Our Perception Of God’s Grace
Our Father, our hearts hunger for the fullness of Thy nature. We do not deserve to be in Thy presence, but Thou hast made it possible for us to come boldly to the throne of grace. That grace is wonderful in us. Although I may not fully compre¬hend Thy grace, I can benefit from it today. Amen.
One compromised aspect of God has to do with His grace. If our perception of God is compromised, everything about our understanding of God is also compromised. I think this matter of grace is one of the most important perceptions of God to fall under this category of misconception.
If we do not understand God, we will never understand His grace and its full impact on our lives. This is reflected in our hymnology. I have a collection of hymnals, and whenever I am visiting somewhere, I like to look through their hymnal.
Recently I looked through a rather modern hymnal and found the hymn “Amazing Grace,” written by John Newton. Whenever we think of grace, this hymn always comes to mind. I noticed in this hymnal that they had made a significant change. I certainly am not a fan of those who try to change a hymn in order to satisfy their own taste.
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The first line of this hymn goes, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!” This is the familiar version of that hymn. However, in this modern, up-to-date hymnal, the first line was changed: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a one like me.” Quite a significant change, in my opinion.
Some people tend not to quite grasp the idea that we are or were at one time, a wretch. It simply does not go down very easily. We are willing to say that we are not perfect, that we missed the mark, or that we are not really up to par. But we are not ready to say that in ourselves we are nothing more than a wretch.
Some people believe that God’s grace enables Him to put up with certain conditions that are not quite up to His standard. We have a different discernment of what grace is all about.
Our British friends talk about the “gracious queen.” Or we might see a man who is very sympathetic, long-suffering, and generous, and we might look at him and say, “There’s a very gracious man.”
The problem is that we define grace from our standpoint. We believe the grace of God is that He tolerates sin because He loves us so much. That is the price of His love for us. This, however, is far from what the Bible teaches.
God’s grace is not something that we can use to manipulate God into some corner and get Him to do something we want Him to do against His will. God cannot be manipulated.
When we explore the concept of God’s grace, we cannot separate it from His other attributes. God does not lay aside one attribute in order to pick up another attribute. In God, there is a complete sense of oneness.
He is not like my watch that is put together, and all the parts synchronize and work together harmoniously. God’s grace is in complete conformity to every other attribute of God.
To understand this, I need to say that it is out of the goodness of God that grace comes. Mercy, as I have stated before, is God’s goodness confronting human guilt, and grace is God’s goodness confronting human demerit.
Prior to man’s fall in the Garden of Eden, God’s grace was not evident. Not that it was not there—it was just that there was no situation that brought that aspect of God’s character to light.
Once man fell into the cesspool of sin and became polluted, God’s grace came out like a shining contrast. Paul writes about this in Romans 5:20: “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Grace, like all God attributes, carries with it the “much more” aspect.
God was always gracious. He never has been less gracious than He is now, and He never will be more gracious than He is now. But until sin came into the world, God’s grace was not evident.
Now we can see this aspect of God, particularly in our own lives, when we realize what wretches we are in comparison to the holiness of God. Allow me to lay out some facts about grace that should encourage our hearts.
First, grace is God’s good pleasure.
Grace brings into favor one that has previously been in disfavor. It is the unchangeable grace of God, and it never ceases to be what it is. Throughout the Scriptures, grace and favor are inter-changeable words.
You will find the word favor occurring and you will find the word grace occurring, but if you look at it in the original languages, you will find they are the same word as originally given but translated as favor or grace, apparently at the whim of the translator.
Although there is three times as much material in the New
Testament about grace as there is in the Old Testament, there is four times as much about mercy in the Old Testament as there is in the New. It is virtually impossible to separate God’s grace from either the Old Testament or the New Testament. It permeates everything that has to do with God’s interaction with mankind.
The second fact about grace is that Christ is the only channel through which grace flows.
The Scriptures clearly declare, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Here we need to be careful that we do not misread this and find ourselves in a dismal swamp of misunderstanding.
Some people have taken this to mean that because it says the law was given by Moses but grace came by Jesus Christ, Moses knew only the law and Christ knows only grace.
This is to completely misunderstand grace. Grace was in the time of Moses, and the law was in the time of Christ. The Bible clearly declares that Christ came, born of a woman,
born under the law. In the Old Testament, it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Grace operated after the Ten Commandments were given, and grace operated before the Ten Commandments were given. Grace was operative back in the sixth chapter of Genesis, and Grace has been operating ever since. There is no ebb and flow of God’s grace. It is a steady stream.
How can it be otherwise? God must always act like himself and can never contradict any of His attributes.
When Scripture says that the law was given by Moses and grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, it does not mean that it came when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, because there is an awful lot said about grace before Jesus was born.
If the baby Jesus and Christ Jesus and the dying Lamb and the risen Lamb had brought grace into the world, then there would have been no grace before Mary’s baby was born in the manger in Bethlehem. Grace operated from the early days, and grace prevented God from slaying Adam and Eve when they sinned.
