Does Grace Enable?

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Should be quiet, guys, guys, guys, be quiet, Be quiet. All right. I'm sneaking out of chapel service. I'm sneaking out of chapel service. I know chapel service is still going on, but I got to talk to you, right So I'm sneaking out. All right. I'm at Ambassador Baptist College right now, and chapel service is going on, and I just snuck out of chapel service. We got to talk about what I just heard. We have to talk about it. We have to talk about it.

0:42 All right. Are you ready to do that? So here's the question. Here's the question. Does Grace and Abel? Does Grace in able? Now? Yes, I'm out here in the hallway of the chapel service, but I'm just gonna go ahead and do our proper introduction. Good morning everyone. Okay, sh I gotta keep it down, Keep it down. Good morning everyone. It is Tuesday, February eighteenth, twenty twenty five. It is currently ten oh nine am Central time, and I'm coming to you live well from Ambassador Baptist College, from the hallway. Okay, okay, Actually I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located here in Abilene, Texas.

1:27 But virtually I was attending chapel service at Ambassador Baptist College, and yeah, I did sneak out. I had had. To end it before before they were finished, because. We've got to talk. We have to talk about something I heard in chapel. And I was going to wait until they upload the sermon and we'll try to review it, but we've got to talk about it right now. I couldn't wait. I couldn't wait to get back. I couldn't wait to get back to the studio. I had to just go to the hallway and talk about it. Now. They're gonna all get med at me when they come out hearing me talking about them, But don't tell anyone, right. Wait, So first I'm gonna read a scripture Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians chapter two. Let's start in verse eight. Ephesians chapter two, verse eight. Everyone knows this verse, all right, you can quote it from memory. Ephesians chapter two, verse eight.

2:15 Four. By grace, for by grace are ye saved through faith? And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Now there's a lot here. We could take a part in this verse. Of course, the very next verse, verse nine, not of works lest any man should boast. But for by grace are ye saved? We are say, by grace through faith. Now, what is your understanding of that grace that saves you? Do you understand it's God's unmerited favor? Do you understand it's something you cannot earn it's God's grace towards you? Or do you see grace.

2:57 Is somehow of an enabling or empowering force. You're say, by grace, and that grace that saves you now empowers you. It gives you some ability to do something. If you look up the word and able. If you look up the word and able in fact, to have the definition right here. This is from an Oxford Language dictionary. Right and able give someone or something the authority or here's the key or means to do something. Do you believe the grace that saves you now enables you to do something in a practical way? Does God grace now does it come along enables you? It does something inside of you. It now gives you the ability to obey God. It gives you the ability to obey the law of God. Now, if you go back into philological history, that fits in perfectly with the Catholic understanding of a salvation by an infused righteousness. But what you may not realize this is, even though the Reformation occurred, and even though we may be like, I'm on team Reformation, I'm not for those stinking Catholics. The bottom line is in most churches you go to, they are far more in line with that infused righteous idea. They almost see

4:28 grace as an enabling force and enabling power. And what I just heard in chapel service at Ambassador Baptist College was the exact words grace enables. Now exactly what he meant by that, We'll have to take a part, and we can. We'll try to review the entire message at some point. There was some interesting things there. There were maybe some even good points. But when I heard grace and ables. I'm like, okay, I gotta get up. I got Everyone was looking at me. I'm like, I just got to walk out. What do you do? I gotta go do a podcast. It's chapel service, I know, but I have to do a podcast, right, I have to do one right now, right.

5:08 So I'm here in the hallway and now I almost want to wait, I almost want to sit here, and as the students walk out, say hey, come here, come here, Grace. When when do you understand grace is enabling? What do you think it enables you to do? It would be interesting to know what the students would say. It would be interesting to go to your church, stand outside when everyone walks out, going hey, Grace does it enable us, and start asking some questions. I have a feeling that most people in your church. I don't think anyone in my church would answer it this way. If they did, well, I'm just you know, I'm just gonna retire. But I think in most churches people like grace enables, it empowers, it strengthens. But if you go with that, are you not walking yourself inevitably right back into an infused righteous concept.

5:57 So as soon as I snuck out from chapel, I immediately contacted artificial intelligence, because you know it's right there on my iPad. So I asked AI, this, should God's grace be defined as an enabling force or an enabling power? Or it enables? Right? This is what AI said. Ai says, it. Depends on how they are defining God's grace as enabling, because God's grace is if you define it or say that God's grace is enabling, this aligns more.

