Nathan E. Lewis

Sermon #7 = “Us and Them: The Gospel of the One Man”
1 Timothy 2: 1-7

We are in the middle of a ten-week sermon series presenting the doctrine of common grace. The first three sermons put forth the common ground shared among all human beings: all of us are made in the image of God; all of us are subject to original sin; and all of us have a totally depraved nature unable to to will or do any good toward our salvation apart from Jesus Christ. The next two sermons focused upon the two-fold purpose of common grace, namely the restraint of evil and the promotion of good towards the preservation of God’s creation toward his ultimate glory. This past Sunday and today we are consider the prevailing theme in the Bible of the Covenant of God complete with its prevalent “us and them” language distinguishing between two groups of people: those who enjoy a special relationship with Jesus and those who are not united to Jesus by faith.
The doctrine of common grace in no way opposes the “us and them” distinction but rather informs us of God’s interaction with both groups in this very long day of divine patience. In last week’s sermon I devoted much time to explaining the inescapability of the “us and them” distinction and how every human being and group of human beings live according to it to some degree. I presented two typically difficult texts in which the “us and them” language is as strong as it gets, explaining them in the context of the Covenant of God . The doctrine of common grace is not an attempt in the Reformed community to go soft on divine justice or to deny the eternal decrees of God, his sovereign rule over all creation by his eternal law. It is not in any way a substitution for the special grace that comes to us solely through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of common grace describes God’s kindness and mercy shown to all of humanity in this world ultimately to display the goodness and glory of God to every single human individual and group.
Before us this morning is a beautiful text teaching us how to live in this present world as God showers his common grace and his special grace all toward a grand display of the divine manifold grace known to every creature, rending every member of the human race without excuse for failing to see the goodness of God. There is no text in Scripture that I know of that distinctly presents common grace apart from the sharper focus upon special grace. One of the main reasons for this contextual structure is that the Bible is written to an audience of those who have been showered with God’s special grace entering into fellowship with God and into peace with all creation.
The Apostle Paul instructing Timothy to be a minister of the gospel and a pastor of the church urges him and the church to be a house of prayer. In (1-2) we take our first lesson: As members of the church we should pray not only for ourselves but for all members of humanity. Not only should we petition God to change the person enslaved to unbelief but we should also express our gratitude for that person, “for all people.” The “us and them” distinction in the Bible does not confine our prayers for only those who are members of the “us” group. We are not only grateful for our sister in Christ but we are also grateful for our atheist neighbor who makes us think about the existence of God. Even though we Americans broke long ago from the British crown, we are nonetheless instructed to pray for the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales. We are to pray for the President of the United States whether or not we voted for him. We are to pray for Fidel Castro as long as he is alive and kicking on that little island in the realm of our Manifest Destiny. We are to pray for the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton as much as we prayed for her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice. Such instruction of the Apostle Paul fits nicely into the application of the doctrine of common grace.
Paul tells us that we should pray in this way so that “we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” The church, who has received God’s special grace, ought to be known in the world as those who “lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” Do we hold to a worldview that is opposed to the worldviews held by non-Christians? Yes. Are we Monists, materialists, masochists, or mother earth worshippers? No. Do we hold to an “us and them” distinction? Yes. When the psalmist says, “Do I not hate those that hate you, O God,” he says so in the context of special grace and ultimate destinations. He says so as he suffers the harm and destruction inflicted upon him by those who hate God seeking the demise of everything good. He says so acknowledging that God has the right in his justice and infinite wisdom to say, “Jacob I loved but Esau I hate.” But even David showed kindness to his enemy Saul, refusing to harm him on a number of occasions. And we have the words of the Jesus, the promised Son of David ringing in our ears: “Love your enemies.”
In (3-4) we receive our second lesson: We show kindness to all people as we live according to the sincere desire of God that all members of humanity would know him and receive his special grace. It is perfectly right for the divine Person to possess and express desire. God has set up and actively controls a plan of salvation that is perfectly accomplished according to his infinite and holy will. His revelation and execution of this plan renders every member of the human race without excuse, making each of us responsible for our thoughts, words and actions. God’s desire reflects his common grace and love for all humanity, which he made in his own image. The treachery of humanity destroying what God made good requires the God of justice to put an end to all unrighteousness. God perfectly expresses and executes both of these important responses to the human situation.
