Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about grace, the most misunderstood word in the Bible. I still vividly remember sitting in class under the watchful eye of Matt Dawson listening to his legal lectures back when I was in law school. Not that I enjoyed sitting there, none of us did. Unlike most of our law professors, Matt Dawson's background was not in academia. He was a grizzled, hard as nails career trial lawyer.
The president of Baylor University, a good friend of Matt Dawson, had talked him into leaving his successful law practice and to come and teach what was called Practice Court at Baylor Law School. Well, during the entire semester I sat under his teaching, I can only remember Matt Dawson or Mad Dog, as we all called him, smiling. And that was just one time. In his early 60s, Mad Dog cut an imposing figure with his lanky frame and stern, unapproachable countenance.
In the middle of his lectures, he would suddenly stop and call upon a student to rise and recite the facts and ruling of some court case we had been assigned to read. And Heaven help that student if he hadn't read the case or if he got the facts or significance of the case wrong. Now, although none of us liked Mad Dog, I think we all appreciated the fact that he knew the nuts and bolts of trying a case in court.
And he tried to teach us practically every angle, maneuver, strategy, and trick to trial law that there is. I remember him saying one day," You can write the law any way you want, but let me define the terms and I'll win every time." Yes, in law and in so much of life, everything turns on how you define a word. That's why so many lengthy business contracts begin with a list of definitions of words used in that contract. Because how you define a word often means everything.
For example, suppose I run a factory and I enter into a maintenance contract with you to repair any equipment that breaks down in the factory. Let's further suppose that the contract stipulates that when a piece of machinery breaks down, you will promptly repair it. Well, it's not hard to see that the contract literally turns on the definition of the word promptly. Now, if I get to define the word, I might say that promptly means within 24 hours.
But if you get to define the word, you might say that promptly means within one week. Again, everything depends upon who gets to define promptly. That's why the two parties need to work out ahead of time what they both mean by promptly and then define it in the contract. Just as Matt Dawson said, you can write the law any way you want or a contract any way you want. But let me define the terms and I'll win every time.
If defining terms is essential in understanding contracts, it's even more so in understanding the Bible because eternity is at stake. Whoever defines the words used in the Bible essentially defines what the Bible teaches. In short, when it comes to the Bible, I could rephrase my professor's words to say," Regardless of how God wrote the Bible, let me define the terms, and I will end up determining what Christianity teaches." It's that simple and it's that scary.
However, Christianity differs from law in one essential aspect. In law, if you can convince a judge or a jury that your definition is right, you win. In Christianity, if you can convince most people that your definitions are right, you'll gain the most followers. You'll have the biggest churches, and your books will be read the most. But in the end, if your definitions are not true, you don't win. You lose. You lose eternity.
So, when it comes to defining key words used in the Bible, whether or not we can convince more people than can the next guy means absolutely nothing. All that matters is what is true. In Protestant evangelical Christianity, there are few words that have taken on greater importance than the word grace. Our English word grace is actually a translation of the Greek word charis. Now, I'm going to be using a somewhat anglicized pronunciation for charis.
Here's the way that many Greek scholars think the word was pronounced in ancient times. Scholars pronounce the word like there is an H in front of the CH. And that's probably correct, but I'm not a Greek scholar, so I'll stick to the more Anglicized pronunciation of charis. For most of my life, I've been told that charis means unmerited favor. But that's only the beginning. Whole articles in Bible dictionaries and Bible encyclopedias are written about charis or grace.
Setting it forth is some kind of super word that has built into it all kinds of theological meaning. One Greek lexicon gives the following definition for grace or charis. It defines it as the merciful kindness by which God, exerting His holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues. Wow, it means all of that?
In other words, charis is a super word with a very detailed theological meaning that comes with it. But doesn't it strike you as a bit odd that the ancient Greeks had a word that meant the merciful kindness by which God, exerting His holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues?
Are we to believe that for centuries the pagan Greeks had this super word in their vocabulary just sitting there? Because, of course, the word would have made no sense to them if that's what it means. But we're supposed to believe that they had this word, charis, nevertheless, just waiting for the time when Christ would come, and then this super word would suddenly have application. Well, perhaps you can believe that, but I'm afraid I can't.
Instead, the question I ask is, how can we know what a particular Greek word meant in the days of Jesus and the apostles. After all, no one wrote any dictionaries back then. Well, I would argue that the only way we can know what charis meant in New Testament times is to go to the writings near and around that period, particularly the writings of Jews and Christians.
