All about Grace

No, this is not going to be a discourse on the theological meaning of the word and idea of grace, no need to haul your lexicons down from the top shelf. What I mean to say by my title is that, for a Christian, it’s all about grace. In other words, where would you and I be (as born-again believers) if not for grace, the unmerited favour of God toward sinners? You know as well as I where we’d be.

So, it’s all about grace. It’s all about being reconciled to God because of God’s incredible redeeming love for His children, who only become His children because of His magnanimous grace toward them. This awesome truth should cause us to stop whatever it is we are doing and say out loud with great joy to the heavens, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

This thought was brought home to me very forcefully last night. I was reading a chapter from Romans, an Expositional Commentary by James Montgomery Boice and published by Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 1992. In his commentary on Romans 5:15-17, Boice concludes with the following words: “…let us revel in grace, abounding in it even as it is abounding. Why? Because as D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, ‘It is only when you and I, and others who are members of the Christian Church, are rejoicing in this abounding grace as we ought to be, that we shall begin to attract the people who are outside the church [quoted from Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 5, Assurance, pp. 238, 239]. There are lots of things about Christianity that will always be unattractive to the world: holiness, discipleship, self-sacrifice, and more. There are scores of them. But grace is not one. Grace is attractive, and those who have received grace should be attractive too. Later on [in Romans] Paul is going to speak of grace ‘abounding.’ Let it abound! He is going to speak of grace ‘reigning.’ Let it reign! Let it reign until all about turn to you and say, ‘If that is Christianity, then that is what I want.’ Do not live like a pauper when God has made you a king.”

The same night I also read the following words from my copy of My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers [Discovery House, Grand Rapids, 1992, ed. Reimann, J.]: “…whenever the realization of God comes, even in the faintest way imaginable, be determined to recklessly abandon yourself, surrendering everything to Him. It is only through abandonment of yourself and your circumstances that you will recognize Him. You will only recognize His voice more clearly through recklessness—being willing to risk your all.”

If we are saved entirely by grace—and we are—then shouldn’t that lead to a kind of reckless abandon? Shouldn’t we be able to “give it up for Christ?” What is there to hold on to by comparison? And shouldn’t others be able to see the reckless abandon in us? Not in our irresponsibility, not in our antinomianism, but in our joy! “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; And let them say among the nations, "The LORD reigns” (1 Chronicles 16:31). “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” (Php 4:4).

Surely this is what our Lord had in mind when He said, “No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light” (Luke 11:33)?

For we must remember that the light He was speaking of was not the light of the man in and of himself (not his own personality, his talents, his discipline), but rather the light being referred to was Christ Himself. He was (and more importantly is) the light that should not be hidden. He is the light that no one should cover, but rather openly display on a candlestick so that all may see. Is this not something to rejoice in? Is this not beyond ourselves? Are we then to take credit for it? By no means!

You may ask “Are you proposing some kind of Christian hedonism?” To which I answer, “No, at least not exactly.” And I would mean by this answer that I only propose to be what Christ wants us to be in Him: thankfully joyful for the sacrifice He has made and the work He has accomplished for us, undeserving sinners that we are. Even one of the most conservative documents of the Reformation (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question and Answer 1) recognizes that our essential attitude as born-again believers is to be found in our enjoyment of God: “What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” But this is only possible when we recognize our debt to Christ and then joyfully glorify Him through our willing obedience to His commandments.

Do we attract others because of our own joyful attractiveness? Should we not be “contagious” Christians, infecting everyone we meet with the joy we have received in Christ? Let us not stifle the light but rather let us take joy in it. Let us revel, in reckless abandon, in the grace won for us by Christ, the Light of the World. Let grace abound in our lives, let it reign! Let us not live like paupers when God has made us Kings!

Soli Deo Gloria.