6:38 This is what AI says. This aligns more with. An infused righteousness framework rather than an imputed one. And I was like, thank. You, Ai, thank you, That's what I think. Right, we're on the same theological page. So as like now, it all depends on how they're defining it. But typically if you say God's grace is enabling, then that aligns more with an infused righteousness framework rather than an imputed one. So just make sure we understand the two systems. Imputed righteousness means I put my faith in Jesus Christ. His obedience, his. Perfection is imputed to me. And why does God do this because of grace. I don't deserve it, I can't earn it, but by grace He saves me. By faith in Christ and in Christ, righteousness, Christ obedience is accredited to my account. It's not enabling me. It's declaring. It's a declaration. It's not an enabling it's a declaration. It's saying you are positionally this, which you are not practically in an infused righteous system. I put my faith and then I am infused with righteousness. I'm infused. Now I'm enabled internally to do something. So now I try to cooperate with this grace, with this righteousness. I need the Church to help feed it with sacraments and to strengthen it.

8:08 And then it's me trying to live out the Christian life, trying to cooperate with what has been placed. Inside of me that is a Catholic system. And yet you hear pastors, Bible colleges, chapel services that talk more like their Roman Catholic and if you say this, everyone's just like, no, you just don't understand. They always will accuse me. Of not understanding, like, well, I went to school to get a degree in Catholic theology so that I could understand. In fact, it was pursuing a degree in Catholic theology that made me realize Protestants are far more Catholics than they want to pretend. They said, well, we don't pray to marry and we don't do this, and yeah, you look at some of these things to distinguish you, but when it gets down to the real philological heart of the matter, we almost abandon imputed righteousness was is what the entire Reformation was about. So AI goes on to say this, If grace is understood as something that enables a person to obey, to love, or to live righteously, then it does sound like grace is being treated as a substance or power infused into the believer, which is more in line with Catholic theology.

9:29 Did you hear that? Now You've got to really think about this because I'm gonna put you at odds with your own church. And I'm not trying to put you at odds with your own church, I really am not. But you're gonna find yourself in conflict with the majority of Christianity, which is bizarre to me. Which you know what that tells me, Luther, your entire reformation failed to all the early reformers. You failed Catholicism one. Now I say that, people get so mad at me, like, absolutely not. Yes, it does. Listen to this again. If grace is understood as something that enables a person to obey, to love, or to live righteously, then it does sound like grace is being treated as a substance or power infused into the believer, which is more in line with Catholic theology, where grace is seen as something that helps believers cooperate with God and attaining righteousness.

10:32 Wait, we are supposedly we don't think that way. We are saved by faith. We are safe through by grace, through faith in Christ. Right, And so what happens by faith? I put my faith in Christ. His obedience is imputed to me. And why does all of this happen because of God's unmerited favor. He does this not because we can earn it, but in fact because we cannot. There's nothing enabling. It's simply declaring me to be something. AI goes. In contrast, if we hold to imputed righteousness, So now AI is gonna like an Now if you want to go, if you want to stay consistent with an imputed righteousness framework, well then it's going to sound like this all right.

11:18 If we hold to imputed righteousness, grace is not primarily an enabling but rather a declaring. So it's not enabling, it's declaring. And what is this declaring? It's declaring. God is reckgning the righteousness of Christ to the believer's account. And this view grace is fundamentally forensic, meaning it justifies ciners apart from any inherent transformation within them. We are declared to be something. It's a forensic justification. It's a we are legally declared to be something we are not.

12:01 There is no inherent transformation, that is the imputed righteous system. And I say that, and Christians will be like, no, that's easy believism. That, no, you want to go back to Roman Catholicism, because within Christianity it's always got to. Be oooh ooh, change change, change, obedience, morality, morality, morality. Ai goes on to say, many Protestant traditions, especially those influenced by Reformation theology, emphasizes grace as unmerited favor rather.

12:42 Than infused power. Okay, good, Now, if you ask Christians to define grace, they will say the unmerited favor of God. They almost always will say that, right, God's riches at Christ's expense. They'll go something along those lines, some kind of a statement like that, and it sounds so good. But when you start listening and you frame the question the right way, then all of a sudden, the curtain is pulled back and they will say grace enables. Grace gives us this ability, gives us some kind of power. So now see it's not I can't live the Christian life, but by grace I can't. God's grace enables me to do so. And this raises all kinds.

