifestyle, what error does it demolish? Well, it demolishes an error that has two sides to it. The error of notionalism and antinomianism. And I'll explain what I mean by the terms.

37:02 Notionalism is the error that says faith in Jesus Christ, the work of God in constituting a new creation, has no ethical or moral implications of necessity. Faith is conceived of primarily as nodding the mental furniture in the direction of Christ and His salvation. Notionalism bleeds faith of its ethical and moral implications. It refuses to face the fact that faith, saving faith, is described in Scripture as an activity of the heart, for with the heart man believeth, and the heart is the seed of my being.

37:47 It strips faith of the implications of submission, the ethical and moral implications of faith. That's notionalism. And then its twin error, or its Siamese twin, is antinomianism, which basically means against the law, which is the logic of the devil. Romans 6.

38:06 Having asserted where sin abounds, grace does much more abound, and the logic of the devil is mentioned by Paul. Shall we then sin that grace may abound? If I'm saved, not on the basis of what I do, but on the basis of what another has done, now here's the devil's logic, then what I do makes no difference.

38:27 If I'm saved on the basis of Christ's works, not mine, therefore my works don't matter. If they're good, fine, if they're bad, well, we just magnify the fact that I'm saved not on the basis of what I am or what I do, but what Christ did. That's the logic of the devil. This text establishes once and for all that a transformed life, a radically different lifestyle, is the necessary fruit of the new creation.

38:55 We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, afore prepared of God, that we should walk in them. It demolishes the errors of notionalism and antinomianism. Now, early in the church, these errors sought to take root. The book of James is James' answer to the notionalism of the early Jewish Christians.

39:19 He says, you people say you've got faith? He says, the demons believe in tremble. Notionalism. They had a faith that was divorced from practical godliness.

39:31 And he says, that kind of faith cannot save you. If it's living faith, it will produce works. Second Peter, the book of Jude, speak to the subject of antinomianism right through the ancient church into the Middle Ages, right through the Reformation, and down to the present hour. The whole Sandemanian controversy.

39:53 Some of you fellows are aware of this. Sandemanianism is a form of notionalism.

40:02 Write down to the present day the carnal Christian theory that you can be in Christ and not be performing anything but works of the flesh. And all you do is lose a few rewards, break the Lord's heart, but you'll still make it by the skin of your teeth. What's the cardinal flaw of all forms of notionalism and antinomianism? The cardinal flaw is it cannot do, they cannot do justice to verse 10 of Ephesians 2.

40:30 Wherever the new creation is effected, it is unto good works. And I ask this question. Will God design, will God initiate, and will God apply a salvation only to be frustrated in the very intent for which he conceived, initiated, and applied that salvation? Have you got a God who moves with omnipotence to make new creatures, but who'll have his hands tied in the production of the very goal for which he made them new creatures?

41:05 Are you fully conscious that there is cooperation in the Christian life as new men and women in Christ? We are labors together with God, fully conscious of those principles. I also know that my Bible teaches me that he works in his own both to will and to do for his good pleasure. And I also know that my Lord prays for all of his own, that they should be sanctified and that they should be kept from evil.

41:36 And I know enough of my Bible to read that he that is born of God keepeth himself, and the wicked one toucheth him not. I read in my Bible that there is the basic, not the perfect, not without degrees, not without periods of lapse and stumbling. I'm fully conscious of all of that. But my Bible also teaches my sheep hear my voice and they follow me.

42:01 And I give to them eternal life. My Bible says that we are to follow after that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. It is only the pure in heart that shall see God. The Scripture says you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life.

42:16 Jesus said if you've entered the narrow gate you're walking on the narrow way which leads unto life. And there's no way to life but by the way, just as surely as there's no way into the way but by the gate. And it is a denial of the whole teaching of Scripture to say that men can regard themselves as new creatures, as being in Christ, if their faith is mere notionalism, if their pattern of life reflects an antinomianism. Now I say these three great pillars in the temple of God's truth touching salvation are wonderfully established in this text and their three contrary errors are demolished.

