Grace, Through Faith, and That Not Of Yourselves

By Arthur J Licursi

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of (from) yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephes. 2:8-9

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;” Titus 3:5

We as the born again children of God have received of His grace and mercy. Have you considered the difference between grace and mercy? Mercy is when we do not receive what is due us, and grace is when we do receive something that is not due us. Our due, as the self-seeking, self-loving, prideful, foster children of the Devil (John 8:44), was judgment and death, but that did not happen - that’s mercy. In place of a judgment and death, we did, and do now, receive of His love, and His life given in our stead - that’s grace. The Creator suffering for the benefit of the creature that He had created is pure grace.

In this time of the “dispensation of the grace of God”, which we live in today, we enjoy the grace and mercy of God by the salvation that we have in Christ. We receive Christ death as the death of our Old Man, and we receive Christ’s life as our new life, “… by grace through faith …not of works” of righteousness that we have done or do.

But, have you realized that grace and mercy is the way of God in all ages; grace is God doing for man, without man earning or deserving it. God has always made grace, which springs out of His mercy, the mechanism of man’s salvation from judgment? Throughout all dispensations it has been possible for man to be saved by grace through faith, not of works.

As far back as the time of “The Dispensation of Conscience”, which immediately followed Adam’s fall from the initial innocence in the Garden, we see that men could be made acceptable by trusting in the grace of God. This was expressed by their offering of acceptable animal sacrifices, modeled by God. This was the initial working of grace of God, now seen today in the dispensation of the full blossoming of the grace of God.

This principle of grace may be seen in the account of the animal sacrifice offering made by Abel, which was accepted, while Cain’s offering of the produce of the earth, was not, since it ignored God’s way of grace. How is it that I can say these animal sacrifice blood offerings were evidence of the grace of God at work? Well, I am sure that Adam, after the fall and being driven from the Garden and having children, must have told his children, including Cain and Abel, what God had done to cover he and Eve after they sinned. The innocent animal offering by Abel no doubt was modeled after God’s offering of an innocent animal in the preparations of coats of skin to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness. These offerings of innocent animals were grace at work through faith, in that dispensation, God had made a way for man to be saved from judgment. It was also a foretelling of the innocent Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, dying for our sins, to cover them for us.

Some say, “Isn’t the offering of the innocent animal sacrifice actually a “work”? The answer is no. God does not see it, as a “work”, but rather as a demonstration of man’s faith, believing God’s way, that the innocent animal’s blood and death sacrifice would cover their sins. After all, it was no skin off a man’s nose to have the animal die for the man’s sins. Thus this is not “works for righteousness”, but rather a mechanism for grace through their faith in God’s of acceptance of the innocent animal’s life given in place of the man’s life.

After the Law was given from God via Moses to Israel, grace was still at work with explicitly described animal sacrifices, called burnt offering and other offerings. This also was grace through faith at work. The law was to show man his need and that he was far short of righteousness, but the way of innocent animal sacrifices was the way of grace through faith in what God had said was the way. Thus the law was not for righteousness directly, except to turn a man to take God’s righteous way for imputed righteousness, through the death of an innocent one.

These sacrifices foretold of the innocent Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, dying for our sins, and each of the several types of sacrifices ordered by God via Moses was an explicit description of the many things that God accomplished for us in and through the death of Christ on our behalf. These animal sacrifices were a shadow of the reality that we now posses in Christ. Of these offerings Paul writes the following. “Things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Col. 2:17 NASB

Some also would say “But what about doing works for God, shouldn’t good Christians do works?” The answer is, yes; we do have a place for good works in our lives as believing Christians. We may be led of the indwelling Christ to do good works, … but these are works of faith toward God, as works will follow or come after the coming of our faith and trust in Christ.

Paul tells us of our relationship to the works “of the law” before and after we gained faith.

“But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us (push us) unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster (law).” Galatians 3:23-25

It is only after Paul tells us we are saved by grace through faith, that we have this statement.

“we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephes. 2:10

So works follow faith, thus works is the tail not the head. This is in stark contrast with man’s religion and the teachings of the legalistic works based Christian groups that prevail today. They get it backwards, wrongly, they make works the basis of faith, as in “the dispensation of the law”.