John Murray, in his writing titled, “The Free Offer of the Gospel,” includes these words: The “desire of God is not dealing with the decretive will of God; it is dealing with the free offer of the gospel to all without distinction and that surely respects, not the decretive or secret will of God, but the revealed will.” Before him John Calvin preached in his sermon on 2 Peter 3:9, “But it may be asked, ‘If God wishes none to perish, why is it that so many perish? To this my answer is, that no mention is here made of the hidden purpose of God, according to which the reprobate are doomed to their own ruin, but only of his will as made known to us in the gospel. For God there stretches out his hand without a difference to all, but lays hold only of those, to lead them unto himself, whom he has chosen before the foundation of the world.”
In (5-6) we find this final lesson: From our human perspective we point everyone to the one man Christ Jesus assuming that even the most loathsome individual could be a member of God’s elect. Only God knows who belong to him and who are condemned by their own rebellion. The Bible clearly and powerfully teaches the definite atonement in Jesus’ blood. The death of Jesus on the cross did not merely make salvation possible for everyone, but instead Jesus’ death perfectly accomplished everything the heavenly Father has decreed concerning the salvation of humanity. The shed blood of Jesus did not make atonement possible but rather the shed blood of Jesus has perfectly atoned for the sins of God’s children. On the cross Jesus accomplished everything the Father comissioned to him to accomplish. The atonement of sin is not activated by individual human choice. The atonement of sin has been activated and completed by the death of Jesus on the cross.
It is biblically accurate to say that Christ died for God’s elect rather than for every single person who has lived, is presently living or who will be born into this world. The Bible does not teach universal salvation but rather maintains the “us and them” language of the Covenant. Some members of humanity belong to Jesus and others do not. Members of both the “us and them” agree with their membership in their group: the “us” are happy to be among the “us,” and the “them” are pleased to be among the “them.” There is no middle ground comprised of people who do not approve of “us and them” language exhorting both groups to set aside the distinction and become one happy group defined by no distinctions at all. The more we converse with people who think that they live in this supposed middle ground, the more we discover that they are actually part of one group or the other. They are merely wary of the “us and them” language and wish to pretend that it need not exist.
From our human perspective of limited information and the confines of space and time, we do not know who are the elect of God and who are not. Charles Hodge wrote:
No strictness of inward scrutiny, no microscopic examinations or delicacy of analysis, can enable an observer, and rarely the man himself, to distinguish these religious exercises from those of the truly regenerated. The words by which they are described both in the Scriptures and in ordinary Christian discourse, are the same. Unrenewed men in the Bible are said to repent, to believe, to be partakers of the Holy Ghost, and so tast the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come. Human language is not adequate to express all the soul’s experiences. The same word must always represent in one case, or in one man’s experience, what is does not in the experience of another. That there is a specific difference between the exercises due to common grace, and those experienced by the true children of God, is certain. But that difference does not reveal itself to the consciousness, or at least, certainly not to the eye of an observer. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ This is the test given by our Lord. It is only when these experiences issue in a holy life, that their distinctive character is known.”
Our perspective and our God-given mission is to proclaim the gospel in the context of God’s sincere offer of the gospel to every single last member of the human race. It is our task to point every person regardless of his reputation, record, or condition to the one man Christ Jesus, the only man who has perfectly won God’s favor and atoned for our sins. When we encounter a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder we are to assume that Christ is her ransom. Such a vile woman can be free of the ultimate penalty of her sin, namely eternal damnation. When we encounter a philander who has destroyed his marriage and disillusioned his children from the most holy faith, we proclaim the gospel to him believing that Christ is his ransom, his redemption, his liberation from his destructive crimes against God and humanity. When we encounter a mildly selfish teenage, apathetic towards the Christian confession and life, we assume that Christ Jesus is his/her ransom quickening the mind, warming the heart, and transforming unto discipleship. It is in this context that we receive the words of Paul to Timothy: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” The work and the results belong to God alone.
We are not God but merely his creatures saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of common grace teaches us how to interact with every single member of the human race. We do not deny the “us and them” distinction or refrain from using the “us and them” language. But we are not allowed to us the distinction or language in a malicious, judgmental way as if we were the infinite God who knows the hearts and ends of men. All of us who have received God’s special grace at one time belonged to “them” and we met with the beautiful and hope filled gospel on the lips of Christians who assumed that we would turn and be received into the “us” group. We walked from death to life and the angels in heaven and the church on earth have rejoiced in so great a salvation. So let it be said of us that we are kindly receiving the atheist, the agnostic, the scorner, and the heckler. May we heed the teaching of Jesus calling us to love our enemies. Were we to love those who love us then we would be doing nothing more than the pagans do. But we belong to Christ, who loved his enemies and said from the cross with his dying breath: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”