For any New Testament word, the three most valuable ancient sources we can go to in order to discern the meaning of that word, as it was used by the first century Christians, are number one, the Septuagint, number two, the New Testament itself, and number three, the early Christian writings. So this is what I did over the past year. I began with the Septuagint. Well, what's that, you might ask? It's the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament that was made or was begun around the year 250 BC.
Well, why would I begin with the Septuagint? Because it was the Old Testament used by the vast majority of the New Testament Christians. Most of the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament are from the Septuagint. Not only that, so much of the language and the expressions used in the New Testament come directly from the Septuagint. The same first-century Christians who were reading the letters of Peter and Paul and John in Koine Greek were also reading the Septuagint, which too was written in Koine Greek.
So the Septuagint is an obvious starting place. In fact, most of the same Greek words that you find in the New Testament are also found in the Septuagint. Now, actually, you can do the same research I did. Just go to the link that's printed on the outside of this CD disk. If you go to that link, the pages it'll bring up on the web will explain to you my research methods and how you can do the same study I did at very little cost. So what did I discover?
Well, first I discovered that charis is used at least 80 times in the Septuagint. In contrast, outside of Paul's letters, charis is used only about 44 times in the New Testament. So we can get a good feel for the meaning of charis from reading the passages in the Septuagint that use it. And when we do that, what do we find it means? Most of the time it simply means favor or goodwill, particularly favor extended by a person of greater power or authority to one in a weaker or lesser position.
Now, this favor could be unmerited, but usually there's a reason why the recipient receives favor or goodwill from the person in greater power. For example, in reading through the Septuagint, Noah found charis with God. Because he had strong faith and because he was living righteously in a wicked world. Joseph found favor with Potiphar, with the head jailer, and eventually with Pharaoh, because God gave Joseph special competence and wisdom.
Ruth found charis or favor with Boaz because of the kind way she treated Naomi, her mother-in-law. Esther found charis or Grace with her husband, the king, because she was beautiful both inwardly and outwardly. In fact, I didn't find a single instance in the Septuagint where charis meant unmerited favor. It just meant favor or goodwill. Sometimes you don't know if it's deserved or undeserved.
Now I realize that some of you might be getting uncomfortable at this point and are already running ahead of me in your minds. You're perhaps thinking to yourself," David, are you saying that we are so righteous that we have merited God's grace? Or are you saying that we can earn our salvation on our own? Are you saying we don't need God's grace to be saved?" No, I am not saying any of those things.
But if we're going to honestly discover what the Greek word is, or any other New Testament word for that matter, what it meant in the Greek language of that day, we have to start with a blank slate, and we have to leave theology out of it. Otherwise, we're going to read our theological preconceptions into the definition of charis. In fact, there's probably no biblical word that carries with it more theological preconceptions today than the word grace.
But anyone who looks at the use of the word charis in the Septuagint can immediately see that it carries no theological attachments. It's just an ordinary word like mercy, kindness, peace, or humility. I want to read to you a few examples of what I'm talking about. The first one is when Jacob meets Esau after he returns from Laban. Jacob was afraid that Esau might still be angry with him, as you probably remember. So he sent numerous gifts ahead of him in order to gain favor or charis with Esau.
Genesis 33 verses 8 through 10, we read," Then Esau said," What are these things from you, all this company I met?" So he said," That your servant might find grace or charis in the sight of my Lord." But Esau said," I have enough, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself." But Jacob replied," If I have now found grace in your sight, receive the present from my hands." So as you can see, charis means favor or goodwill.
And it certainly doesn't carry with it automatically the thought of unmerited favor in this passage because Jacob is trying to win Esau's favor or his goodwill with a whole host of presence. Likewise, Joseph in Egypt found charis in the sight of Potiphar, or at least initially, as we've already said, and later in the eyes of Pharaoh. Let me just ask you what you think charis or grace means in these next two passages. Genesis 39: 4, it says," Thus Joseph found grace in Potiphar's sight and was pleasing to him.
Then he made him overseer of his house and put everything he had under Joseph's authority." So what does grace mean there? Unmerited favor or simply favor? Well, it says that Joseph was pleasing to Potiphar, so he found favor in his sight for a reason. It wasn't unmerited favor. Let's look at the next passage, Genesis 50, verse 4.
It says," So when the days of his mourning were passed, Joseph spoke to the princes of Pharaoh, saying," If now I have found grace in your sight, speak in the hearing of Pharaoh," saying," My father made me swear," et cetera, et cetera. Once again, if Joseph found favor in Pharaoh's sight, was it unmerited favor? I mean, here Joseph had just saved all of Egypt, plus he had greatly strengthened Pharaoh's power. Yes, he found favor with Pharaoh for a good reason, and it certainly was not unmerited.
