We see this in the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:4-3:24) choosing not to listen to God, but instead choosing to become best friends with God’s enemy and serve themselves (Ephesians 2:2-3). Yet, it is also the story of how God desired to show His glory, mercy and love but most of all His grace (favor) to those He created to be His excellent ones (Psalms 16:3). It is the story of how He chased them, redeemed them and as a result restored His relationship with them, through His grace (Colossians 1:23).
It is in this story we find God’s greatest gift, the gift of His transforming, saving grace first being given to man, through Jesus Christ. It is here where we find the words of Paul in Romans 5:6-11 come alive,
Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful. No one is really willing to die for an honest person, though someone might be willing to die for a truly good person. But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful. But there is more! Now that God has accepted us because Christ sacrificed his life’s blood, we will also be kept safe from God’s anger. Even when we were God’s enemies, he made peace with us, because his Son died for us. Yet something even greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, we will be saved by his Son’s life. And in addition to everything else, we are happy because God sent our Lord Jesus Christ to make peace with us.” Paul would simply express this to Titus as “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people (Titus 2:11).
God does not just stop with His transforming, saving grace in bringing us back to a relationship with Him. No, He continues with His transforming grace in what some call His “securing grace.” This is the grace that keeps us in this relationship of which He started (Philippians 1:6). We do not just come to Him through grace, but we are kept and move forward in His grace (Galatians 3:2-3). This is why we can know without a shadow of a doubt that through His securing grace we have eternal life (1 John 5:13). Through His sanctifying grace He is making us new (2 Corinthians 5:17), returning us back to not only our original created designed purpose but making us Christlike (1 Peter 2:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17). We find His securing and sanctifying grace in the category of His transforming, saving grace. Also through His transforming, saving grace we find His empowering grace. (God not only saves us but He freely gives us the strength to make choices that reflect a heart of gratitude for saving us.)
Empowering grace is the grace that He gives us to live not like we used to or make the same old choices, but to make choices now that represent that we are filled with His Spirit (Ephesians 1:13,14; 4:30). The Holy Spirit points us to truths and reminds us of the truths God has already shown us (John 14:26). As this occurs we are able to produce characteristics and act in ways that represent God (Ephesians 4:25-32). His empowering grace allows us to make choices that produce qualities that represent our identity now that we are in Christ (Galatians 5:16-25). Yet it is not in our strength we are able to do these things but through the Holy Spirit working through the empowering grace of God (Colossians 1:11, 2 Timothy 2:1). This is the beauty of God’s transforming, saving grace that is given unmerited to all who place their faith in Christ for eternal life.
In grace both common and transforming, saving we see a quality of God’s character that does not exist in man. Because God is pure, His grace must be and that is why grace is 100% God’s work. At no time can grace be dependent on how the one who it is given to responds to it, otherwise it would no longer be pure. At a time when we were the first walking dead, when we thought every day should be happy hour and where we desired nothing less than to be left to ourselves, God extended His grace to us to rescue us from Hell. Even when we did not know we needed to be rescued. If we could contribute towards grace or we could do something to merit it we would always want to brag about it and more than likely exaggerate our side of it to make us feel important. Like the fisherman who catches the big fish as he spins his story we would be no different. We would tell others “You ought to see how I helped God with my grace.” This is why Paul said in, Ephesians 2:9, “not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (ESV). Having our impure hands (Job 25:4) in it would then make it impure and God is pure, so grace must be.
Grace given freely at God’s expense through Christ (Isaiah 53) does not do away with God’s other qualities of justice and holiness (Romans 5:10-21). Yet, where the law could not fulfill those qualities or enable us to fulfill those qualities, grace brings to fulfillment those qualities (Galatians 2:21). God’s law is what the Bible tells us to do, which goes way beyond the Ten Commandments. God’s justice demanded that someone pay the penalty for our failure to live in a way that pleased God or was representative of His character of perfection. This is what we call sin and here is where the story of transforming saving grace begins, through Christ. Christ was the only one who could pay the penalty that God’s justice demanded, which He did through the cross. It is through grace that God accepts Christ’s obedience to what God requires, as ours (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). This is how grace fulfills the demands of His holiness.
The more we look at grace we discover why it is not only the greatest gift God has given to man but that it is God’s overriding quality in how He deals with men in all of life. Whatever happens in our lives comes through this wonderful gift, no matter if it is in His giving or in His denying. Both are precious gifts from God designed for our best. Grace is such a powerful theme that Paul opens and closes each letter with grace and the Bible ends with John wishing God’s grace on all who read his letter. Yet the greatest gift to us is the thing we despise, reject and misunderstand the most because the way we are used to thinking and living is completely opposite of the entire concept of grace. Even there we find what grace is, as it expresses that God character of Gods that is not only opposite of man but not found purely in a man. In fact whatever man thinks or does God’s ways are not only different but better, beginning with grace (Isaiah 55:9).
Can grace be defined?
Imagine tomorrow you receive news that you are going stone cold deaf. The sounds of life, the wonder of the voices that you hear and the music that invites passion within you will soon be gone. You strive to find an answer, you go beyond the original diagnosis and to doctor after doctor. You see the very best doctors in the world looking for an answer. And yet, time is running out. Soon the wonderful melodic sounds you hear, not just the tiny nuances but the whole ability to hear those you love, will be gone.
You now have seen, so you think, all the doctors who could possibly provide answers and all have said one thing: There is absolutely no hope! So you give up and accept that this is indeed what God has designed for you, a life of utter silence. The pain, the agony of knowing that the day is no longer years away but months away. The sounds of silence become a part of life but not in a treasured way, as in all of us welcome a bit of silence. They become a part of your life in a very painful way, making life at times seem unbearable. Then one day you are told of another doctor who is doing wonderful work. At the insistence of loved ones, you go. After months of testing, a device is surgically installed which enables you to hear and now where once silence reigned supreme, you hear the symphonic sounds of life again! Where once all hope had been lost, new hope has now been given, and as a result, life has been returned to a point where it is no longer deeply painful.
There are many different stories where hope can be lost, from a crippling trauma or life-threatening illnesses, the threat of the loss of a child, even the loss of your home. Often when such events bring the loss of hope, it takes outside intervention to step in and restore, some miraculous event or someone who has an answer that brings hope. Rarely are we able on our own to do something to restore that lost hope. While many may not have personally experienced such events, all of us who live on this round blue marble have been condemned to a different kind of hopelessness.
All of us are just moments away from the train named Eternity running us over as we lie tied to the railroad tracks of condemnation by ropes of our making. (We are condemned to spend eternity away from God because we fall short of God’s character of perfection.) These ropes are made by the choices that we make that are contrary to the choices God wants us to make. We willingly make these choices revealing that we are not capable of living how we were designed to live. These
