Grace
Introduction
In order to truly understand the grace of God, we have to begin with a firm knowledge of two very important spiritual truths: God’s debt to humans and God’s interaction with mankind.
Once we grasp these truths, the meaning of the word grace will be clearer than ever before. Let’s begin.
God’s Debt To Humans
Don Emmittee said the following:
“When Robinson Crusoe was wrecked on his lonely island, he drew up in two columns what he called the evil and the good. He was cast on a desolate island, but he was still alive—not drowned, as his ship’s company was. He was apart from human society, but he was not starving. He had no clothes, but he was in a hot climate where he did not need them. He was without means of defense, but he saw no wild beasts such as he had seen on the coast of Africa. He had no one to whom he could speak, but God had sent the ship so near to the shore that he could get out of it all the things necessary for his basic wants. So he concluded that there was not any condition in the world so miserable but that one could find something for which to be grateful.”
Robinson Crusoe was apparently grateful despite his circumstances. Here he was stranded on a desert island, all alone. Yet he somehow saw God’s grace and mercy in his situation.
A lot of us aren’t like that, though, are we? Certainly not consistently. I know I’m not. So much of the time I feel like the man described by Edgar Watson Howe. He said: “Nothing tires a man more than to be grateful all the time.”
Have you ever felt that God owed you something? Or that life wasn’t fair and that you deserved something better? Or that God should come to your rescue and improve your circumstances? Have you ever asked yourself, “Why am I suffering like this?”
Does God owe us anything? Don’t we deserve to be treated better by God?
In order to answer these questions let’s begin with a look back at one of God’s first interaction with humans.
Gen. 2:15-17 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
God gave Adam free reign in the Garden of Eden. He had food, water and a beautiful place in which to live. There was just one restriction. Only one rule. Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, otherwise you will die.
Adam—and very soon Eve—knew what they could and couldn’t do. They knew about the one restriction, and the consequence of violating it. Spiritual and physical death. There wouldn’t be any excuse if they violated that restriction. If they disobeyed, death would follow.
Readers of the Bible know what happened next.
Gen. 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
God’s created beings, Adam and Eve, deliberately and defiantly disobeyed God. They knew the consequences and yet they still challenged their maker. They knew what they now deserved. They knew that justice demanded their death.
God’s only debt to Adam and Eve was death. In fact, I believe a holy and perfect God had every right to kill them instantly. God’s holiness and our sinful nature are like oil and water. They don’t mix. They’re not compatible.
Ps. 45:7 You love righteousness and hate wickedness…
Isa. 61:8 “For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity…
Rom. 6:23 For the wages of sin is death…
God’s only debt to you, me and everyone who has lived since Adam and Eve is death.
Rom. 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Outside of spiritual and physical death, God is NOT indebted to mankind. He doesn’t owe us a better job. He doesn’t owe us better health. He doesn’t owe us kids that obey or parents that understand.
God doesn’t owe us anything.
God’s Involvement With Mankind
In addition to understanding that the only thing we really deserve from God is spiritual and physical death, we also need to understand the sovereignty of God. Otherwise we can’t really appreciate the grace of God.
God is sovereign. That is, He and He alone is in control of everything and everyone. He and He alone decides the destiny of mankind and individual humans. That’s His right as creator of all things. Romans 9 has one of the clearest—and bluntest—declarations about the sovereignty of God.
Rom. 9:15-16 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
Non-Christians and even many Christians don’t understand or accept this Biblical truth. God ALONE decides who receives mercy. Humans can’t sway God one way or the other. God ALONE decides who receives compassion. God is sovereign in every way.
Rom. 11:2-6 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah -how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me” ? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
Elijah believed that he was the only prophet left in Israel, but God sovereignly preserved a remnant of godly Israelites. GOD decided who would be faithful to him, NOT the people themselves.
In order to fully understand grace, we must accept that God doesn’t owe us anything—except spiritual and physical death. We also have to acknowledge that God is sovereign and that if anyone receives compassion or mercy, it’s because GOD chose that course of action, NOT the people who were recipients of His grace.