Now let's talk about Ruth and Boaz. I'm reading from Ruth chapter 2 verses 10 through 12. It says talking about Ruth." So she fell on her face, bowed down to the ground, and said to Boaz," Why have I found favor?" The Greek word there is charis in your eyes, that you should take notice of me since I'm a stranger.
And Boaz answered and said to her," It has been fully reported to me all that you have done with your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know yesterday or the day before. May the Lord repay your work, and may a full reward be given to you by the Lord God." End quote. Well, you can't get more direct than that. Here, charis is translated as" favor" and it clearly wasn't unmerited favor.
Ruth asks Boaz why she has found charis with him, and he gives her a whole host of reasons. She has favor because of what she has done. Now let's look at the use of the word charis in Proverbs. We read in Proverbs chapter 3 verses 1 through 4," My son, do not forget my laws, but let your heart keep my words. For length of days and years of life in peace, they will add to you.
Do not let almsgiving and faithfulness forsake you, but hang them upon your neck, and you will find grace, and provide good things before the Lord and man." So does grace there refer to something unmerited? No. Instead, grace is spoken of here as a reward for keeping God's Word and for alms giving and faithfulness. Let's look at another set of Proverbs. Proverbs 3: 36 and 37. It says," The curse of God is on the houses of the ungodly, but he blesses the dwellings of the righteous.
The Lord opposes the arrogant, but he gives grace to the humble." Now here Solomon gives us two sets of opposites. One, he says God curses the ungodly but blesses the righteous. And secondly, that he opposes the arrogant, but he gives grace or favor to the humble. So God's treatment and his view of people is based on their conduct. He opposes the arrogant, but grants charis favor to the humble. So once again, charis here does not refer to unmerited favor.
In fact, you probably recognize that last verse is one of the proverbs that Peter quotes in the New Testament. This is important as it shows that charis means the same thing in the New Testament as it did in the Old. Now, if you're one of my regular listeners, you know by now that I don't cherry-pick Scriptures and thereby give you a slanted view of what the Scriptures teach. I try to show you the whole truth looking at all of the Scriptures.
Now, in a one-hour message, I simply don't have time to read to you all of the 80 or 90 passages in the Septuagint where charis is used. But the passages I've just read to you are representative examples of what you'll find all throughout the Septuagint. If you will go to the link on the front of this CD, you can see every passage in the Septuagint that uses the word charis. I encourage you to go there and see for yourself if what I'm saying matches the evidence. And again, what is it that I'm saying?
I'm saying the evidence is very clear that charis was an ordinary, everyday word that simply meant favor or goodwill. It carries with it no connotation of being either unmerited or undeserved, nor does it carry with it any connotation that it is merited or deserved. It's a neutral word. In that sense, it's exactly like our English word favor. In itself, the word" favor" is neutral. It doesn't imply that favor given is either merited or unmerited.
In the Old Testament, it's nearly always someone in power or authority extending favor or goodwill to someone who has less power or authority. However, if some benefactor demonstrated charis, that is favor or goodwill towards you, you would normally have a feeling of charis, favor or goodwill, back towards that person, wouldn't you? We call that gratitude in English, which comes from the Latin word gracia, which is where we also get our English word grace.
So charis was not limited to a feeling or regard on the part of the benefactor. The recipient of charis normally had charis toward his or her benefactor. Now we see this use of charis a lot in the New Testament. Now in English, we can say that I have shown favor towards you, but we can also say that I have done you a favor. The Greek word charis worked exactly the same way. Let me give you an example. You may remember that in the book of Esther, Mordecai uncovered a plot against the king.
Well, at first, the king didn't do anything in return for Mordecai. However, one night, the king had trouble sleeping, and he discovered that he had never done anything for Mordecai in return for discovering the plot. Well, in Esther chapter 6:3, we read what happened. I'm reading, of course, from the Septuagint. It says," Then the king said, has any honor or favor been granted Mordecai?" And the king's servant said nothing was done for him. So there the word" favor" is the Greek word charis.
Now, if you're like me, you've heard dozens of times, maybe hundreds, that if we do anything at all for it, then it's not grace. Well, that is absolutely false. Charis could also be used in the sense of a reward. And that's the sense that it's used here. And the New Testament sometimes uses it in that sense as well. Now, both a favor and a reward can take the form of a gift. So not surprisingly, charis was also used in the sense of a gift.
At the same time, just like our English word favor, charis never meant wages for work or services performed. The king didn't have to reward Mordecai. The reward he gave Mordecai didn't constitute wages. It was charis, a gesture of goodwill. But the king had goodwill towards Mordecai because of something Mordecai had done. It was not undeserved or unmerited. There was a final use of charis that doesn't actually have any theological significance, but I want to point it out to you.
