The Auburn Beacon
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

A Website dedicated to the Restoration of New Testament Christianity
 

Home | About Us | Directions | Bulletins | Sermons & Audio | Cross Of Christ Studies | Classes | Student and Parent Resource Page Dangers Facing the "Non-Traditional"


Click Here for the Latest Edition of the Auburn Beacon


To Subscribe to
the Auburn Beacon please send an E-mail to:
 larryrouse@aubeacon.com


Hear Buddy Payne 
Speak in Auburn, Alabama


All Joy and Peace in Believing 
PowerPoint
Audio

One Thing I Do 
PowerPoint
Audio

We Must Broaden Our Vision
PowerPoint
Audio

Our God He is Alive
(Evidences from DNA)

PowerPoint
Audio

Keeping Our Balance
PowerPoint
Audio



The Final Stages of Israel's Apostasy

Adult Bible Class in Progress - Sunday Morning 9:30 - Auditorium Class
Click For Outlines and Audio
 


Planning to Visit Us?

What to Expect
Current Class Information


Thoughts To Ponder

 

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

(Romans 5:1)

 

 


You will need
the following viewers
to view many of the
files on this site.

 

Click here to
download
Adobe Acrobat Reader

Click here to
download
Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer


 

University church of Christ

 

Assembly Times

 Sunday

   Bible Classes (9:30)

   AM Worship (10:20)

   PM Worship (6:00 pm)

 Wednesday

   Bible Classes
(7:00 PM)

 

Location

449 North Gay Street

Auburn, AL 36830
Click Here for Specific Directions

 

Elders

Larry Rouse
1174 Terrace Acres Drive
Auburn, AL 36830

Cell:    (334) 734-2133
Home:
(334) 209-9165

Walker Davis
1653 Millbranch Drive,
Auburn, AL 36832

Cell:    (334) 703-0050
Home: (334) 826-3690


Contact Us

 University
church of Christ

449 North Gay Street

Auburn, AL 36830

 

Or directly e-mail us at:
larryrouse@aubeacon.com

 

Grace and Permissiveness
 

by Dale Smelser

 

There is cause for concern in some current ideas premised upon the grace of God. What persons with such ideas are saying of grace per se is often fine, but their projected applications are unjustified, especially when they suppose that the fellowship of false teachers and errant brethren is necessitated because such by grace still possess righteousness in Christ. As we examine the subject of grace relative to these problems, we are not alluding to any one person's conclusions, to our knowledge, but considering numerous ideas drifting about in various quarters that do appear to our understanding to be ultimately of one fabric.

The fact of God's favor extended out of love and for his own glory to undeserving sinners is exceedingly precious, and one can only thrill at its exposition in Paul's treatise on justification by faith, the epistle to Rome. The Jew gloried in the law, circumcision, and his Abrahamic parentage. To show that none of these established righteousness, Paul argued that to sinners, which all are, the law is an instrument of condemnation rather than justification. He argued that God's real concern is the cutting away of sin from the heart rather then flesh from the body, and that instead of lineal descendants he wanted spiritual sons of Abraham who imitate his faith.

Instead of futilely glorying in a legalism that could never save because of man's inability to perfectly keep law, Paul declares that we are justified by faith (Rom. 5:1). A synonym for faith in this sense is trust. We place our trust in God and rely upon his scheme in Christ. It is a scheme relying not merely on conduct, but having the provision of perfect atonement for imperfect conduct, if we qualify.

An atonement is necessary because we have not merited salvation by perfectly keeping the commandments of God's law. And we have not, nor can we, do enough good acts to eliminate the guilt of our disobedience through which we are consequently lost. (Isa. 64:6). Thus justification, if any at all, must be by grace (Rom. 11:6), a gift undeserved (Rom. 6:23).

But God has made the reception of this grace conditional upon our faith. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9). God of his own love has freely provided the basis upon which he can justly pardon our iniquities, having satisfaction made for them in the suffering of Jesus (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24). But we must trust, or have faith in, the divine provisions and conditions in order to appropriate that atonement. One's keeping the conditions by which he is accounted righteous through Christ, rather than by which he actually is righteous, is thus not being saved by his unblemished works, but by faith, or trust in something apart from himself. He is trusting God's arrangement to effect what he has not and cannot. One rejecting or perverting these conditions, which both appropriate and retain God's grace, rejects salvation thereby. And God's grace is something that must be retained, else there is no such thing as falling therefrom.

The implications of this last point, especially, are given inadequate attention in the theology of brethren who continue to impute righteousness through Christ to many who have come to prefer innovation and perversion to the revealed pattern, or plan, of service. We are made just through what Christ has done, not by what we do, we are reminded. This application is only a restatement of the "man and not the plan" concept. Imputing righteousness to the continuing disobedient ignores the fact that God has required certain things of us if we are to be justified by what Christ has done.

Our salvation being, not of our doing, but trust in God's, has often tempted man to minimize, or even eliminate, human responsibility. Even in the apostolic age it was necessary to guard against perverting grace, using it as an excuse to overlook sin (Rom. 6:1-2). It is today being misused to diminish the significance of error in those of the disparate segments of the Restoration Movement. In the past, a similar attitude taken to extreme has occasionally culminated in antinomianism. The true antinomian holds that since we are under grace, submission to a structured system of service and ethics is unnecessary. He is unable to make the distinction between meriting salvation through legal impeccability, and faithfulness to a Savior, which involves devotion to that Savior's desires. And mark this, anyone mitigating the necessity of complying with those desires, and the pattern constituted thereby, is unfaithful to that Savior! But to the antinomian, studied faithfulness is only legalism. Once he is in Christ, he is free from any strict requirement of conduct, and any sinful action and indiscretion is tolerable. He is saved by Christ, not by merit, he says. Some contemporary harangues in the name of grace, ridiculing faithfulness as "commandment keeping," thus sound ominous.