God’s Gracious Nature
The passage we just looked at confirmed that God is, in fact, gracious and merciful. There are many other passages that talk about God’s grace and mercy.
Exod. 34:6-7 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin…
Joel 2:13 …for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love…
1Pet. 5:10 …the God of all grace…
John 1:14 …We have seen his (Jesus’) glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
God isn’t the only one who is gracious. Jesus is gracious too.
Hebr. 10:29 …the Spirit of grace…
The Holy Spirit is also gracious.
There’s no question that God is gracious and merciful. The word grace is used 131 times in the NIV. But what is grace? Here are some good working definitions by a variety of authors.
“God’s unmerited favor.” Unknown author
“Grace is the dimension of divine activity that enables God to confront human indifference and rebellion with an inexhaustible capacity to forgive and to bless.” Walter A. Elwell
“Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits on the undeserving.” A.W. Tozer
Grace is “the free and benevolent influence of a holy God operating sovereignly in the lives of undeserving sinners.” John MacArthur, Jr.
Before moving on we must understand that grace is a sovereign act of God towards undeserving humans. The reality is that God owes us nothing—except spiritual and physical death—and that there’s nothing we can do to improve or change the situation.
God’s Grace In Action
Generally speaking there are two kinds of grace: common grace and saving grace. While most people are more familiar with the latter because it has to do with salvation, let’s look at common grace first.
Common grace
Remember when we read in Genesis about God’s one restriction on Adam and Eve? Don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And who can forget what happened? They both disobeyed God’s one and only restriction. They knew the consequences of their actions. Death. But is that what they received from God? Let’s see.
Gen. 3:16-19 To the woman he said, I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
The God who’s described in Scripture as holy, holy, holy had every right to kill Adam and Eve instantly. That was His promise. If you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will die. There’s no reason for us to assume that God meant anything but instant death for both Adam and Eve.
And yet, God was gracious. Yes, Eve and all women after her would have intense pain during childbirth. And yes, Eve and all women after her would have to put up with their lunkhead husbands. And yes, instead of the Garden of Eden, Adam and the human race now had a world full of weeds and hard work. And yes, now all of mankind was doomed to eventually die.
But God was gracious. Instead of instantly killing Adam and Eve, our holy and righteous God allowed sinful and disobedient humans to continue living. He COULD have killed them. He SHOULD have killed them. But because God is gracious and merciful, He spared their lives.
In Luke 13 Jesus gave a powerful lesson on the grace of God.
Luke 13:1-5 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them -do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
The people who questioned Jesus thought that the Galileans who were killed by Pilate and the people who were killed in the tower accident were worse sinners than themselves. Otherwise they wouldn’t have suffered such a horrible death. But Jesus said that the people who were slaughtered weren’t anymore sinful than they themselves were! In fact, Jesus said that unless the Jews repented THEY would perish too.
John MacArthur said this: “Rather than asking why God allows bad things to happen to seemingly good people, we SHOULD ask why He allows seemingly good things to happen to obviously bad people. We could ask why He does NOT strike down many other people for their sins, including Christians, as he did with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-10).”
Every human being who has ever lived has experienced common grace.
Matt. 5:45 …He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
God is gracious to everyone. We all, by the grace of God, were born. We all, by the grace of God, have had food to eat and water to drink. We all, by the grace of God, woke up this morning and got out of bed.
In His grace, God gave the world 120 years to repent before He flooded the earth. God’s grace was also evident in not destroying a rebellious Israel for almost 800 years.
We owe everything to God. We may despise our circumstances and wish things were a lot better, but no matter how bad things are, whatever we have—even if it’s only marginal health or a few pennies to our name—what we have is only because of the grace of God.
Saving grace
Looking back at Genesis we see the beginning of God’s saving grace.
