Pastor's Power Points

A Correct Understanding of Grace

Is it possible that western capitalism has distorted our understanding of biblical truth?  Take grace, for example. Ask someone to define grace or even give an example of grace and they might bring up the “grace period” on their credit card balance.

As I listened to a speaker on the radio, I was saddened at a particular statement he made in which he defined this dispensation of grace as “a time when God doesn’t punish sin immediately.”  Is that all grace is – delayed punishment (like the credit card balance)? This idea hints of mercy or divine forbearance, but it is not grace. Mercy is judgment withheld (present also in the OT, by-the-way). Grace has nothing to do with something being withheld; it has everything to do with something being given. Grace is not about what doesn’t happen to the sinner – it is about what does happen in terms of divine favor: God gave us His Son (Rom. 5:15; II Cor. 8:9), God gave us His Holy Spirit as partakers of the divine nature (Eph. 3:20; II Pet. 1:4), and God gave us spiritual gifts (Eph. 3:7; I Cor. 15:10).  All of these are God’s newness and power in our lives in order to accomplish His will – to live for His glory.

The fact that we are not under the law but under grace (Rom.6) is not that God no longer punishes sin immediately (because sometimes He does). It is the fact that under God’s grace we are new in Christ and our lives are “hidden with Christ in God” (Col.3:3). To understand grace (and therefore live in it) is to doctrinally, theologically, and practically grasp what you have gained in Jesus Christ.

 

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor,
so that you by his poverty might become rich.
II Cor. 8:9