The Church Age: Expanded Grace as the Christian Way of Life
We currently live in the Church Age, the time from just after the cross until the Rapture (resurrection) of the Church which will take all believers off the earth, then the seven year Tribulation will begin. The Church Age is the period of time when God was first able to fully open up His grace plan to mankind because the cross had just provided reconciliation between God and mankind through the salvation work of Jesus Christ. Before that time God dealt with mankind provisionally “expecting” that reconciliation would eventually be provided by the Messiah, looking forward to the cross when the sin issue would be removed. But until reconciliation actually removed the sin problem God needed to keep in place restrictions and deal with believers under the status of a provisional grace plan until the reality occurred. Romans 3:25 says: “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood--to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished...” God does not get ahead of His own plan, and His perfect righteousness and justice demanded satisfaction for the sins of mankind. Therefore God needed to wait until that satisfaction for sin was actually provided by the salvation work of Jesus Christ before He could put in place a fully functional and expanded grace plan, which was ultimately provided to the Church. God had planned to provide this expanded grace to the Millennial Kingdom with Jesus Christ as the King, and this was set to begin shortly after the cross and resurrection of Christ, but that was rejected by the Jews so the Kingdom was delayed and the expanded grace went to the Church instead.
Old Testament believers lived a restricted spiritual life since God had to “assume” the sins of mankind would be paid for by the Messiah-Savior in the future. Although God acted in ways consistent with an expected future reality, He did not open wide the floodgates of grace until the reality actually occurred. After the cross God was able to deal with believers under the reality of reconciliation having been accomplished, with the sin issue having been actually removed as an impediment to His interactions with mankind. At that point the New Testament was given to the Church as the new covenant under which God fully opened His grace plan for believers. Thus the plan of God first dealt with mankind provisionally during Old Testament times, then after the cross God interacts with mankind under the provisions of the New Testament with the reality of salvation having been fully accomplished. God held back many grace provisions from believers until after the cross, then He released a flood of grace toward believers once He was able to do so. At that point the Mosaic Law was shut down as the spiritual life for believers, and the New Testament revealed a whole new facet of God's expanded grace provisions. The "thou shalt not" approach was replaced by the "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" approach of 2 Peter 3:18. Grace replaced simply following instructions, and a far more complex spiritual life replaced the simple obedience required during Old Testament times. The Church Age believer has been freed from the shackles of the Mosaic Law because Christ fulfilled the Law and replaced it with the law of grace. Galatians 5:1 says: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery....4 You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace."
This shows why the Church Age is the first time in human history when God has been able to provide maximum blessings under grace rather than limited blessings under a code of strict obedience, which was the Mosaic Law. Now during the Church Age all believers are given greater powers, greater provisions, and greater grace. The best of everything God has ever offered has been provided to believers of the Church Age, and there never has been, and never will be again, another Age of time which can match it. The Ages which come after the Church are first the Tribulation, which completes the Age of Israel, then the Millennium is once again focused on Israel when Jesus Christ will rule the world from Jerusalem. But these coming Ages will not have the extensive spiritual benefits Church Age believers have. Once the Millennium is over, human history will be complete. And the Church will have special status for all eternity.
One of the issues which helps illustrate how God acted provisionally toward believers before the cross was the location of Old Testament believers after they died. After death all Old Testament believers went to Paradise, a place of comfort and rest in the heart of the earth. None of them went to heaven, nor were they allowed to visit heaven. As an aside, although Hell (Hades, Torments) is also in the heart of the earth, there is a big difference in status, as is well understood. God treated Old Testament believers under a provisional status, allowing them to rest in Paradise after death, but did not allow them into heaven until the cross became a reality. Once the cross occurred, Jesus went immediately from the cross to Paradise and told the believers there that salvation was now a reality, and that they would be moving to heaven very soon, which happened after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. Jesus was the first human ever allowed into heaven. Now when Church Age believers die, we go straight to heaven. Paradise is now empty. Another illustration of the provisional status of Old Testament believers was the Mosaic Law which was a minimalist approach with limited grace provisions, and an emphasis on strict obedience as the basis of the spiritual life. Those believers had few spiritual resources and minimal spiritual power. After the cross, Church Age believers were freed from these limitations and given expanded grace as the spiritual way of life.