That is, charis could also mean elegance or beauty in form, motion, or speech. For example, Psalm 44:3 in the Septuagint says," You are more beautiful than the sons of men. Grace was poured out on your lips." And there charis has a sense of eloquence or beautiful words. So we've seen what charis meant in the Septuagint. Chronologically, we would next go to the New Testament to see if there had been any change in meaning. However, our whole quest tonight is to see what charis or Grace meant in the New Testament.
So instead of going there next, we're going to go to the early Christian writings of the 2nd century, that is between the years AD 100 and 200. If there was any change of meaning for the word charis between 250 BC when the Septuagint was translated and AD 100, then we would obviously expect to find that this is reflected in the Christian writings of the 2nd century. In other words, we've seen what charis meant in the centuries before the New Testament was written.
Now we're going to look at what it meant right after the New Testament was written. All of the passages I'll be reading you are set forth at the link that's printed on the face of this disk. In fact, if you go to that link, you can find all of the passages that I was able to find where the word" grace" is used in all of the early Christian writings of the second century. So if there's any question in your mind of whether I'm giving you the whole story, please go and read all of the passages.
But once again, to fit this into a one-hour message, we're only going to be looking at representative quotations. We're going to begin with Clement of Rome, who was a faithful leader in the church at Rome in the late first century. It's very possible that he is the same Clement mentioned by Paul in Philippians 4:3, but we can't be sure of that. Around the year 95, on behalf of all the elders in Rome, Clement penned a letter to the church at Corinth because of a dispute they were having.
In chapter 7 of his letter, he writes," Christ's blood, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world." Let us turn to every age that has passed and learn that from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted to him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him, were saved.
Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites, but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer and obtained salvation, although they were aliens to the covenant of God. So Clement talks about the grace of repentance. In other words, God has granted grace or favor to all of mankind by allowing them to repent of their sins. Clement doesn't understand charis or grace to be simply a blank check that God writes. Rather, God's giving us the opportunity to repent and be forgiven.
That is charis, as Clement understood it. Let me give you an illustration. Let's suppose a man has lived a life of crime, burglaries, armed bank robberies, even murder. But he's finally caught and he stands trial. The evidence against him is incontrovertible, and the jury finds him guilty. There are no extenuating circumstances nor any other basis for clemency. So the judge sentences him to life in prison.
However, just as he's about to be led away from the courtroom, the judge suddenly stops the guard saying," Wait a minute!" Then looking at the convicted man, he says," You don't deserve any clemency. However, if you will right here and now completely repent of your crimes, I'm going to cancel this sentence and let you go free." But when I say repent, I mean that you're thoroughly sorry for your crimes and you totally hate the kind of things you did. And you're determined to never again return to a life of crime.
Well, the man accepts the judge's offer, and he thoroughly repents of his past crime. So the judge cancels the sentence against him and sets him free. Now I can assure you that in real life, this would never happen. No judge would extend that kind of clemency. But that's what the early Christians understood by God's grace or charis to us. As former sinners alienated from God, we didn't deserve any clemency. The opportunity God gave us to repent was completely unmerited and undeserved.
On the other hand, his grace or charis is not a blank check. In our illustration, what if this man who had been given clemency returned to a life of crime? Well, the next time he's up before that same judge, there isn't going to be any mercy, is there? He's shown that he has little appreciation for what the judge did for him. Figuratively speaking, he has spit in the judge's face. He was given grace and he trampled on it.
Hebrews tells us," For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be thought-worthy who has trampled on the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace. For we know Him who said," Vengeance is mine. I will repay," says the Lord. And again, the Lord will judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
And again, Hebrews tells us," For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame." So God's grace is not a blank check to continue sinning.
Personally, I don't know what constitutes sinning willfully after we've come to a knowledge of the truth. I don't know what constitutes falling away to the extent that we crucify the Son of God all over again. And I don't want to find out. Thankfully, Jesus tells us that we can and should pray every day for God to forgive us for our continued trespasses or debts. The entire New Testament teaches that God continues to forgive our sins when we repent, even after our initial repentance and conversion.
So God is much more merciful and long-suffering than even the judge in my illustration. Yet there is a point if we continue to sin willfully that God says," Enough, you have spit in my face. You have trampled on the precious blood of my Son. There is no more repentance for you." The scriptures teach that, and so did the early Christians. However, popular Christianity today teaches something different.
Taking the illustration I just gave you, it changes at the point where the criminal has been sentenced and is about to be led away by the guards.
