In Ephesians 2.8-10 Paul writes that “it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith − and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God − not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Grace? What’s that? It has been said that justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting what you deserve, but grace is getting what you don’t deserve.
To give a simple practical example: Suppose I hit a cricket ball and it smashes a neighbour’s window. Justice is the neighbour’s demand that I pay for a new window – that would be perfectly fair. Mercy is when the neighbour looks at me and at the window and says, “It’s OK, I won’t expect you to pay anything.” Grace would be when the neighbour not only doesn’t expect me to pay anything, but also invites me out to dinner.
Putting it in the perspective of our relationship to God, we need to understand that we are sinners − we don’t live the way God means us to live. That is very serious, so serious that the Bible says that “the wages of sin is death”. That’s obviously not an instant “zap” or most people in the world simply wouldn’t be here. But “justice” demands that eventually the penalty must be paid − there would be no absolute right and wrong if there isn’t a guarantee that this will happen some day.
There are those in the church who talk about a “social justice gospel”, but that is sheer nonsense. It is true that there are injustices that need to be redressed. That’s a serious matter, but there is no “gospel” in it. Justice calls out for something to be done − what desperately needs to be done − but it can’t make anybody right with God. It only exposes us for the miserable self-centred sinners that we are.
Perhaps we can call out to God for mercy − to take pity on us, to stop the penalty, to give us another chance. We can promise him that we will serve him, be his slaves for ever. In a sense, the penalty is dropped, but we end up paying back another way. Problem is that we don’t believe sin is really as bad as that − not what we do anyway. There are really bad sinners − like murderers or paedophiles − but we aren’t sure God should be merciful to them anyway.
But the only way to come to God − to know God − is through grace. God doesn’t only say that we are sinners (justice) and that he forgives us (mercy) − he welcomes us into his family (that’s grace)!
To understand grace, we need to think
about God's attitude.
On the one hand God is just and holy. He
not only sets, but is the standard of right and wrong. All of us are
answerable to him, and all of us fall short of what he requires and intends. In
the final count he is the Judge and justice demands the highest penalty.
On the other hand, God’s very nature is
love. His desire for fallen humanity is therefore salvation and restoration.
Moses was a great leader of the Israelite people and their lawgiver. Among his
final words were these, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against
you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose
life...” (Deut. 30.19). Or we hear the Lord’s words
through the prophet Ezekiel, “Why will you die, O house of
So the just and holy God loves every
person and earnestly wants each one to enter eternity without the pronouncement
of doom – without the sentence that is necessary if this world is really and
finally a place of goodness and justice.
To understand God’s grace, secondly, we
need to think about his action.
Our best-loved Bible verse says that “God
so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in
him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn 3.16).
It is for very good reason that the
benediction begins, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ...” In the introduction
to the fourth gospel, John writes that the Word-made-flesh “came from the
Father, full of grace and truth” (1.14). “From the fulness
of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ” (1.16-17).
Before his birth we hear the angel saying
to Joseph, “you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people
from their sins” (Mt 1.21). Jesus told his disciples that “the Son of Man did
not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”
(Mk 10.45). We hear the struggle in
Some people want to forget about all this
justice stuff and say that God is “nice” – but that isn’t “grace”. The just God
has acted in Jesus who died for the wrongs committed by sinners like us to make
us right with himself.
Today we have been focusing on God’s
amazing grace. But so what? What about it? It may be pleasant to think that God
is “nice”. We can tuck that away in some comfortable recess of our memory – a
useful thought. But if the reality is that we are sinners – doomed sinners –
and that God has loved us so much that he sent his Son Jesus on a rescue
mission, and that Jesus died instead of us, and that God is now inviting us to
accept his forgiveness and to come and be part of his family… What do we do
about that? That’s grace – the incredible offer that means more and more and
more as this life goes on and that promises a whole eternity!
© Peter J. Blackburn, Ingham, 8
November 2009
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture
quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible
Society, 1984.
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