A primary aspect of expanded grace is the Holy Spirit ministry to the Church, and the Holy Spirit has been given to all believers of the Church Age without measure. In previous periods of time the Holy Spirit did not empower most believers, but rather the Holy Spirit was only given for special empowerment of a few leaders at certain times such as Moses, David, Samson, and the prophets. But even for those few the Holy Spirit was said to be "with them" for specific empowerment, not "in them" for continuous indwelling and broad based empowerment, as is the case for all Church Age believers. During the Church Age the Holy Spirit is in all believers and available to empower every believer. John 7:39 says "Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified", meaning the Holy Spirit could not indwell any believer until Jesus Christ had accomplished the mission of providing salvation. During the Last Supper Jesus was giving instructions to His disciples about the changes which were coming, including the universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit during the Church Age. John 14:16 says: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." The "will be in you" was what began on the day of Pentecost when the Church Age began fifty days after the resurrection of Christ. The disciples were still living at that point in the Age of Israel when believers did not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to empower their spiritual lives. The spiritual life of Old Testament believers, including the disciples, was much more basic and lacking in impact compared to Church Age believers. As previously mentioned, their spiritual life was one of strict obedience and a simple form of faith. But after the Church Age began the power supplied by the Holy Spirit has lifted Church Age believers to the heights of spiritual impact never dreamed of by even the greats of the Old Testament, including Abraham, Moses, David and all the prophets. The Church Age is unique in the annals of spiritual history because of what the Holy Spirit is able to do for every Church Age believer. Unfortunately, the current status of Churches ignores the power of the Holy Spirit and instead promotes a "praise and worship" approach without the underlying support of extensive knowledge of the Word of God, which is required before there can be any real praise or worship. The Old Testament also focused on the spiritual heroes, while the Church Age brings every believer to a level where they can exceed all of them, if only they will "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" and subsequently glorify our Lord in ways never before possible.
We have previously discussed how until the time of the cross the Church Age was a "mystery" and was therefore not revealed or even mentioned in the Old Testament, and Jesus Christ also did not discuss it. This was because the Millennial Kingdom which Christ was offering during His earthly ministry needed to be a legitimate offer which could be accepted by Israel at that time. The Church Age, which had been the ultimate Biblical mystery of all time, was revealed in the New Testament. This new covenant to the Church launched the Age of expanded grace which was never revealed to Old Testament believers. It was kept hidden and reserved for Church Age believers until the cross occurred, and then the best spiritual provisions of all time could finally be offered to man by God.
The Church will be the first group of believers to be resurrected, showing the importance of the Church in the hierarchy of Ages. This will occur at the Rapture (resurrection) of the Church, just prior to the Tribulation. Church Age believers will also rule with Christ during the Millennium and then again during the Eternal State. And no greater earthly blessings have been provided to any group of believers than those given to Church Age believers. We have unique blessings which have never been offered to any believer of any prior Age since the provisional status of salvation only became a reality after the cross. We are the Bride of Christ, and will be closer to Him than any other group of believers ever were or will be. (Ephesians 5:22-33) We have the maximum power of the Holy Spirit unlike any other group of believers. We have greater access to God through prayer and more blessings than at any time, before or after. We are allowed to function under a grace system which minimizes the impact of sin in our lives, and maximizes the impact of growing in grace. We have been set free -- free to serve our Lord, but of course not free to do as we please. For all eternity the Church will be the pre-eminent group of believers because of what they accomplished on earth to show the full measure of God's grace given to the maximum extent possible to His believers.
