Lam 3:21-25; I recall God's Word of truth to my mind, and it gives me confidence. Because The Lord's mercy never fails; His grace provisions never cease, they are renewed every morning; Great is Your faithfulness... Therefore I have hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait silently on Him.
In our study of the doctrine of the winner believer. Heb 12:2; Rev 2:7; Winner believers are the unknown, unsung heroes of history. 2Cor 6:9; who are the targets of God's grace imputations and the reason that God continues to support the human race.
We have been discussing the doctrine of church age spirituality that is based exclusively on the indwelling and filling ministries of God the Holy Spirit.
Last time in our study we saw how God through Jesus Christ resolved every problem that mankind ever created by resolving the sin problem once and for all when He judged Jesus for the sins of the entire human race on the cross.
We also noted Paul's description of the scope of God's problem solving in Rom 8:31-32; "What shall we say regarding this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
v32 For He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us the all things?"
We see from this that God's entire system of problem solving functions on the basis of grace that accessed on the basis of faith. All benefits that accrue from grace are conveyed on the basis of faith. This is why it is impossible to please God without faith. Heb 11:6;
What is faith? Faith is defined in Heb 11:1; Faith is the invisible spiritual substructure that assures us of the unseen things that we have confidence in.
Doctrine (Faith) is the invisible reality that under girds and establishes the visible reality. Doctrine (Faith) is the basis of God's problem solving because God does all the work in problem solving. God did all the work in solving our problem of spiritual death and that simultaneously resulted in the solution to every other problem.
The challenge to believers is to learn the doctrine, believe the doctrine and wait patiently on God for it to be finished because we understand that as long as we are still living in the devil's world God is not finished.
God the Father imputed and judged our sins in Christ on the cross. God the Son received that imputation and judgment. So great was the agony of it all that He screamed these words.
God the Holy Spirit sustained our Lord on the cross, and He now reveals this Gospel information to mankind under His ministries of common and efficacious grace. This is called salvation grace. In grace, there is no place for human merit or ability of any kind because grace is not compatible with works.
Eph 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved (in the past with the result that you stand saved forever) by means of faith, not from yourselves; it is a gift from God, not of works, lest any man should boast."
We are unable to attain salvation by any human works. God did all the work for us. Grace is God's policy in dealing with mankind in his fallen state of sin and death.
Faith is a transitive verb, it has a subject and an object. You are the subject; you believe the doctrine (faith) and Jesus Christ who is the object of the doctrine (faith) who has all the merit performs the work.
After salvation people in moral arrogance boast about how they did something for their salvation. For example they say they gave up something, stopped sinning, or repented of their sins but none of that is true. If they are actually saved it is exclusively on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Logistical grace is also based entirely on the work of God. One-half of God's integrity (His justice) sends down the grace pipeline to the other half of God's integrity (His imputed indwelling righteousness) all the life support we as believers need to stay alive in the devil's world.
Logistical grace not only includes life support, but also blessings. But these blessings are not in any way merited or deserved by the believers who receive them they are received only on the basis of God's grace.
God only gives on the basis of grace so that His justice and righteousness are not compromised. If God blessed us on the basis of our merit His perfect integrity would be compromised.
Logistical grace explains why God even blesses believers who are negative to His Word after salvation. 1Cor 3:15;
Believers who reject God's Word after salvation suffer loss at their evaluation but they still possess God's imputed righteousness based on their personal faith in Jesus Christ as savior.
The imputed righteousness in the negative believer who becomes a loser because of their negative volition after salvation is the basis for God's continued conveyance of blessing to them and for their irrevocable eternal salvation. 2Tim 2:13;
Scripture reveals how God's solution for the greatest problem we will ever have becomes the basis for the a-fortiori for all subsequent problem solving in the Christian's life.
Rom 5:8; "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died as a substitute for us."
1Pet 3:18; "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous One as a substitute for the unrighteous ones, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit."
1Pet 2:24; "and He Himself carried our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed."
1Cor 11:24; "and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, `This represents My body, which is given as a substitute for you; do this in remembrance of Me.'"
2Cor 5:21; "He caused Him who knew no sin to be made sin as a substitute for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
Gal 3:13; "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse as a substitute for us-for it stands written, `Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'"
2Cor 5:19;"...God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not counting people's sins against them..."
The basis for the a-fortiori is that since God has already solved the greater pre-salvation problem of spiritual death, relative righteousness, and separation from God, he will certainly solve all other problems that we encounter after we have spiritual life, His righteousness and we have been reconciled to Him by faith in Jesus Christ.