Solo Gratia

Acts 11:18 – “…God has granted even the gentiles repentance unto life.” (NIV)
Even the ability to repent, to change direction, to acknowledge that we have been wrong is a dispensation of sovereign grace. As Paul taught the Romans, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Rom 5:8” The unearned favor shown by God to sinful man is that He allows sons of Adam who inherit corruption and earn death to change or rather transform into His own sons. These adopted sons, following the Only Begotten, are given the ability to lay down their lives of corruption and death and take up Christ’s life which leads, by the way of the cross, to immortality untouched by corruption, which bliss is the very crown of life.
Matthew 4:17 – “…Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."
To Abraham was given the promise and the sign of belonging to the promise, circumcision. As early as Moses this sign was equated to a condition of the heart, “The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live Deut 30:6.” It is the LORD who acts, our response is the reaction, never the initiation. Without God’s initiating action we cannot love him and cannot live. The enabled response is to love him. This is contradictory to the natural course of man which absent the enabling action of God is to love oneself. The directional change in course of life from love of self to love of God is what is meant by repentance. Repentance is not pure repudiation of self. It is instead, understanding that one’s glory is by reflection only. It is also not an onerous duty imposed by an unfair taskmaster. It is a gift given by one who loves those who do not love him, and loves them enough to die for them.
Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Conversion can happen in a moment but it takes a lifetime to make a saint. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. I Cor 4:16” Each part of us is being renewed. Paralleling how we are called to love the Lord with all our heart, soul and strength our hearts are changed at conversion (Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Rom 5:1), our minds are being transformed (Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2) and our bodies will be changed to incorruptible and immortal. (For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. I Cor15:51-53.)
Acts 13:38-39 “I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.”
God spoke and the universe sprang into existence. That same power, He who is called the Word, spoke another word, which in Greek is tetelestai – it is finished. Enslavement to sin is finished, the terror of death is finished, the unfilled longing of all creation is finished. There is no barrier, no wall, no veil between me and my Heavenly Father. There is no more battle to fight, it is finished. All that remains is joy.