The Horse and the Cart

Romans 4                     Luke 19:1-10

The Horse and the Cart

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” God asked Job. It’s a good question for us to consider personally. Where were we when God created the heavens and the earth? Did we help in any way or give him advice on how he ought to create? 

Or perhaps this question might be a little easier to consider: where were you when you were conceived in your mother’s womb? What part did you play in your formation and growth in her womb? Or what about your birth? Did you emerge from the womb by your own volition? 

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. You played no role in the creation of the universe in the same way that you played no role in your creation. You played no active role in your conception, formation, growth, or birth. In fact, neither did your parents because it is God who knit you together in your mother’s womb. 

So, since you played no role in your creation, it seems ludicrous when it comes to being reborn or recreated in Christ Jesus…from conviction to conversion…justification and sanctification…if we played no role in our physical creation, it seems ludicrous to say when it comes to matters of salvation or spiritual creation, that somehow, we need to play a major role in achieving our redemption.  

So far, in his letter to the church in Rome, Paul has addressed the one thing that unifies all of humanity. ALL, he said, ALL have sinned; ALL fall short of the glory of God; and ALL are dead in trespasses and sins. But thanks be to God there is yet another ALL. The theme that runs through chapter 3:27-31 and chapter 4 is simply this: ALL are justified the same way…the only way. ALL are justified by believing that God has faithfully fulfilled his promise through Jesus. This is the great equalizer: we are ALL dead in sin, but we can ALL be made alive by faith.

It is important to note here that Paul does not pit what we now call the Old Testament against the New Testament as some in the modern church do. By using Abraham and David as his prime examples, he demonstrates that it is not a matter of law versus grace because God’s dealing with his people has always been based on grace alone. Israel was chosen to be God’s people in the exact same way as the Church was chosen to be God’s people. By grace.

Abraham was chosen by God not only before the rite of circumcision was introduced as a sign of the covenant, but also before the law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Israel was chosen, not because they were a great people, but because God loved them. From what we read later in Scripture, the Israelite slaves practiced a form of syncretistic religion in Egypt and even in the wilderness for a while. And yet, God delivered a trapped and impotent people from Egypt, God opened a humanly impossible way for them through the Red Sea, publicly humiliating and disarming their enemies, God miraculously provided food and water in the wilderness, and God graciously gave them good, holy, and just laws by which to govern themselves as his chosen people.  

That is putting the horse before the cart. Deliverance, or if you will, salvation, always comes first, then come the rules to maintain that status as free people. Never in the history of God’s people has deliverance ever come through the observance of any law or ritual. God’s people obey the law because they are God’s people, not the other way round. Ever since Adam’s fall, it was and still is always God who initiates any relationship between him and his creatures.

It is the faithfulness of God that begets a faithful response. In other words, we love him because he first loved us. It is God who both began a good work in me as well as brings that good work to completion (Philippians 1:6). He is both the Author as well as the Finisher of my faith (Hebrews 12:2). I am his workmanship, created (or re-created) in Christ for good works – but good works which he has prepared for me to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). He has taken out the dead heart of stone, replaced it with a heart of flesh, filled me with his Spirit who then causes me to amend my behaviour by keeping his commandments (Ezekiel 36:26-27). He orders my steps and even though I fall he upholds me (Psalm 37:23-24). My times are in his hands (Psalm 31:14). 

Everything I am…my gifts, my talents…everything is from him. In him I live and move and have my being. He has given me gifts of his Spirit and he causes me to bear the fruit of his Spirit. I am nothing without him and I can do nothing without him. 

However, I am not a mindless puppet nor am I a remote controlled machine. The fact that he has chosen me because he loves me, tells me that in his eyes, I have value…and if he values me, that gives me purpose…and because I have both value and purpose, I respond in obedience to him. As the Anglican catechism says: “As a citizen of God’s Kingdom, I am called to God’s Word and will, in loving witness and service to others, and in joyful hope of Christ’s return.” I am not a mindless puppet, but my response to God is and always will be a response. In fact, even my response to God is a result of a prior work of God in my heart. 

For instance, Lydia did not respond to the eloquence of Paul’s Gospel presentation, but rather she responded because the Lord opened her heart. (Acts 16:14) Or, in the parable of Jesus, the same seed that fails to germinate on unprepared soil, germinates and flourishes when it falls on prepared or good soil (Matthew 13:23-33). 

Indeed, if we take seriously the biblical teaching that we are dead in sin, then any response is only possible after we are given life. Only God can call into existence things that do not exist. Faith itself, Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8-9, is a gift from God.

Now, this is good news, dearest beloved brethren, because that is the only way God’s promise may be guaranteed for all his children. God’s promise does not rest on my adherence to a law I cannot keep as an unregenerated or dead person. Rather it rests solely on his grace. By myself, I would neither seek him nor keep him. He grants me the faith to believe and the ability to keep believing. Consequently, my response to him is simply an acknowledgement of what he has already done…a conviction that God is able to fulfil what he has promised because he has fulfilled his promise in Jesus. 

In Jesus, the impossible has been made possible. The debt and the death that is ours has been removed through the cross and the resurrection. The penalty against us has been erased and our enemy has been defeated…humiliated and disarmed (Colossians 2:11-15) We are the grateful yet passive receivers of a victory that God has achieved through the obedient acts of Jesus. 

But note that just as Paul does not pit law against grace, nowhere in his writings does he ever discard the law because of grace. What he does endeavour to do is put them in the right order. Grace first and then, still purely as an act of grace, the giving of a holy, righteous, and good law. 

This passage then addresses any form of exclusivity based on ethnicity or pedigree or wealth or culture or rank or status…even despised people like tax-collectors were not excluded because exclusion can only be based on unbelief…a rejection of what God reveals as true. However, as our inclusion in the Body of Jesus is based solely on his act of grace, any division based on merit is illegitimate. Our salvation was conceived and achieved by God alone. Just as we had no role to play in our physical conception and birth, so we had no role to play in our spiritual conception and rebirth. We were dead. No corpse can resurrect itself. Our role, like Abraham, David, and all other believers from the Fall to the present day, is to humbly receive what is graciously offered. Otherwise, grace would cease to be grace.

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2024