In today's Christianity, the judge cries out," Wait a minute!" He then looks at the criminal and says," If you will acknowledge you're a criminal, if you will say and believe that you are completely helpless to save yourself, if you will say you are sorry for your crimes and you want to be free of your life of crime, then I'll serve your sentence for you." Not only that, if you return to a life of crime, I'll serve the sentence for those crimes as well.
You are guaranteed never to go to prison or suffer any other judicial punishment, regardless of what you do in the future. But of course, I hope you will not return to a life of crime. That's modern Christianity. And we're told that that is what biblical grace means. But that is not at all true. Grace is not an act of law. It's not a get out of jail free card. It is simply God's favor or goodwill. He shows us undeserved favor at our first repentance and conversion.
He continues to show us daily favor if we walk in His ways and repent of our daily sins. Now, His continued favor towards us is conditional. It's conditioned on our continuing to walk in faith and obedience to Christ. However, just because it's conditional doesn't mean we deserve His continued grace or favor. It just means that He is very merciful and kind. But again, there is no blank check. Jesus made this clear in his parable of the unmerciful servant, found in Matthew 18.
In that parable, the king canceled the debt of a servant who owed him an enormous debt because the servant expressed heartfelt sorrow. But then this same servant refused to forgive a fellow servant who owed him a fairly small debt. In fact, he had the fellow servant thrown in jail. Well, what did the king do when he heard about this? Jesus tells us. We read," Then his master, after he had called him, said to him,' You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.
Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. And just in case we don't get the message of the parable, Jesus drives the point home in the final sentence saying," So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses." So there's no blank check.
In fact, Jesus shows us that even the initial cancellation of our debt is a conditional one. God has the right to reinstate it if we refuse to forgive our fellow man. So God's charis or grace has conditions on it. Returning to the early Christians, let's go to Ignatius. He was a personal disciple of the apostle John and died as a faithful martyr. He wrote his letters around the year 105 as he was being transported to Rome to be executed. He wrote his letters to fellow Christians, not to unbelievers.
In his letter to the Christians in Ephesus, he says," The last times are come upon us. Let us therefore be of a reverent spirit and fear the longsuffering of God so that it does not lead to our condemnation. For let us either stand in fear of the wrath to come or else show regard for the grace which is at present displayed. One of two things.
Only in one way or another, let us be found in Christ Jesus unto the true life." In short, he's saying," Whether you're motivated mainly by fear of the wrath to come or by appreciation of the present mercy and goodwill we have from God, make certain you're found to be living the true life found in Christ." Now we'll go to Justin Martyr. He wrote around the year 150.
Speaking to a group of unbelieving Jews, he says," Therefore it would be becoming for you, gentlemen, to learn what you have not perceived from those who have received grace from God, namely from us Christians, and not to strive in every way to maintain your own teachings, dishonoring those of God. Therefore, also this grace has been transferred to us, meaning Christians, as Isaiah says, speaking to the following effect:" This people draws near to me. They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
For in vain they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men. Therefore, behold, I will proceed to remove this people, and I shall remove them, and I shall take away the wisdom of their wise men and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent men." So Justin uses charis obviously to mean favor or goodwill. The goodwill that God used to have towards the Jews, he says, has been transferred to Christians. Next we come to Irenaeus.
He was a well-respected leader in the First Century Church, and he wrote this around the year 170 or 180." Christ Jesus shall, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous and holy and those who have kept His commandments and have persevered in His love." So Irenaeus understood that on Judgment Day, Christ shall, in the exercise of His favor or goodwill, confer immortality as a reward on those who persevered faithfully and obediently in His love.
So Irenaeus obviously didn't understand charis to mean unmerited favor. So we know what the word charis meant in the century or two before the New Testament was written, and we know what the word meant in the century after the New Testament was written. So logically, we would expect to find that the word" charis" has the same meaning in the New Testament, and it does. So let's go over those four meanings of charis again. It could mean favor or goodwill, the basic meaning. Number two, a favor.
Number three, a gift that shows goodwill. And number four, a reward given out of goodwill. Now I mentioned earlier it has a fifth meaning of elegance, as in the term graceful, but in that sense, it doesn't have any theological implications. At the link I've referred to, I've listed every single use of charis in the New Testament. And I can assure you that if you go through that list, one of the five meanings I've just given you of charis will fit every time.
So how did people ever come to imagine that grace or charis was this super word that contains all sorts of theological meanings? Well, the answer is they didn't. That is, they didn't until Martin Luther came upon the scene. Do you remember the adage my law professor gave us? He said," You can write the law any way you want, but let me define the terms, and I'll win every time." Well, Martin Luther made superb use of that principle when he translated the Bible into German.
