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"Grace"
Matt Holt
Grace. Just the sound of the word evokes so many thoughts in our minds as it stirs the affection of our souls. As I meditate on this word I feel overwhelmed at the thought of trying to comprehend the fullness of its meaning. How can we as finite human beings begin to come to terms with such an infinitely glorious word?
As children we are taught the simple acrostic that grace stands for God’s riches at Christ’s expense. This childhood definition begins to take us in the right direction in attempting to gain a measure of understanding of the implications of this word. First we see that grace is all of God. It is his riches that become ours. James 1:17 reminds us that, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning,” and surely grace is at the heart of the greatest gifts we receive from our Holy Father.
Second we see that it was at our Lord and Savior’s expense that grace became ours. John 1:14 makes it clear that He was full of grace and of truth, but He did not keep these to himself. He came to die and rise again so that by believing in Him we may have eternal life. Only three verses later John notes that while the law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and in 1 Corinthians 1:4, the Word tells us that this grace was given to us by Christ Jesus.
Perhaps a different way to try and grasp this incredible word is to look at another rich word in our biblical vocabulary, mercy. When we think of mercy we ponder God’s withholding of the punishment we certainly deserve as sinners. As it is often said, were it not for His mercy we would not go to Hell, we would be in Hell. As we consider grace and mercy together we reflect that not only did God withhold what we most certainly are due, but He gave us something wonderful. He gave us His righteousness and adopted us as sons and daughters. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21. We are not just saved from Hell, but we are adopted into the family of God through the redeeming work of His Son on the cross.
As we search even further for greater understanding, we see that grace is the source of justification, faith, forgiveness of sins, and salvation, to name but a few. It is declared by the Gospel as Paul testified in Acts 20:24. The Saints are heirs of it, God completes His work in them through it, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of it.
Well, we might believe at this point that we’ve begun to get our arms around this word grace, but I feel we may have only scratched the surface. Perhaps one last way to look at it is through the eyes of one whose very life taught him some small measure of this word. John Newton was a slave trader, and in his own words, a “blasphemer.” After many years of running away from God, he finally in the pit of despair remembered the faithful teachings of his mother from the Word of God and desperately clung to the Gospel of Grace. Remembering those he had so brutally mistreated and the grace God so miraculously demonstrated in his life, together with William Cowper he penned the words that became the hymn we so love to sing today. “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I am found, was blind, but now I see.” May God help us all to better see the glorious truth of His grace.
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