The book of James is written to the Jews (James 1:1) in the tribulation, who remain under law through that day. We see in James statements such as “faith without works is dead” James 2:20b; “so faith without works is dead also.” James. 2:26b

This is not the case for we who have the indwelling Christ as our faith, because the Book of James is not written to “the Church, which is His body” (Eph 1:22-23) in this day of the dispensation of grace. We live under pure grace. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles in the Dispensation of Grace clearly writes the following to the believers.

“…for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14b) And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. Romans 11:6

Paul tells us that it was Abraham’s faith that was counted as righteousness, not his works.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. 4Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Romans 4:3-5

The requirement for saving grace is faith, so it is reasonable to inevitably come to this question. What is faith, and how do we get faith toward God? The writer of Hebrews tells us.” Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

Paul tells us that “faith…” is “…not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” 9Eph 2:8). Faith is something we cannot pump up or produce in ourselves. Faith is the substantive result of the revelation of something of Christ that we had NOT seen before; this substantial faith then is the only evidence that we have in the matter. Faith that comes by this new insight then has become our hope. True faith comes only by inner seeing, resulting in hope.

We may study Scripture and hear preaching, mentally accent to it, accepting the facts of Christ as our Savior, but this is not yet faith. It is faith only when God, by His Spirit, reveals it. I see two aspects to revelation.

1) First, we must come to see our utter hopelessness and helplessness apart from God’s intervention in our lives. Usually a situation we cannot overcome has come against us. This usually comes through our failure to make life work the way we want to make it work, thus the illusion is broken as we learn that we really are not god of our lives.

2) Then we will have become receptive such God may reveal His love and grace to us, by inward revelation. Having such revelation, we cannot help but believe, and by this revelation we actually gain, faith as the substance; we come to reaching out to and possessing faith in the unseen Savior, by the work of God in our spirit.

We may say we believe, but not until we have the substantive indwelling witness within (Rom 8:16), that only comes by the grace of God’s revelation, do we have genuine, life changing, faith; evidenced by an indwelling rest and peace.

An example of faith becoming substance in us:

We may believe that a chair will hold us, but until it is witnessed by the sense we feel when sitting and having that the chair holding us, we do not really have substantial faith in the chair. Not until we have a fixed belief that the chair will hold us, will we trust the chair; so it us with our faith in the Lord as we live, day by day. We must experience revelation of the unseen Christ that fixes our trust in Him.

Even after we first believe we all still need to gain progressive revelation of who and what Christ is to us, in order for us go on to see and possess all that Christ is, to us. Thus, revelation permits us to see; it is the difference between simply believing as head knowledge and that of actually receiving the faith of Christ for our daily living on this earth (Gal 2:20b).

You now may say, “Okay, if grace comes through faith, and we possess faith as substance by coming to see by Holy Spirit revelation, how do I get revelation?” This is a very good question. Revelation comes by the grace of God, as He wills for us individually, when we are ready to receive grace. Man has no ability to impart revelation to another man. Even God cannot fill us if we are yet full of ourselves. So, God is always at work to make us empty of self-reliance and keep us receptive of His grace (Phil 2:13).

Paul understood that God alone controlled revelation, so he prayed repeatedly, as in Eph 1:17.

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:” Ephes. 1:17

Consider these statements by Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.” Philip. 4:9

“Let us therefore, as many as be (would be) perfect (Gk. telious, “complete” as in full grown), be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded (not full grown), God shall reveal even this unto you.” Philip. 3:15 (author’s parenthesis added)

Paul here is saying, if we desire to become perfect, meaning “complete” as the human were meant to be in Christ, but we know that we are yet other-minded, God will reveal this to us. It is God’s desire to reveal Christ to us, if really seek Him.

Paul’s Experience

“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: …” (Gk. gnosis, rooted in ginosko, meaning “to have come to knowledge by an experience”, which is revelation to us)

…for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of (from) God by faith:” Philip. 3:8-9

Here, above, we see that Paul’s substantive faith came from God through suffering (enduring) the loss of all things. We know that Paul endured many sufferings. Paul says such suffering was “that I might gain (win) Christ”. It was not that Paul earned Christ, but rather, it was in Paul’s having coming to see more of Christ through his sufferings, that substantive faith was the automatic result.

If we’ve been believers for any length of time then we may also know that this exactly is how it works. Which of us, as seekers, who similarly seek God, has not grown in our faith in Christ simply by the enduring the sufferings of the years of life’s difficult experiences, and yet coming to see and trust Him all the more.

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