The following Sunday School lesson was delivered earlier this month as a 2-part series on the grace of God. Part one introduced us to the topic and outlined the importance of correctly understanding justification by grace alone. Part two provided an illustration from the life of Martin Luther and exposed his inability to appease his conscience through his own righteousness. Part three focused on how many Evangelicals in our day want to eradicate the idea of God's wrath and sin altogether. Part four explicated the clearest expression of radical depravity as found in Romans 3:10-18 and concluded with the rhetorical question: In light of our total sinfulness, why do we not fear the almighty wrath of God?

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Perhaps an illustration first would help clarify this point. Every single human being, no matter the race, color, creed, religion, national origin, citizenship, sex, age, or disability falls into one or more of the following categories: husband, wife, or child. One might think that is a peculiar division but the statement holds true nonetheless. Someone who is neither a husband nor a wife is without question a child to someone.

With this classification in mind, I must now ask three rhetorical questions from Paul’s book to the Ephesians. Wives, have you submitted to your husbands as to the Lord (Eph 5:22)? Husbands, have you loved your wives as Christ loved His church and gave himself for her (Eph 5:23)? Children, have you obeyed your parents in the Lord, since this is right (Eph 6:1)?

Within the span of only thirteen verses Paul prescribes duties required of wives, husbands, and children—leaving no one out of the equation. He commanded his readers to submit, to love, and to obey, all pointing to Christ and the example He set forth to demonstrate how one is to conduct these things. So there it is in plain, unambiguous language—the duties required of women, men, and children. Yet, have we fulfilled these obligations perfectly?

Some might now be thinking, "But you don’t understand, my wife constantly nags me and refuses to submit to my authority." Or, another might respond, "How can I submit to my husband when he never helps me around the house. He is constantly doing his own thing, leaving me to keep the house and raise the children."

Be that as it may, the unloveliness of someone does not abrogate our responsibility and command to submit to God’s Word. Imagine how unpleasing we must be in the sight of God yet he loves us with an eternal love. Let me press on now to an every greater statement that carries more responsibility and far greater guilt.

We all remember from Sunday school the command to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt 22:37–38). Love should proceed from us continually, with a love for God and for our fellow man. Yet, how many of us can say we have fulfilled this command—just since the time we awoke today? Could anyone living among us claim to have manifested a perfect love for the great Sovereign and Savior of the universe?

So it is easy to see from this perspective that no one does good, not even one. None seek after God and no one God loves perfectly, if we are to be honest. Even our greatest "love" and good works are imperfect and less than the Lord requires for salvation. The smallest amount of self-interest or self-righteousness nullifies the perfection necessary.

The question still stands. If we have not kept His commands perfectly why are we not terrified of His wrath? How many people have seriously considered this question in light of the knowledge of our known sins? How often does the thought cross the mind of the words of Isaiah when he saw the Lord sitting upon His throne? Remember his response was, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips" (Isa 6:5). Isaiah recognized that he was before a thrice holy God and he was not holy. The prophet recognized his own wickedness and understood that he did not belong in the presence of the Lord. He understand the nature of wrath as it logically relates to holiness.

So too we must realize that our Creator is a holy and as such, He must, out of necessity for who He is, demonstrate His righteous indignation against sin. Indeed, in light of our obvious transgressions, what makes any one of us think that we can even come before a righteous God? What makes us think we can pray to Him, sing praises to Him, or call upon His name? The Bible says that impure hands and unclean hearts are an abomination to the Lord, yet so many of us think we can do all of these things. With that said, how can we offer our prayers or sing praises to a holy God when His wrath may break out upon us at any time? How can we do that and not live in constant fear just as Luther lived for so many years? We know that just this very morning the impure thoughts on our minds, the rage that flared up within us when another driver cut us off or how we showed little patience with our children or our spouse, and yet, here many will go to church and look at God’s Word, offer prayers, and sing praises to His name. Are we simply apathetic towards the truth? Do we just not realize what it means to offend a holy God? Are we just not thinking about the ramifications of our actions before the Lord?

Be that as it may, the reason the Christian can come together, in spite of all the wickedness, is because of what justification means. The very reason a believer can do all of these things and not worry about God’s wrath pouring out upon him is because of the relationship that is established, and at the very foundation of that relationship is a simple word—peace. Paul tells us that we have peace with God, having been justified by faith (Rom 5:1). And because of that peace, that wellness of relationship, we can have daily communion with a thrice holy God when we are not thrice holy. But how can that be? How can a holy God establish a relationship with someone who is not holy? Can God merely wink at sin? Can He just dismiss our transgression? Is His anger pacified by our pitiful actions? Is the Protestant understanding of justification merely a "legal fiction" as some have charged?

Paul provides an answer to each of these questions when he finally gets to the good news in verses 21–24. After demonstrating the universal sinfulness of mankind, the apostle delivers the hope that each of us needs to hear.

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

Contained within these words is perhaps the clearest expression of the gospel message. This brief statement about salvation in and through Jesus Christ is a glorious truth that everyone needs to hear and is available as a gift by his grace because of the work of His Son on the cross at Calvary. Paul will later flesh out in chapter 4 what he briefly describes in these verses, but the thrust of his words are nevertheless compelling.

Every human being—Jew and Gentile—stands guilty before God, as there is no distinction in the sight of the Judge. Nevertheless, mankind is declared to be "not guilty" by his favor towards the guilty. This is a gift of free grace, a gift that knows nothing of debt as Paul will later describe in Romans 11:6 that grace cannot be mixed with works otherwise grace is no longer grace. Additionally, the apostle will explain in chapter 4 as to why works cannot be wedded with the concept of grace. Using the analogy of a laborer and a supervisor, Paul lays out the logical consistency of one that works and expects to receive what is rightly his. In the same manner, he argues that if one works towards his justification, it is then what is due and stands at open variance to the concept of free grace.

Just as there were many is Paul’s day that did not understand the reality of free grace, there have been many throughout the centuries that have likewise misunderstood this glorious truth. I want to read something to you from a man who did not understand the concept of biblical grace. Joseph Smith misunderstood orthodox Christianity and the idea of grace when he wrote in 2 Nephi 25:23, "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do."

Why would anyone need grace if one were going to be saved after all he can do? That is not the message of free grace and that is not what Scripture teaches. Remember this simple truth about Christianity: God saves us, not after all we can do, but in spite of all we have done. God out of His loving kindness and mercy chose to redeem us from our wicked ways. We were all following after the prince of the power of the air, and despite all of that, despite wallowing in our own transgressions, God sent His Son so that He might save His people from their sins (Matt 1:21). Salvation is of the Lord (John 2:9).

And so we have seen that the one facet that separates Christianity from every other religion is the concept of free grace in man’s salvation. No part belongs to mankind; it is wholly monergistic from start to finish. Adding anything to the purity of the gospel message falls under the same anathema as articulated in Galatians 1. So we must be accurate in our belief and presentation of the gospel message lest we find ourselves on the wrong side of Paul.

We must remain faithful to Holy Scripture and must realize what our condition before God really is: helpless, hopeless, and in dire need of a Savior. Whatever the world may tell us, we have but one hope for salvation—and that one hope comes only by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ. He paid the debt He did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay.

If you are still trusting in your own righteousness—you have not yet understood the necessity of grace. Grace is the only hope mankind has—grace and free grace alone.