On the first day teaching his class for 250 college freshmen, R. C. Sproul carefully explained the assignment of three term papers.
Each paper was due on the last day of September, October, and November. Sproul clearly stated there would be no extensions (except for medical reasons).
At the end of September, 225 students dutifully turned in their papers, while 25 remorseful students quaked in fear.
“We’re so sorry,” they said. “We didn’t make the proper adjustments from high school to college, but we promise to do better next time.” He bowed to their pleas for mercy, gave them an extension, but warned them not to be late next month.
The end of October rolled around, and 200 students turned in their papers, while 50 students showed up empty-handed.
“Oh, please,” they begged, “it was homecoming weekend, and we ran out of time.” Sproul relented once more but warned them, “This is it. No excuses next time. You will get an F.”
The end of November came, and only 100 students turned in their papers. The rest casually told Sproul, “Don’t worry about it, Doc. We’ll get it in soon.”
“Sorry,” Sproul replied. “It’s too late now. You get an F.”
The students howled in protest, “That’s not fair!“.
“Okay,” Sproul replied once more, “you want justice, do you? Here’s what’s just: you’ll get an F for all three papers that were late. That was the rule, right?”
“The students had quickly taken my mercy for granted,” Sproul later reflected. “They assumed it. When justice suddenly fell, they were unprepared for it. It came as a shock, and they were outraged.”
ARE WE ENTITLED?
Students in professor Sproul’s class did not struggle to answer that question. Their answer was always a straight YES. They felt entitled even to the grace of their teacher.
They knew they had to earn the grades but if the first earning failed they insisted they were entitled to the professor’s grace.
To them, the leniency of the teacher was not a favour but a fair cut to them. In one way or another, we are like these students, we feel entitled to God and you can feel that in the tone of our prayers.
Being entitled means rightfully deserving. The students had to do their assignments and earn the grade.
But after that failed and the teacher employed continuous grace periods to them, they developed an attitude of entitlement to the grace.
OUR JUSTLY WAGES
Most sinners today do not understand actually what we deserve and what realistically God owes us.
The Bible says: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23). Death is what God rightly owes us. Nothing more and nothing less.
That is the deal, death is our cut of the bargain, that is what is fair and that is what is JUST.
Jesus Christ (God Himself), had no sin, but when he became our representative, he turned into a representative sinner and became sin.
The Bible says Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him. (2Corinthians 5:21 ASV).
When the sinless became representatively sinful, here is the ruling that was given: “What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” (Mathew 26:66 RSV).
THE TWO TEMPTATIONS
There are two temptations that modern believers can suffer, there is a lesser one and the greater one.
The lesser one is for believers to assume that they can earn salvation through their good works.
The attempt to transact their way to eternal life is righteousness by works and it a total fraud in which man is a perpetual loser.
For all our works of righteousness are filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), for one reason; we the performers are from head to toe too rotten to do one right thing (Isaiah 1:6, Jeremiah 17:1-3, 9-10, Romans 7:24).
The greater one is when sinners like the students in Sproul’s class think at any moment that they deserve the grace of God. Justice is getting what we deserve, Grace is getting what we don’t deserve.
It is a horrific thing for those under grace to walk and act like they earned grace. When people start claiming the Grace, then you know we all have fallen into the temptation of reducing God’s Grace into an achievement.
We don’t deserve grace, we deserve Death. Grace is the unfair divine means of salvation. Grace is an injustice from which we all benefit. It is actually something not to be proud of, it is something to be thankful for.
Thankful that what was unfair to the sinless Jesus was a favour to me the wretched helpless and hopeless sinner.
God bless you, I invoke TRUTH, REASON & FAITH
Priest Isaiah-White
ITiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
@Think & Become
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 