In his preface to the book of Romans, which he made the chief book of the New Testament, Luther said," To begin with, we have to become familiar with the vocabulary of this letter and know what St. Paul means by the words law, sin, grace, faith, justice, flesh, spirit, et cetera. Otherwise, there is no use in reading it." End quote. Now Luther said we have to know what St. Paul means by these words. But how would Luther know what Paul meant? He was 1,500 years removed from Paul.
No, the definitions that Luther gave to these words were his own made-up definitions that had no relationship whatsoever with what those words meant in Paul's day. Luther said there was no point in reading Romans without knowing these special definitions. However, the truth is, is that if we use Luther's special definitions for all of those words, there's really no use in reading Romans. That's because it's no longer the epistle that Paul wrote. It becomes the epistle that Luther wrote.
Remembering my professor's words, I could say," You can translate the Bible any way you want, but let Luther define the terms, and he'll end up winning every time." And he has won that is in the human sense. He's the one who came up with the definition that grace or charis means totally unmerited favor, and that if we do anything to receive God's favor, then it's not grace. He created a theological super word out of the simple biblical term charis.
Unfortunately, because of his fake definitions, he's misled millions and millions of Christians. And I realize that in this one-hour message, I can't hope to undo 500 years of indoctrination through sermons, commentaries, books, study Bibles, pamphlets, hymns, and pray songs. Luther's definitions have become so ingrained in all of us, it takes enormous resistance to break free of his influence.
Nevertheless, in the 15 minutes we have left, I want to give you some examples from the New Testament to help you see that charis means just what I've been telling you and nothing more. And I fully understand that this is something that most of you are going to have to mull over a great deal. I know I had to. I didn't just instantly change my understanding of grace overnight.
And I really encourage you to go to the web link printed on this disk and read through all of the uses of charis in the Septuagint, in the New Testament, and in the second-century early Christian writings to satisfy yourself that what I'm saying is true. If you don't have access to the internet, the same information is available from Scroll on a CD-ROM. So let's go through the New Testament beginning with Matthew. Here is where we get our first surprise.
Even though the Gospel of Matthew contains more of Jesus' teaching than any other New Testament book, the word charis doesn't even appear in it one time. So we move to the next gospel, Mark. Once again, the word charis isn't even used once. In fact, in all four gospels, Jesus is presented as using charis only four times. And interestingly, Jesus uses charis in the sense of reward.
One commentator has stated," Grace is the single most important aspect of our spiritual and eternal salvation." Now, if that's the case, isn't it rather strange that Jesus only used the word four times? How can that possibly be? Well, the truth is that charis is primarily Paul's favorite term. In fact, he used it twice as much as all of the other New Testament writers put together. Are we to believe that somehow a disciple turned out to be a greater teacher than his master?
Are we to believe that Paul introduced the Church to the single most important aspect of our salvation when Jesus Himself hardly said a word about it? This can't be. For Jesus told us," But you do not be called rabbi. For one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your Father. For one is your Father. He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers. For one is your teacher, the Christ. So we look to Jesus as our first and primary teacher.
The fundamental teachings of Christianity were all laid down by Christ. Yet in so many Christian books, Paul is called the architect of Christianity. And indeed he is, if Martin Luther's reinterpretation of Paul were true. Luther said we can throw out Matthew, Mark, and Luke and never miss any of the gospel. And he would be right if his gospel were the true one. But it isn't. Jesus Christ is not just our one Savior. He is also our one teacher.
The fundamental basics of the gospel were laid down by Jesus, and He made it clear that we must live by His teachings after our initial salvation, or else we will eventually be cut off of the vine. That's in John 15. Yet Jesus did not teach that we can earn our salvation. Salvation will always remain a gift, but it is a conditional gift. Okay, back to the use of charis in the New Testament. We actually first come across the word in Luke's writings. In Luke 1: 27 through 30, we read," The virgin's name was Mary.
And having come in, the angel said to her," Rejoice, highly favored one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women." Then the angel said to her," Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God." Well, there the phrase" highly favored" is a form of the word charis. And when the angel tells Mary that she has found favor with God, he uses the word charis. So we can see from the very first two uses of charis in the New Testament that it still has the same basic meaning it has in the Septuagint.
It means favor or goodwill. Continuing in Luke, we read that after Jesus' birth." So when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Well, there we have the same word charis with the same meaning of favor. The favor of God was upon him. But now the translators decide to render it as grace.