If the Church has been set free from the Law, what is our goal? Why do we remain on the earth after salvation? The Apostle Paul told the Roman Church "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." and the Ephesian Church "be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self [human spirit full of the Word], created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Note the emphasis on learning God's Word which renews the soul and fills the human spirit with Bible truths. However most believers erroneously think the Christian life is merely living a moral life, being better than the average person, and this alone is somehow pleasing to God. Avoidance of sin becomes their highest priority, mixed in with being a generally nice person toward others. This view of the Christian way of life is human powered self-improvement and therefore misguided when separated from spiritual growth. There exists a battle in the soul for every person to keep the sinful nature under control to some degree, and although we as believers can never fully succeed, we can gain advantages by filling up our human spirit with the Word of God. While the Old Testament placed an emphasis on strict obedience and simple faith as the spiritual life, the Church has been freed from the shackles of the Mosaic Law. The spiritual life for the Church is far more advanced, placing the emphasis instead on learning the Word of God, which leads to spiritual growth and increased power through the Holy Spirit. As we "grow in grace" we use our spiritual knowledge under the power of the Holy Spirit in our daily life, applying that spiritual knowledge to live a higher order spiritual life with enhanced purpose and power. Believers will continue to sin since we all have a sinful nature and do not lose it at salvation. But if we continually confess our sins and learn God's Word we can move ahead in our spiritual life under God's power and grow out of many of those sins as we gain spiritual strength and momentum. It is God's provisions and power, not human power, which must be used to empower our spiritual life, which in turn controls the sinful nature to a significant degree and also enables using the advanced spiritual provisions given to the Church. Minimizing sin in our life is a result, not a means, of spirituality; and using God's power is the only power which both pleases God and has lasting spiritual impact. God only expects back from us what He first gives to us in grace.
God does not promote sin, of course, but He has taken it out of the way as a barrier to having a relationship with Him. Our spiritual way of life is, simply stated, to use the freedom Christ has given us to make continual positive decisions toward God. After the first positive decision toward Christ as Savior has been made, we are a child of God forever. We are saved eternally. There is no losing that status. But God requires a continuation of positive decisions and actions toward Him once we are in the family. We begin as spiritual babies, having just been "born again" as John 3:3 discusses, since we just received a human spirit at salvation. As with any baby, spiritual food is required, and that is the Word of God. So the next series of positive decisions are twofold, continual requests for forgiveness of sins as they occur (and they will continue throughout the life of every believer) which maintains the power of the Holy Spirit in the life, and also positive decisions toward the Word of God, by learning it and applying it to our life. These result in spiritual growth and living the Christian way of life which is pleasing to God. The more we learn and grow and apply the Word, the greater God is pleased with us. And this results in blessing during our time on earth, and also eternal rewards. So the positive daily decisions to request forgiveness of sins as necessary keeps the power of the Holy Spirit functioning in our spiritual lives. Along with that, positive daily decisions are required to learn from the Word of God under the power of the Holy Spirit to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 3:18) And as we grow, positive daily decisions are made to apply what we have learned and to "think Biblically" using the Word of God, which is the Mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Thinking drives actions, and thinking Biblically drives actions which please God and glorify our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church Age believer has been set free from the Law to serve our Lord by first growing in knowledge of the Word of God, which strengthens our faith and provides ever expanding opportunities for higher levels of spiritual impact. As we grow in the Word we gain strength of faith and have increased ability to serve the Lord in more significant ways. Those ways are different for each believer, according to the various gifts given to each one. Some are pastors, some evangelists, some providing help to others, some focused on prayer, some serving as administrators, some never knowing what their individual gift is and simply doing what is required at the right times and places. Our mission after salvation is to learn, grow, and serve God by making continual positive decisions toward Him and His plan for our life. And God supplies the power through the Holy Spirit, which means it is not a struggle, but rather we are carried along by the grace of God if we will only continue making positive decisions toward Him. This is where divine guidance comes into play as the believer grows in the Word, since most guidance from God becomes simply applying what has been learned, and doing so under the power of the Holy Spirit who will occasionally nudge us along and into certain decisions which become obvious and even unavoidable. Therefore most of the Christian life is about learning and applying the Word. Of course, there will be bumps and diversions and failures along the way, most self induced. But God is always ready for the next positive decision toward Him, and off we go again in His plan of grace.