13:28 Of theological problems. Ai goes on to say, if grace is framed as an enabling force at risks conflating justification with sanctification and making grace something that must produce righteousness within a person rather than a declaration of righteousness based on christ finished work. So then Ai asked me a question, would you say that the way grace is often described today leans towards more towards the idea of enabling And I'm like, well, yeah, yes I do. So then I had to tell Ai what was going on. I'm like, I'm listening to chapel service at Ambassador Baptist College. The speaker said grace enables us.

14:10 He seems to be saying grace enables us to basically live the Christian life, with the clear implication that we can now basically obey. So then Ai was like, oh, interesting, I wish. I was there with you. Okay, Now, Ai basically it's like, hey, when you can give me the transcript, And I'm like, ok, well, I can't give you the transcript right now. They're still talking. Okay, sh be quiet, Ai, They're talking. I'm in chapel service. No, okay, now I'm outside right here we go. So AI says this, This description of grace as enabling seems to unlign more with infused righteousness framework, even if the speaker doesn't intend it that way. If grace is what enables Christians to obey, then the implication is that we now have some capacity within us to keep the law or live righteously, perhaps not perfectly, but at least to some significant degree. This idea then begins to blur the line between justification and sanctification.

15:14 Right, And I'm like, okay, I got you. Now to me the minute. Even if someone says, well, it enables us, but it doesn't enable us perfectly. Well, then this raises to me a million questions. So God's grace is enabling, but it can't enable me to get to perfection. So is it because God's grace is weak or God's grace was never designed to enable me to get to perfection? And if God's grace was never designed to enable me to get to perfection, Then how can you say anything negative about my imperfection because it's God's grace that will not enable me to get to perfection, So that its God doesn't want me to be perfect. And if God doesn't want me to be perfect, then back off. You take up the issue with my sin with God since he doesn't enable me to get to perfection.

15:57 So does he enable me or does he not enable? Now? AI picks up this very concept without me offering any prompt. AI just continued and said, if grace enables obedience, the. Question is to what extent. If grace enables, then does that mean failure to obey is due to a lack of grace. Oh wait, if grace is doing the enabling and I disobey, well then the disobedience would be the fault of the enabling because the enabling did not enable me enough to get to full obedience.

16:39 Right. I know, Church, you're not supposed to ask these questions and you're not supposed to do it, And I know in chopel service you're just supposed to sit there and take notes and say amen. But see, I'm a bad student because I left Chapel to go. We got problems here. Ai goes on to say, if grace truly enables, then why do Christians continue to sin? That's the question AI asked. If grace enables, then why do Christian sin. This kind of language risk making grace a thing that is infused into believers to strengthen them to live righteously, which moves towards the Catholic view rather than the forensic, declarative nature of grace and Reform theology. What drives me crazy is when I start trying to explain this, it's typically people on the reform side who will get mad at me.

17:34 I want to accuse me of being an anti Nomian or accuse me of being easy believism. It's like you don't even know what you're talking about. What I'm trying to do is say you need to be consistent with a very reform theology that came from the Reformation and not return back to Roman Catholicism. Ai goes on to say, the Reformation understanding of grace is that it declares sinners righteous before God on the basis of Christ, righteousness alone, imputed. Not infused. Right. Ai goes on to say, sanctification may follow, but it's never perfected. Christians will continue to sin, and even their best works are tainted by sin. Grace does not enable obedience and the sense of making it achievable. Rather, grace saves those who fail to obey. Let me say that again, Grace does not enable obedience and the sense of making it achievable. Rather, grace saves those who fail to obey and who cannot obey because none of us can obey perfectly. So AI continues. It seems the speaker is assuming that because grace saves, it also must function as a power source that makes obedience possible. But does that view hold up when we examine the reality of the Christian life Christians continue to send daily. If grace truly enabled obedience, then wouldn't Christians at least at least

19:08 some of them reach a point where they live in consistent victory over sin. But it never happens Aias it never happens, no one achieves it. So if no one achieves it, then then where the problem is either in the enabling or the enabling is limited, God comes along. My grace enables you, but it will only enable you to get to forty percent or fifty percent obedience? But how do you even measure that? Because if I'm guilty of one point of the law, I'm guilty of all. I'm always guilty at least of one point of the law because the law is summarized. And love God with all your heart, mind, body, and so I love your neighbor as yourself. You're never even going to achieve that.