But a few verses later, we come to Luke 2:52, which reads," And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men." So now the translators go back to translating Charis as favor. Is this honest, switching back and forth like that? I don't think so. Well next we come to the passage at Luke 6, verses 32 through 34. Three of the four times that Jesus uses the word charis are in this passage.
Now I'm going to be reading from the 1769 King James, but I'll be changing the word" ye" to" you." And it says this:" For if you love them which love you, what thanks have you? For sinners also love those that love them?" And if you do good to them, which do good to you, what thanks have you? For sinners also do even the same. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thanks have you? For sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much again.
Now there are the translators have rendered the term charis by the word thanks. But Jesus is obviously using charis in the sense of reward. I say this because in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said virtually the same thing, but there he used the word misthos, which means reward. Saying what reward have you? This is similar to the way the word charis was used in the book of Esther concerning Mordecai's reward. So why didn't the King James translators render it as reward?
Well, this illustrates the problem with virtually all of our Bible translations. Luther made grace or charis one of the central words of Christianity with the fictitious meaning of unmerited favor. We are told if we have to do something first, then it isn't grace. As a result, translators attempt to hide the use of the word grace or charis when it's used in a sense that would disprove that notion. In other words, they fudge.
To me, this is spiritually dishonest and it has helped to perpetuate the myth about grace or charis. I mentioned that Paul uses the word charis twice as much as all of the other New Testament writers put together. In other words, it's not particularly a New Testament word, it's a Pauline word. Two-thirds of the time, when we come upon the word charis in the New Testament, it's in Paul's writings. Yet all of Paul's uses of the word charis fall within the five basic meanings of charis that we mentioned earlier.
So let's look at some of his uses of the word. Actually, over a fourth of the time when Paul uses charis, he's using it in the greeting or closing of one of his letters. Paul's typical greeting is," Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," or something similar. There, Paul is simply using charis in its ordinary meaning of favor or goodwill. And I feel that the translator should render his greetings that way.
They should translate it as" favor and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," or" Goodwill and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." To translate it as" grace" means essentially to leave it untranslated. Charis was an ordinary everyday Greek word in Paul's day. But grace is not an ordinary everyday word in today's English, unless you're talking about elegance, something graceful. Other than that, our English word" grace" is almost exclusively a theological word today.
But Paul did not write in theological language. Second, a lot of the time, Paul uses charis to express his own goodwill towards God. When he does this, instead of translating charis as grace, most translators render it as thanks. In other words, they fudge once again. For example, in Romans 7:25, we read," Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." But Paul actually says charis to God. So why don't the translators render charis as grace in verses like that?
It's because if they translated charis as grace in those passages, it would reveal that charis is not this theological super word that describes all of the many things that only God can do. It would show that charis can refer to favor or goodwill that we humans have towards God or towards others who have done something for us. In short, it would reveal that charis does not intrinsically mean unmerited favor. But what do we do with all of the proof texts that Protestant evangelicals throw out?
Well, you know, actually none of those proof texts work unless we totally ignore the context of Paul's letters. Luther would have us believe that the big problem in the First Century Church was that people were living godly lives, but they had their theology mixed up. So Paul had to do something to straighten out their theology, and that's why he keeps harping about works and grace in his letters. But where in the New Testament do we read about any such problem?
Both in Acts and in Galatians, we read about the big problem in the New Testament Church. And the big problem was the fact that many Jewish Christians insisted that the Gentile converts had to be circumcised and had to live by all of the regulations of the Law of Moses. Paul runs into this everywhere he goes, so he fights against that notion in most of his letters. He continually argues that we cannot be saved by the law of Moses or the works of the Mosaic Law.
When he says that works play no role in our salvation, he's referring to circumcision and to the works or regulations of the Mosaic Law. How do we know that? Well, Paul himself tells us at the beginning of his letter to the Romans. Romans 2:6, he says," God will render to each one according to his works." Eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good. Seek for glory, honor, and immortality.
But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, they receive indignation and wrath, tribulation, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil of the Jew first and also of the Greek. But glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God. So Paul is not saying that how we live plays no role in our ultimate salvation. He says very clearly that it does.
But how often have you heard that passage quoted as a proof text? See, that's the problem with proof texting. People pick a verse here, they pick a verse over there, et cetera, to mislead us on what the Bible is actually saying. If you look at the totality, what Paul says is exactly what Jesus preached about salvation. And he also in that passage states his basic thesis in Romans, which is that there is no partiality with God. It doesn't matter if we're Jew or Gentile.
In contrast, when Paul denigrates works, his context clearly shows he's talking about circumcision and other regulations of the Mosaic Law. Everyone in the early church understood that. The only ones who twisted Paul's words were the Gnostics, and they weren't part of the church. They were the Antichrist. Incidentally, your translation may say that God will render to each one according to His deeds. Well, this is simply dishonesty on the part of the translators.
