Amazing Grace (2 Corinthians 8:8-15)

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9).

The majority of our lessons on the holiness of God have focused on the relationship between His holy character and His justice. As we have studied passages dealing with the moral purity of God and His relation to Israel and to the church, we have been struck by how unworthy we are to stand before Him.

But as astounding as His holiness is, it is His grace that is most amazing. We mentioned in an earlier lesson that we often wonder why God can allow bad things to happen to good people. The answer, simply put, is that it can happen because people are bad. In light of this, we should ask, “How can good things happen to bad people?” None of us receives what he duly deserves in this life. God is gracious even to His enemies, allowing the sun to shine on the evil and the good, and the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. His grace is manifested in the lives of people every day, but we don’t stand amazed by it. Instead, we complain when tragedy strikes, we whine when things don’t go our way. But if we would really consider who God is and who we are, if we would take our sin seriously and reverence the holiness of our God, we should really be amazed by all the good things that happen, by the grace He shows us time and again.

When we complain and feel sorry for ourselves, we don’t understand grace. We don’t understand and appreciate the mercy God shows us every day. We don’t understand that God’s holiness demands justice, and that it is only by the grace of God that worse things don’t happen to us.

If God’s holiness does demand justice, how then can He be gracious? Does this create a contradiction within God Himself? It would if justice were not satisfied, if God dismissed our sin as if it never happened. But this is not what has happened. Justice has been satisfied by Jesus Christ on the cross. He led a sinless life, fulfilling the requirements of the law, and He died in the place of His people, thus paying the penalty for their transgressions. His righteousness is imputed to sinners, and God’s wrath is appeased. Though we deserve to die, to suffer eternal torment, Jesus has taken this penalty upon Himself, suffering the pangs of death and the wrath of His Father in our place. “By His stripes we have been healed.” Praise be to the Lord our Savior!

When was the last time you told God how grateful you were for the grace He has shown you? Do you spend more time complaining about the bad things in your life than being thankful for the good things God has given you? Spend some time today thinking about what you deserve, and then think about the grace God has shown you.

No Hope In Justice (2 Samuel 6:1-11)

"Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God" (2 Sam. 6:7).

When we consider our guilt in light of God’s holiness, His justice comes into focus. We have already taken a look at God’s justice in light of His holiness, noting that it is because of His holiness that God’s justice cannot be compromised. It was because of God’s holiness that Israel was set apart from other nations. It was because of His holiness that they had to construct the temple according to the exact details given to them by God. It was because of His holiness that He gave them laws by which they were to live. They were to be holy because He was a holy God. They were to be separate from the world because they belonged to Him, because they were a holy nation.

Today, we will continue our consideration of God’s justice because now we understand a little better how right it is for God to execute His justice on a fallen world. If we think that we are innocent, that we can stand uncovered before the face of God, then we will not be able to grasp the many acts of judgment executed by God throughout the Scriptures and throughout history. We won’t understand why so many bad things have happened to us because we will be assuming that we don’t deserve it. We think this way because we don’t get the point that we are sinners, under condemnation, worthy only of eternal punishment, and deserving no mercy.

It is quite common for people to be astonished by the account of Uzzah, who reached out, touched the fallen ark, and died as a result of God’s judgment (2 Sam. 6). When David saw what happened, he was frightened, and he asked, “Who can handle the things of God?” If all it takes to receive the judgment of God is to reach out one’s hand and steady the ark, then who can live before God? The sense of helplessness and frustration on David’s part was sincere.

But God’s actions are never arbitrary, and Uzzah’s action was not heroic. As a priest, Uzzah knew God’s law, and he knew the penalty for violating God’s holy law: death. God’s action here was one of justice, and we have no right to accuse God of being arbitrary or capricious. What we must do is consider the nature of God’s holiness. When we do, we will realize that no man can come into the presence of God, that no man is worthy, that apart from grace, we have no hope.

Why did Uzzah die? What would you have thought or done had you been there? Is God obligated to show anyone mercy? What causes you to believe that you deserve to live without pain and suffering? Are you grateful for the grace God shows you? Thank Him for not being “fair” with you.

Shame of Our Nakedness (Luke 5:1-11)

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:8).

In yesterday’s lesson, we learned how uncomfortable man is in the presence of God. It is because of His holiness that sinners hate Christ. His perfection shines forth as a reminder of our own imperfections, and unredeemed men and women hate Him for it. Many people say they don’t want anything to do with Christ because He catered to the weak, because He walked among the poor, because He has created a religion in which people are made dependent upon something outside themselves. But the truth of the matter is that these same people despise Christ because He reminds them of their own incompetence, their own failures, their own poverty.

When Jesus called His disciples, He stopped by the sea of Galilee and found Peter struggling to bring in a catch. Jesus, who was not a fisherman, told Peter to go back out and cast the net into the sea once more. Peter obeyed, but one gets the feeling from the passage that he was not convinced that Jesus could make a difference. After all, Peter was the professional. He was the one trained and competent. Jesus was only a teacher. But he went anyway, and Jesus proved that He was the most competent of all. He had the power to fill the nets when Peter wasn’t able to catch even a meager portion.