19:50 So I mean you're in a perpetual state of guilt of all the commandments. So how do you measure any success? Eh Ai goes on to say, it sounds like you're detecting a subtle but significant shift in how grace is being defined. Does the speaker's message seem to imply that Christians should be able to obey consistently if they just access grace properly? And the answer is a definitive yes. If we will just rely on this, then we can. That seems to be the implication. Now we'll have to review the entire sermon. So I don't want to let me say this. I won't be too dogmatic. That's how it felt to me. But let's be fair. I snuck out.

20:37 I left in the middle of chapel right, So don't don't, don't tell anyone ssh right now. Some of you are, you're going to the dean's office. Hey, hey, hey, that guy who you know, that guy, that student you have that does that podcast. He's on the air right now. He's snuck out a chapel. I think we need to get I think you need. To expel him. Right now. I'm going to be I'm gonna be kicked out of college right right now, I'm gonna be kicked out. I'm not really there, people, It's an illustration. I'm joking. Okay. Some of you are like, hey, hey, he's gonna get kicked out. Okay, No, No, it's an illustration. So I will. Argue grace does not inable. I am saved by grace through faith.

21:20 By faith. I put my faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. His obedience, passive, passive, and active, is imputed to my account. I am declared in my position to be perfect, holy, righteous, a new creature. Old is gone, all is new. But in life I am the same sinner, with the same sinful nature, and I will live and a perpetual state of sin until glorification. Any teaching that does not accept that or acknowledge that is living a lie. You try to convince everyone everyone will. Everyone can play dress up, everyone can grab their robes of self righteousness. They can all pretend. But the end of the they are sinners.

22:01 I'm a sinner, and we all sin. You may not sin in the same way I sin. I may not sin in the way you sin. But I can tell you this, we all sin because the scripture say be holy as God is holy. You've never done it. I never do it. We will never do it, not even for one second of one minute, of one hour of one day. We never will. So we're all in a perpetual state of sin. So grace does not enable me. It is by God's grace that I am declared to be that which I am not. I'm declared to be righteous because of what Christ I say forensic salvation. It's it's a I am being declared to be something. I'm not being enabled to become something. I'm declared to be something that I will never be in practice. So I don't see grace as enabling. Now. I know there's some scriptures that people say, well, well what about this, and we will have to dig into it in greater detail.

22:55 But I just snuck out of chapel. I didn't have time to, you know, do more work on this. Well, I wanted to bring it to your attention. So here's what I would challenge you to do today right now. I don't know. Call whoever you know. Call if you have Christian parents, call them, If you've got Christian friends, call them, Talk to them on social media and say, hey, guys, do you believe grace enables us, gives us the ability and the power to obey God? And if they say yes, then you can say, okay, Well, on Sunday, I'll see you at the local Catholic church and they'll be like, what are you talking about? That's a Catholic answer. They'll be like, oh, I am not Catholic. Come, how dare you say that?

23:41 Well, do you know the difference between imputed and infused? Most likely they will not, which is sad. It just shows that the Reformation was an abysmal failure. But I do not believe grace enables. We are declared to be by grace, which we are not, because it's God's grace, unmerited favor, God's riches at christ expense. However you want to describe it it is. I'm being declared righteous because I'm receiving it by grace. I cannot earn it, I cannot work for it. But that grace does not enable that. Grace just declares me to be something I cannot be. And if grace enables me, then why can't it enable me to get to perfection.

24:31 It's the same thing when Christians. Say you're free, you're free from the power of saying, well, I mean you're not free to be perfect. Well, if something is holding me back from perfection, then whatever. Is holding me back, I'm not free from him. Christians say some of the most ridiculous things sometimes, So does grace enable I'm going to be on team No. Now, if you're on team yes, you got to figure out a lot of things. There, yeah, all right, allsop there Now. I gotta get back. Wait. I think we gotta sneak back in the chapel. I think we have to sneak back into chapel. Are they gonna know that? I'm gone, Oh no, oh, no, oh.

25:17 No, guys, chapel service ended. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna get I'm gonna I'm gonna. Get in my car real quick. I'm gonna drive to South Carolina. I'm gonna drive to South Carolina really quick. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sneak in the chapel up Bob Jones. Okay, here we go. Emphasize everyone be quiet. God bless you Jesus