Noah found grace in God’s sight, and it was grace that saved the eight people from the flood. It was grace from the very beginning, all down through the years. Grace had no beginning, and it had no end.
So grace came by Jesus Christ, but grace did not come when Christ was born in Bethlehem. Grace had been in Jesus Christ from the beginning of the world. Christ was slain before the foundation of the world, as the Scriptures set forth for us, before the world was hurled into its orbit and populated by man. Grace had been in Jesus Christ and always was so.
Grace could not come by Moses because Moses was a sinner. Grace could not come by Abraham, for Abraham was a sinner. Grace could not come by David, for David was a sinner, a happy singing sinner, but a sinner nevertheless, and he needed grace himself.
God could not send grace through any of them. Grace could not come by Paul. Sometimes people almost make a god or a demi¬god out of the man Paul. He would be the last one in the world to allow this, and he objected to it whenever it came up.
Grace comes from Jesus Christ—always has and always will—and there is never any grace apart from Jesus Christ.
I should also include here what I will refer to as governmental grace.
This is grace that prevents God from destroying sinful men and women when they boast. The fact that sinful people can boast of their sin and continue in it is a demonstration of God’s grace. If God’s grace were not operative, that man or woman would be struck dead in their tracks.
God’s grace prevented Him from slaying the heinous and brutal dictators down through the years who were responsible for murdering millions of people. Sometimes we do not think of grace in this fashion.
If God did not operate by this governmental grace, very few people would be alive today. This grace saves countries like the United States from destruction. In that sense, grace is for everybody, and everybody profits by the grace of God.
That is a demonstration of the good favor of God, the kindness of God, the goodness of God, the long-suffering of God. Let me quickly point out this is not a saving grace. This grace keeps God from destroying the sinner.
Then, of course, there is a saving grace.
Saving grace is another matter, and it is a narrower matter and comes to us only through Jesus Christ. God’s grace keeps Him from destroying people, but on the other hand, the saving grace of God brings people into fellowship with Him.
This is the grace we think of—the amazing grace of God that saves a wretch like Rqe.
Grace is also the kindness of God’s heart.
As a young person, I used to hear people say about a person that he was a kindhearted man. Well, God is a kindhearted God. He is a God of goodwill and cordiality and is that way all through. God is what He is all the time, all the way through without any upsurge or downsurge.
You can look at God from any direction; He is always the same, and He is the same all the way through, always, toward all people, forever. You will never run into any meanness in God or resentment or ill will. God never fluctuates in His feelings as man fluctuates. We can be good-hearted one day and the next day mean as a cat. Not so with God.
Through the years, I have met good Christians, and they go to heaven by the same grace that gets me to heaven. I have noticed they were all right as long as everything was going their way.
They seemed to be very good and cordial, and then they shocked me by pouting. They were not all the same, all the way through, all the time. There was resentfulness and ill will, but there is none of this in God.
God has no present ill will toward anybody anywhere in the universe. No one can “get under God’s skin,” as we say about ourselves. We can put up with somebody for only so long, but then they get under our skin. This is not in the character of God at all.
Just as the holiness of God requires that heaven be empty of all iniquity, those who are iniquitous do not receive the favor of God through Jesus Christ. They must be cast out finally because they cannot be permitted to pollute heaven with their unholy presence. God will never allow anybody to compromise His holiness, and God’s grace goes on to affect each situation.
One final fact about grace is that God’s grace is infinite.
Everything God has and is, is infinite. Infinite means “boundless, without end.” This is hard to grasp for us who are so limited in what we do. God has no beginning and no end, and nothing in God has been created. We, who have been created, cannot fully comprehend the nature of uncreated.
I believe in God’s boundlessness and that there is no border anywhere in God. For man, it is a simple matter of going out and floating around the earth and coming down again on our rockets.
It is a nice engineering feat, and nice work if you can get it and do something adventurous and all that. But it does not shake my belief in the great God Almighty. You can get in that same little rocket, ride out until the stars are burned out, and still, you have not reached the boundaries of God Almighty. God contains all space all matter and all creation.
The Bible talks about God sitting on the circle of the earth: “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in” (Isaiah 40:22). All creation is but dust in the balance and nothing before God.
Simply try to compare God’s grace with our needs. No matter what our need is, it does not measure against the amazing grace of God. God was always a gracious God, but until sin came into the world, it was never manifested and nobody knew it.
As we meditate on God’s grace, we are affected by the overwhelming plenitude of goodness and kindness on the part of God. If every mosquito in all the swamplands of the world were a sinner, every star in heaven a sinner, and every grain of sand by the seashore a sinner, the grace of God could swallow it all without effort, for where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound.
Philosophically, theologically, practically, and experientially, I am a believer in the grace of God. My life is a testimony of God’s amazing grace. God’s goodness and faithfulness are demonstrated in everyone’s life. The worse off you are, the more the favor of God will shine in your life.
Amazing Grace
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found;
Was blind, but now, I see.
Was grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
His grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my/ hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
And when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess within the veil
A life of joy and peace.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We have no fewer days to sing God’s praise
Then when we’d first begun. –John Newton (1725-1807)