Peter’s response to such a great act was not what one might expect. He didn’t see it as a chance to cash in on Jesus’ power, but he was humbled by it. When Jesus revealed His power, He revealed His majesty and His holiness; He revealed that He was separate from other men, and greater. Peter looked upon Jesus’ holiness and felt exposed because of his own sin. In response, he asked Jesus to leave because he could not stand in the presence of the Holy One exposed in his shame and his guilt.

This is the state of man before the holiness of God. He is naked, exposed, and guilty. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they hid themselves and were ashamed of their nakedness. They could not come into the presence of God because of their sin. God, in His mercy, clothed them by giving them animal skins to wrap around their bodies. In Christ, we are covered by His righteousness—a worthy covering that allows us to stand in the presence of the holy without shame and without guilt.

In the last day, those who do not believe in Christ will say to the mountains, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!” Guilt causes us to want to hide away from God and from other people. Go to Christ today, and ask Him to take away your guilt and to cover your shame.

The Terror of Holiness (Mark 4:35-41)

And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!” (Mark 4:41).

Some people think religion was invented by man to deal with the struggles and adversities of life. But man would hardly invent the God described in the Scriptures, a God who is holy, pure, judgmental, and unapproachable.

In Mark 4, the apostle describes the event in Jesus’ ministry when He calmed the sea of Galilee. When Jesus rebuked the winds, the disciples were filled with great fear. Any fear they had of the storm paled in comparison to the fear they had of the power and authority of Jesus Christ. Wouldn’t it be odd if the God they “invented” to quell their fear of the storm created an even greater and more traumatizing fear—a deep sense of dread and foreboding that stemmed from God Himself? Of course, this would defeat the goal that psychologists and humanist philosophers say man is trying to achieve in his “creation” of religion. This is not to say that men do not try to invent gods, that they do not set up idols of their own making. But the gods they create are not holy as God is holy. They have no power to rebuke the storm and to fill the heart of man with fear and reverence.

Freud said that religion is provoked by a psychological need to protect our psyches from the impersonal forces of nature. It is certainly true that man is afraid of nature and its seemingly uncontrollable power. Man, even with all the scientific advances in technology, stands helpless before the tornado, the hurricane, and even something as microscopic as a virus. Such helplessness creates fear in the heart of man. We certainly see this fear in the account of the disciples in the storm. They were afraid of the storm and they turned to Christ for help, to the one person who was not afraid of the storm.

Jesus helped by issuing a command to an impersonal force. In a loud voice, He said “Peace, be still.” Instantly, the sea became calm. Everything was at peace except the disciples. The threat of nature had been removed, but their fear increased, and they asked, “What manner of man is this?” He was a holy man who was transcendent. Freud was right. We are frightened by impersonal forces of nature. But a tornado is not holy. As terrifying as it may be, it is not as terrifying as personal holiness. God is not an impersonal force like nature. He is personal, and He is holy. And therein lies the dread and fear of men.

Is it right for people to be afraid of God? Is it right for Christians to fear the God of the Bible? What kind of fear should you have of God? If religion is a crutch to help man overcome the fears of life, why is he so afraid to face God? Memorize Isaiah 8:13–14 or one of the other verses below on the fear of God.

The Trauma of Holiness (John 3:18-21)

“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

All of the prophets, including Moses in Midian and at Mount Sinai, experienced some kind of “trauma” when they came close to the manifestation of God. It was a frightening and overwhelming time for each of them. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin wrote, “Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.” This was what happened to Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others. They came face to face with the holiness of God, and in doing so they came face to face with themselves.

Most of us go through life living on a horizontal plane. We make the fatal mistake of judging ourselves in comparison to others. We indulge in self-flattery, considering ourselves only less than demigods until our gaze is turned toward heaven. And just as it is impossible for us to look unveiled into the brightness of the sun without our eyes being injured, it is a damaging experience to look at God’s holiness. It is devastating to consider God’s holiness and our own sinfulness. This is one reason that people don’t like to read the Scriptures. It’s one reason that they don’t like being around Christians. It’s why they don’t want to think about Christ and His pure and sinless life.

The cry for tolerance in our society is a cry against holiness. It is a plea for everyone to accept sinful behavior, and even to encourage it. People who love their sin, who live in the “darkness,” do not want to be judged. They don’t want a preacher, a friend, or a book to expose their sin for what it is. They want to continue their love affair with darkness, imagining themselves in marital bliss and surrounding themselves with false securities and comforts.

When we talk about the Gospel, it is imperative for us to talk about sin and holiness. If we only talk about acceptance, peace, and unconditional love, we fail to bring the whole truth to bear on a person’s conscience. It is difficult to tell someone the truth, to risk coming across as judgmental and intolerant, to watch someone go through the trauma of facing God’s holiness, but it is necessary if that person is ever going to be convicted of his sin. Until a person comes to this point, he is denying the real God. He is suppressing the truth about God’s holiness and about his own sinfulness.

Do you want to make unbelievers feel comfortable around you? Do you find that to do so you need to make compromises in what you say about God or even in how you live? It helps in such situations to remember that the world hates God. Only He can change that fact with His truth and the power of His Spirit.