It is in the end a de-emphasis of human responsibility to suppose that in the Restoration Movement the purveyors of doctrinal error such as institutionalism and instrumental music remain justified by grace. Those errors are not merely ideas of personal imprudence, but ideas corruptive of the collective service and worship of God. The feeling of humanity experienced in tolerating the practitioners of such is deluding, and occurs because it is rooted in short-sighted humanism. One is ignoring God's arrangement in deference to men. Actually, the possibly current controversy is not so much, grace versus legalism, as it is, humanism versus the sovereignty of God; the former concerned more with the cordial rapprochement of diverse human elements than with unity in obedience to God.

This fawning humanistic tolerance implies that while God is quite particular as to what conditions appropriate the benefit of grace (faith, repentance, baptism), he is really not too particular about what he has said as to how his children are to serve him, that is, how grace (favor) is retained, and that after all, their right to their inclinations as free men and continuance to embrace one another in fellowship, regardless, is more important than his desires.

Just as tragically, such permissiveness is often called love. And those being tolerated can be especially sweet-spirited. But neither permissiveness nor pragmatic sweet-spiritedness is evidential of the kind of love for the brethren required by God: "Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do his commandments" (I Jn. 5:2). If we are the children of God those who do not obey God do not really love us! They use us. One proves his love for the children of God, and for God, in sharing obedience with them. When those with supposedly new enlightenment glory rather in an expanded fellowship, beyond those who prove their love for God by faithfulness to his order, while in tending to tell us something about their gracious love for man, they tell us rather that they have more regard and love for man than for God. Such expanded fellowship is not an application of the doctrine of grace. It is grace perverted. It is humanism. And, oh so very, very contemporary. Humanism pervades our society and our young are inundated by it in secular education. That is one reason why some of them are so susceptible to any premise for overlooking significant differences among brethren.

In a nutshell, while grace implies lack of human ability, it does not imply lack of responsibility. The philosophy of permissiveness does. - Truth Magazine, July 25, 1974

  

Other Articles

Joseph
O To Be Like Thee

Vital Points in Worship
Present Day Church Problems (Part 1)
Prayer

Restoring Restoration
The Book Momma Read
Its You're Life, You Know
How to Build a Good Character

 

For Past Auburn Beacons go to:

www.aubeacon.com/Bulletins.htm

 

Anyone can join the mailing list for the Auburn Beacon! Send your request to:
larryrouse@aubeacon.com

  

  





 


The Christian and Money

Sunday Morning College Bible Class by Larry Rouse
Sunday Mornings at 9:30
Download the current outlines:

Lesson 1 - Money and the Revealing of Our Hearts
Lesson 2 - Earning Money
Lesson 3 - Spending Money and Debt
Lesson 4 - Money and the Family

Lesson 5 - Money and the Local Church
Click Here for Audio



The Character and Attributes of God

Download the current outlines:
Lesson 1 - Diligently Seeking God
Lesson 2 - A Holy God
Lesson 3 - A Jealous God
Lesson 4- The Wrath and Longsuffering of God
Lesson 5 - The Love and Forgiveness of God
Click Here for Audio


University church of Christ

 

Assembly Times

 Sunday

   Bible Classes (9:30)

   AM Worship (10:20)

   PM Worship (6:00 pm)

 Wednesday

   Bible Classes
(7:00 PM)

 

Location

449 North Gay Street

Auburn, AL 36830

Click Here for Specific Directions



 

Overcoming the Present Apostasy

Sermon Series by Larry Rouse

Piscataway, NJ Nov 20-22, 2009

 

 

Friday Night 7:30

Lesson1 - How Do We View the Bible?

Outline
PowerPoint
Audio

Saturday Night 7:30

Lesson 2 - How do we View the World?

Outline
PowerPoint
Audio

Sunday Morning 9:15
Lesson 3 - How do we View God's Order for Leadership?

Outline
PowerPoint
Audio

Sunday Morning 10:00
Lesson 4 - How Do We View the Local Church?

Outline
PowerPoint
Audio

Sunday Morning 11:00
Lesson 5 - How Do We View God's Instruction on Fellowship

Outline
Audio

For Additional Information, Audio and Outlines Click Here

 


Recent Bulletins:

The Auburn Beacon - Dec 26, 2010 Edition

The Auburn Beacon - Dec 19, 2010 Edition

The Auburn Beacon - Dec 12, 2010 Edition

The Auburn Beacon - Dec 5, 2010 Edition

The Auburn Beacon - Nov 28, 2010 Edition


Your
Questions Please
!

Do you have a Bible question that you have hesitated to ask?

E-Mail us now at:
larryrouse@aubeacon.com

Visit our question page to submit your question and to read other's questions with Bible answers!

[click here]
 

Our Adult Bible Classes

You may obtain both the current outlines and the audio of past Bible classes from our assemblies.

[click here]

 

     

Email Newsletter icon, E-mail Newsletter icon, Email List icon, E-mail List icon Sign up for our Email Newsletter

The Beacon is sent weekly

 
 
 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxzz

 

  © 2012 - University church of Christ - All rights reserved!