We have seen that sin is not the issue in salvation since Jesus Christ was judged on the cross for every sin ever committed, because no human could ever pay for their own sins no matter how many or how few. Therefore the relative amount of sins, or sin types, has no bearing on salvation. Salvation is only by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, and any sinner can have salvation if they accept it by faith in Christ. No person will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire for being sinful. We are all sinful. It is our nature to sin ever since Adam fell in the Garden of Eden, and we can only be relatively more or less sinful, not sinless. God does not deal in relative righteousness. So also after salvation, merely trying to practice avoidance of sin is not the Christian way of life, although as noted previously God does not promote sin. The Christian way of life is a series of positives toward God, and is therefore not based primarily on negatives such as avoidance of sins, or avoidance of certain sins. However the series of positives discussed above will lead to a reduction in the negatives over time as we grow spiritually, resulting in the believer generally sinning less often. As the Apostle Paul said, "Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Romans 6:1) The issue in the Christian way of life becomes what power we use. If we attempt to use our own power we will fail, even though we might reduce sinning, we end up in arrogant self righteousness about our human successes. But if we use the power supplied by God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and make those daily positive decisions toward God and His plan under that power, we will be living the spiritual life God intends for us. As with a newborn we must grow up, and the early stages are not stellar successes, but it is a step by step process. The key is daily positive decisions under the power of the Holy Spirit, not negative decisions under our own power to avoid this or that.
Unfortunately, many believers do not follow God's prescription for the spiritual way of life, but rather live a life of self-righteousness, comparing their relative sins, both by type and by quantity, to the sins of others. That relative sinlessness has nothing to do with either salvation or with the Christian way of life, and a self righteousness based on relative righteousness is despised by God. Self righteousness is not the Christian way of life any more than immorality is. Most believers think that the self righteous approach to life is preferred by God over immorality, but that is not the case. God despises both. But what exactly is self righteousness?
The Bible defines self righteousness as a viewpoint of superiority based on morality. It is a mixture of both arrogance and judging of others which compares one's own sins with those of other people, and creates a sliding scale of moral superiority over others based on that relative sense of whose sins are considered worse by type and quantity. Although the Bible teaches that morality is good, it does not teach that superiority based on morality is authorized by God, which it is not. Because self righteousness is arrogance and often results in judging others, God considers arrogance and judging to be among the worst of sins, outranking many carnal sins most believers would assume to be worse. It would shock these moralizers that God's sense of the worst sins does not match their own, and that their own sins are viewed as worse than the carnal people they look down upon. Proverbs 6:16 provides the list of the worst sins, not the Ten Commandments which is a moral code for the administration of the Jewish nation under a theocracy: "There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community." Nowhere on the list is adultery, drunkenness, or any number of carnal sins ranked highest by most self righteous Christians. The self righteous Christian regularly commits several of these worst sins, including arrogance, lying about others, and stirring up trouble in the community. Yet they consider themselves highly moral and close to God based on avoiding other sins they view as worse. God does not share that viewpoint.
The Pharisees of Jesus' day were very moral yet entirely self righteous. Jesus repeatedly chastised them for such, calling them names such as "hypocrites", "whitewashed tombstones" and a "brood of vipers." Self righteousness is a sin of arrogance combined with other mental sins, so it is a sin complex, one which the Lord spoke strongly against while on earth. The highly moral Pharisees used their self-righteousness to oppose Jesus' ministry at every turn. And it was the self-righteousness of the Pharisees which crucified Jesus, not immorality. During the earthly ministry of Jesus the number one attack on Him was from self righteous people who thought they were better than He was. Odd as that might seem, this pattern repeats throughout the entirety of the human existence.
In contrast to self righteousness, God's plan and the Christian spiritual life is one of grace whereby God does the work and mankind can accept the results and benefit, or can reject God's work and gracious gifts and face the consequences of using their own works instead. Under grace God gets the glory and mankind gets the benefit. God has solved the sin problem on the cross. They were paid in full by Jesus Christ, so sin is not the main issue in pleasing God. We all sin. Most believers simply do not know enough about the definition of sin to know they sin far more often than they think. But God has provided a means to deal with our personal sins by requesting forgiveness and moving on, forgetting what is behind and growing up spiritually. However, the believer who rejects God's grace as the focus of their daily spiritual life ends up being disciplined by God. Hebrews 12: 7 says: "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all." Discipline from God is meant to put us back on the right track spiritually. We cannot lose salvation, but the discipline can be intense.