Paul there uses the exact same Greek word ergon that is otherwise translated as works throughout Romans. However, Romans 2:5 through 11 totally destroys the notion that our salvation has nothing to do with doing good. Paul explicitly states that it does, as do Jesus, James, and the apostles. So the translators use the word deeds to hide the fact that Paul uses the word works in two very different senses in his letter to the Romans and in his other letters as well.
In Romans 2, where Paul says we will be saved in accordance with our works, he's talking about godly obedience to Christ. When he later says, just a chapter or two later that we won't be saved by works, he's talking about circumcision and the works of the Mosaic Law. Probably the most often quoted passage about works in grace is chapter four of Romans. So let's read the first part of that chapter beginning with verse 2.
Paul says," For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? End of passage. The main issue here is the term works, not the term grace. What does Paul mean by works in this passage? I think we can narrow it down to two possibilities.
It can mean the works he mentioned earlier in Romans 2, which he calls patient continuance in doing good, or it can mean works of the Mosaic Law. So let's plug in the first definition and see if it fits. Plugging it in, we read," For if Abraham was justified by patient continuance in doing good, he has something to boast about, but not before God." For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Now to him who patiently continues in doing good, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not patiently continue in doing good, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Now, do you really think that's what Paul is saying? Do you really think that Paul contradicted himself just a page later after telling us that God gives eternal life to those who patiently continue in doing good?
And if Paul is talking about godly living in Romans 4, why does he end the passage by talking about circumcision? What does that have to do with anything? However, since Paul does end that passage by talking about circumcision, let's try plugging in, keeping the Mosaic Law as our definition of works. And let's see what we get. Reading those four verses again, we read," For if Abraham was justified by keeping the Mosaic Law, he has something to boast about, but not before God." For what does the Scripture say?
Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who is keeping the Mosaic Law, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not keep the Mosaic Law, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Well, that gives us quite a different meaning, doesn't it? This meaning fits the context, and it doesn't contradict what Paul said earlier in Romans 2. More importantly, it doesn't contradict our great teacher, Jesus Christ.
However, you may ask," But David, doesn't it say there that if we do something, then it isn't grace?" Not at all. It does not say that. In fact, what Paul says perfectly fits our definition of grace, meaning a favor. As I said earlier, if I agree with you that I will mow your lawn for $75 and I mow your lawn, you owe me $75. It's a debt. It's wages. You aren't doing me a favor when you pay me. However, if I mow your yard and instead of giving me $75, you give me $100,000. Well, that's not wages. That's a favor.
That's charis. If you can perfectly keep each and every regulation of the Mosaic Law throughout your entire life, without stumbling or failing even one time, then congratulations. You've just earned eternal life. But no one except Jesus has ever done that. So we have to look to grace or charis. The first stage of our salvation is what the early Christians call the grace of repentance. This is totally unmerited and undeserved.
God offers the opportunity of repentance to everyone, regardless of how ungodly their lives are, or regardless of the fact that maybe they're even openly fighting against Him. It doesn't matter if you're Jew or Gentile. On the other hand, if you try to earn your salvation by keeping the Mosaic Law, instead of repenting and surrendering your life to Christ, you're going to lose out on eternal life because you'll fail. You won't ever become a branch on the vine of Christ by keeping the Mosaic Law.
However, after we're converted and baptized, after we have become a branch on the vine, God expects us to cooperate with Him in producing godly fruit. Jesus explains this to us in the 15th chapter of John. This fruit doesn't grow automatically. Otherwise, God wouldn't punish us for not producing it. Instead, we play a role in its production. We don't do it by ourselves. We have to have power from God to produce fruit.
But if we don't maintain an obedient love-faith relationship with Christ, we're not going to produce fruit. And if we don't produce fruit, we lose God's favor or charis. He cuts us off of the vine, and our dried-up branch is thrown in the fire to be burned. On the other hand, if we faithfully maintain this obedient love-faith relationship, if we patiently continue in doing good, as Paul puts it, then we inherit eternal life at the end. Now, is that wages or is it grace? It's grace. It's charis. Why?
Because merely doing what we're supposed to be doing anyway doesn't entitle us to such a wonderful reward. If we faithfully obey the laws of our country, our country doesn't give us any reward. The only thing it does for us is that it doesn't punish us. But God is so full of love and charis that He gives us an unbelievable reward far beyond what our minds can imagine, eternal life in the heavenly realms just for doing what we're supposed to be doing anyway. We can indeed call him the God of grace.