“Absolute Necessity” … the phrase is admittedly redundant. By definition an absolute is just that – an absolute. Likewise, by definition something that is a necessity is obviously necessary. When it comes to the salvation of sinners and the grace of God, it’s worth piling up terms to make the emphatic point that grace is an absolute necessity – it is absolutely necessary – if even a single sinner is to be saved.

Consider what the Bible has to say about our condition and standing as sinners apart from God’s merciful and gracious intervention in our lives.

• Sin has corrupted all of who we are … “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)
• Sin has left all of us in a corrupt state … “The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:2-3)
• Sin plagues us from the moment of conception … “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5)
• Sin has left all of us in a corrupt state … “God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 53:2-3)
• Sin has severed our relationship with God … “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2)
• Sin has left us with deceitful, terminal hearts … “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
• Sin has left our hearts as heart and lifeless as stone … “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
• Sin has left us spiritually dead and in need of new life … “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'” (John 3:3)
• Sin has rendered us incapable of coming to God on our own … “‘No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day’ … And he said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.'” (John 6:44, 65)
• Sin enslaves us, and we cannot free ourselves from this bondage … “Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.'” (John 8:34)
• Sin has made it so that none of us does good … “As it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.’ ‘Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.’ ‘The venom of asps is under their lips.’ ‘Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.’ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.’ ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.'” (Romans 3:10-18)
• Sin has made is so that non us us can do good … “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:7)
• Sin has left us spiritually dead and objects of God’s wrath … “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:1-3)

If these verses are true – and they are – our only hope for salvation must rest on the sovereign grace of Almighty God. We need more than God offering us the possibility of “opting in” to salvation. We need God to sovereignty and unconditionally and thoroughly save us.

We need grace.

• We need grace that is determined to freely and mercifully save us while we are still dead in sins and alienated from God. In other words, we need electing grace that is not based on any condition that we might meet on our own (unconditional election).
• We need grace that purposes to save us, and save us completely. We need Jesus to pay our debt, and to pay all of our debt. We need grace that makes salvation sure and certain and inevitable, not just possible if we “opt it” (definite atonement).
• We need grace that is willing to take the initiative by changing our sinful hearts and giving us spiritual life while we are foolishly content with dead hearts of stone. We need grace that doesn’t wait for us to make the first move (irresistible grace).
• We need grace that will carry us across the finish line, grace that will not only start a good work in our lives but that will also bring it to completion in the end. We need a grace that will bind our wandering hearts to Jesus (preservation of the saints).