Gen. 3:15 …I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Just before He responded to Adam and Eve’s disobedience, God rebukes the serpent. He tells Satan that the offspring of Eve—Jesus—will crush his head, while the devil will strike his heel.
Not only does God not strike Adam and Eve dead on the spot, He reveals that He already has a plan to redeem the human race. God, in His grace, was already planning to send His son Jesus into the world in order to die and take the punishment that Adam, Eve and all of us deserve for our sins.
Ephesians 2 has one of the most comprehensive passages on saving grace in all of Scripture.
Eph. 2:1-9 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace 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.
This passage paints a pretty graphic picture. Before Jesus, we were all dead in our sins. We had no desire for God or the things of God. We were spiritually bankrupt and hopelessly separated from God because of our sin. And then, just when we (Christians) were at our lowest point, God came to our rescue in the form of Jesus. And not only has God saved us because of the sacrifice Jesus made once for all, but He’s promised us even more good things in heaven.
Finally, and most importantly, our salvation comes by way of God’s grace, NOT by anything we have done or will do. We cannot and do not save ourselves. Otherwise we could boast about what we have done and there’s no unmerited favor from God.
In order to see just how complete God’s sovereignty is and how completely helpless we are in terms of salvation, let’s look at Romans 8.
Rom. 8:29-30 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Let me ask you a question: are human works found anywhere in this passage? Is there any human effort? NO.
It’s GOD who foreknew us. It’s GOD who predestined us. It’s GOD who called us. It’s GOD who justified us. And it’s GOD who will glorify us.
There’s no human works whatsoever in saving grace. Otherwise grace wouldn’t be grace.
Humans do, however, have a responsibility to respond. In fact, there are grave consequences for those who don’t respond to God’s gift of eternal life through faith in His son Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.
John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Matt. 10:32-33 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
While the human mind struggles—at least mine does—to fully grasp the relationship between the sovereignty of God and our human response to salvation, we can’t allow it to be a stumbling block. God Himself responds to those of us who wonder how humans who are not called can still be accountable to God.
Rom. 9:18-21 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
Despite our limited understanding on how God works in terms of saving faith, we CAN be sure of one thing: eternal life and forgiveness of sins is only available because of the grace of God. And our only involvement in the process is to humbly accept God’s free gift and believe in the name of Jesus Christ.
But why is God so gracious to humans? Why doesn’t He punish each of us for our sins the minute we’re born or the minute we make a mistake? Why does He put up with us?
God is gracious because He loves us and wants to have a relationship with us.
2Pet. 3:9 He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
John 3:16 “For 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.
God loves us and wants to have a relationship with us.
God is also gracious because He’s glorified when humans admit they’re sinful and ask for mercy.
Rom. 9:22-23 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath -prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory…
Rom. 15:8-9 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to your name.”
Nothing glorifies God more than when a human—dead in his or her sins—responds to God’s free and gracious gift of eternal life.
Conclusion
So how should we respond to what we’ve learned? How should we respond to the grace of God?
How should we respond to a God who owes us nothing, except spiritual and physical death?
How should we respond to a God who is sovereign and has every right to decide who to show mercy to?
How should we respond to a God who loves us so much He sent His only son, Jesus Christ, to die a horrible death on our behalf?
If you’re NOT a Christian, God hopes you recognize your need to be saved from your sins. He hopes you’re ready to place your faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord.
If you’re humbled by the grace of God and want to become a Christian you can do that right now by going to I want to make a commitment. If you would like more information on what it means to be a Christian, please read Christianity.
If you’ve read this and aren’t ready to place faith your faith in Jesus Christ, please go to I’m not convinced. Or you can e-mail me at info@krcconline.org with your questions and doubts. God doesn’t want people to make uninformed decisions.
If you ARE a Christian, an appropriate response to the grace of God is gratitude. Let’s stop taking things for granted. Every breath we take is a precious gift from God.
Does God owe us anything? No. But has God given us anything? You bet He has. EVERYTHING we have has come from God. He even gave us His own son.