The Interconnectedness of the Three Pillars

43:00 Do you see the relationship now between the three pillars? I'm sure many of you have already caught it. In a very real sense, these pillars are an answer to three fundamental questions about salvation. The first question is who initiates the work?

43:17 And the answer is God and God alone. No synergism. It's pure monergism. It is God who initiates it.

43:26 Second question is what's the ground of the sinner's acceptance? He's created in Christ Jesus. It is Christ and Christ alone. No Galatianism.

43:36 No works righteousness, be they legal works, epitomeal works, evangelical works. No man can regard himself as being a new creature until he can say I'm satisfied with Christ and Christ alone. But bless God if you can say that from the heart. You have no grounds to doubt but that God has made you a new creature.

44:04 And then the third question what's the result of this work done? The work that God initiates? The work of which Christ is the sole ground? The answer is a changed lifestyle created unto good works which God before ordained that we should walk in them and notionalism and antinomianism cannot stand before these statements of the word of God.

44:30 You see now the glory of God is bound up in maintaining the symmetry and the full support of this section of the temple of his truth. That God alone is the origin. Christ alone is the ground and the transformed life alone is the positive evidence of the new work having been done. And if this is the salvation that God has conceived and executed for the salvation of men then not only is his glory bound up in it but the safety of the creatures bound up in it.

Personal Application: Is This Your Salvation?

45:07 And we must be willing at all costs to proclaim, to defend to propagate the glorious gospel which says God alone is the savior. Christ alone is the sinner's hope and the transformed life alone is the proof that we are in Christ by the activity of almighty God. Now let me press all of this theory home to your own bosom this morning as we close. Is this your understanding of what it means to be saved?

45:44 When you read in this passage for by grace have you been saved do you understand that this is what it means? God has made me his workmanship. God has brought me into union with his son. God has brought me into the beginnings of the performance of those good works that he before prepared that I should walk in them.

46:10 Is that what you mean when you say I'm saved? That's what God means. Can you say that's what God's done for me? Blessed be his name that's what God's done for me.

46:22 If not, my friend, if your idea of being saved is that somehow you did something and God did something may the Lord tear that shabby temple to shreds. It's not worth maintaining. If you have a salvation that loves the first two pillars but blushes at the third that's not God's salvation. Answer from its depths to those three great truths God alone Christ alone that transformed life alone.

46:56 Does it answer to that? If it does let me ask you what are you doing within the circle of your own influence in terms of your own gifts and opportunities to proclaim that great salvation. This is no salvation to be quiet about. This is no salvation that God somehow sneaky sneaked under the corner and under the shelf as contraband goods.

47:27 This is a wonderful salvation that says the vilest of the vile is not beyond the realm of God's mighty work in the new creation. That dares to proclaim that Christ does and can save the vilest of the vile and that proclaims a salvation that does not leave men simply with their mental furniture reshuffled to go on living according to the course of this world the prince of the power of the air the slaves of their own lust but brings them into a totally new atmosphere of life. They walk around the new native habitat.

Conclusion: A Compendium of Salvation by Grace

48:10 They walk around in those good works by which they glorify their Father who is in heaven. May the Lord himself be pleased to write upon our hearts the words in Ephesians 2 8-10 this wonderful passage a compendium of salvation by grace. The principle cause is grace. By grace have you been saved.

48:38 The instrumental means through faith. The origin of that faith God's activity. The negative statement not of works. What is the end of that salvation that none should boast?

48:53 And then we come to verse 10 that puts the capstone over the whole and tells us we are his workmanship. If you sit here this morning and say I don't know anything about a salvation like that my friend there is not a verse in the bible that says you cannot know it. This mighty God has declared in his word that he welcomes every single person who casts himself upon his mercy in Jesus Christ. And the great words of that hymn in our hymnal are based upon scriptural precepts and principles.

49:29 Come ye sinners poor and wretched weak and wounded sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you full of pity joined with power. Look holy out of yourself and unto him. Let us pray.