Guilt over past sins is especially destructive to the Christian way of life. In fact, guilt is a sin which is worse than most sins believers have guilt over. And personal penance is an insult to God's grace. God has provided us with the grace approach to confession of sin to Him and then moving on as if it never happened. God forgives sins which have been confessed, and all unknown sins along with the confessed ones. Guilt is a failure to accept God's grace which enables spiritual advancement. Guilt is living in a past which God has forgiven and "forgotten." Guilt is one of the most debilitating sins of all and has destroyed the spiritual life of many believers. And teaching children to feel guilty about numerous things in life sets them up for spiritual failure as an adult. Yet in all of this, guilt is the primary motivator of believers in numerous church denominations, dooming those believers to spiritual failure as well as a miserable life.
From what we have noted so far about the Christian way of life a sad reality becomes clear about the current state of churches. They do not teach grace, namely that God provides to us in grace all He ever demands back from us. They are unclear about how salvation is by a simple act of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. The reality is that most churches teach their congregation of believers to simply be good people and avoid sinning in order to have salvation and find favor with God. In other words, they teach human-powered self improvement which is a rejection of God's grace and power. The result is a life of self righteousness based on character building, avoiding certain specific sins and human powered self-improvement through mental gymnastics as a substitute for God's grace. They teach that being good people means God will approve of them, which is false. They also teach that God will bless them for giving lots of money, which is also not true. As will be discussed in a later chapter, tithing is not part of the Church Age, but was only for Old Testament Israel. Grace gives people salvation by faith as a finished gift, then grace teaches the believer to grow up spiritually through the Word of God under the power of the Holy Spirit which leads to grace-powered changes in the life. Will a person try to please God by his own works or rely on the finished work of Christ for him? Will a person attempt to better himself or be transformed by the power of God into the image of Christ? Will a person merely try to change the outputs of his sinful nature to something less humanly objectionable or accept the divine nature by growth in grace through the power supplied by God? Unbelievers can be good people and they are not saved and cannot find favor with God on their own. Therefore the things being taught in most churches are not the means of accepting or living the Christian life, but rather trying to achieve human viewpoint self improvements without accepting the power God supplies in grace, the only power God accepts. Therefore the current state of the Church is largely one of using self-righteousness, sin reduction, and following Old Testament directives as a means to please God. These substitutes for the real Christian way of life involves using relative value judgments which compare sins as a means of gaining spiritual stature by comparison to others, and assigning relative values to various sins. This leads to judging others who do not meet those artificial standards while ignoring God's plan which emphasizes growth in the Word resulting in faith, grace, tolerance and love all of which are based on humility. Some churches even place undue emphasis on social responsibility and even activism, which is merely a means of cleaning up Satan's world, making Satan appear more appealing to unbelievers. That is reverse evangelism aimed at making Satan look good, and is certainly not part of God's plan, and not honoring to God. And none of this self powered self improvement pleases God in any way, shape or form. Quite simply it is not the Christian way of life.
Although unbelievers have no salvation, they can still generally conform with God's divine laws set up for all humans, including such things as respect for parents, family values, monogamous marriage, hard work, playing fair, helping neighbors, and so on. An unbeliever can be outwardly very moral in actions, and not much different in morality than many believers due to God's divine laws which encourage general decency among all people. This is a matter of promoting a stable society where all are free to choose for or against God, but has nothing to do with salvation, and it is not the spiritual life for Church Age believers. Therefore these divine laws emphasizing morality and stability are meant for the entire human race, unbelievers as well as believers. And remember in all of this, morality has nothing to do with salvation, but rather morality is for both unbelievers and believers as a part of the issue of providing for a stable society under which God's Plan can play operate.
As we have seen, the Christian way of life is not a series of negatives, but rather it is based on a series of positives toward God. Those positives start with a positive acceptance of grace salvation through Jesus Christ. It continues by making consistent positive decisions to request forgiveness of sins on a regular basis to maintain the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It also includes increased positive decisions toward God by learning the Word of God on a regular, hopefully daily, basis. Nothing about God's plan involves using our own relative power, which in reality is weakness. The spiritual life is not about less, but rather about more of everything related to God in positive ways. God requires that we constantly say "yes" to Him by continually taking what He hands to us.
God is only pleased when someone gives back to Him what He has first given to that person in grace. God provides in grace all He ever demands back from us. And He only accepts back from us anything that He first gave to us. The positive acceptance of grace gifts and use of the power from God and positively giving back to Him using what He has previously given to us is the Christian way of life. God gives us the power of the Holy Spirit to use, and He is only pleased by that power. Hum