“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God: not of works lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8,
9).
“But he giveth more grace” (James 4:6a).
None of us will ever comprehend God’s grace. When we
consider His election, we think that’s difficult,
but, is anything too hard for the Lord? (See Jeremiah 32:27). He will bring His
purpose to pass. He is God, after
all. Why should we stumble over His predestination? He has marked out His plan
beforehand. No problem to see this if you try. Wouldn’t you, if you were absolute ruler of the entire
universe, map out your plan and make
it happen? But it is not your plan or purpose, is it? It is the
plan of Almighty God, and He is carrying
it out.
But, more difficult is to
understand how through His amazing grace he could not only choose, save, keep
and protect His own, but how He could love the unlovable? How could He love a wretch like me? How could he love a wretch like you? If you have never seen yourself as a wretch, as a worm not
worth saving, you may still have
some miles to go before you can know the Living God. Instead of stumbling over why
God passes by so many, and only chooses to save relatively few out of all humanity, we ought to ponder why He saves anyone! “For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23). “As it is written, There is none
righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags”
(Isaiah 64:6b).
Many more scriptures, and the
practical reality of today’s wicked world, show man’s total depravity, and begs the question: “Why should God save
anybody?” But He indeed does still save and not only saves, but keeps. Not only
does He keep His own, but He gives them more
grace to live day by day through all
of life’s trials. In this life we will never figure out God; especially as it
regards His grace. It is not justice
we have received but mercy and grace.
As Arthur Pink said:
“Grace is the
opposite of justice. Justice gives to each his exact due: it shows no favor and
knows no mercy. It gives impartially to all precisely by the wages which thy
have earned. But grace is free favor, unwarranted and unmerited by the
recipients of it. Grace is the very last thing to which rebellious sinners are
entitled; to talk of deserving "grace" is a contradiction in
terms. Grace is purely a matter of charity, exercised sovereignly and
spontaneously, attracted by nothing praiseworthy in its object. Divine grace is
the free favor of God in the bestowment of mercies and blessings upon those who
have no good in them, and concerning whom no compensation is demanded from
them. Nay more: divine grace is not only shown to those who have no merit,
but who are full of positive demerit; it is not only bestowed upon the ill-deserving, but the
hell-deserving.
How completely
grace sets aside every thought of personal desert, may be seen from a
single quotation of Scripture: "Being justified freely by His
grace" (Rom. 3:24). The word "freely" gives intensity to
the term "grace," though the Greek does not convey the thought of
abundance, but rather emphasizes its gratuitousness. The same word is rendered
"without a cause" in John 15:25. There was nothing whatever in the
Lord Jesus to deserve such vile treatment from the hands of His enemies,
nothing whatever that He had done warranting such awful enmity on their part.
In like manner, there is nothing whatever in any sinner to call forth the
favorable regard of a holy God, nothing done by him to win His love; instead,
everything to the contrary. Grace, then, is gratis, a free gift.
The very expression
"the grace of God" implies and denotes that the sinner’s condition is
desperate to the last degree and that God may justly leave him to perish; yea,
it is a wonder of wonders that he is not already in hell. Grace is a divine
provision for those who are so depraved they cannot change their own nature, so
averse from God they will not turn to Him, so blind they can neither see their
malady nor the remedy, so dead spiritually that God must bring them out of
their graves on to resurrection ground if ever they are to walk in newness of
life. Grace is the sinner’s last and only hope; if he is not saved by grace, he
will never be saved at all. Grace levels all distinctions, and regards the most
zealous religionist on the same plane as the most profligate, the chaste virgin
as the foul prostitute. Therefore God is perfectly free to save the chiefest of
sinners and bestow His mercy on the vilest of the vile.”
(From Arthur W. Pink’s Life of David, volume one, page 367, online
edition).
Practically everyone who claims
to be evangelical, or fundamentalist, regarding the Bible and its teachings
believes in grace, or claim they do.
That leads some to ask why we call it sovereign
grace. The reason is this grace, both for salvation and for Christian
growth, is from the sovereign God. That is, He is the Absolute Ruler
and Sustainer of the universe, and he has said “I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy” (Romans 9: 15a).
Often we hear the word “sovereign” used regarding one of our states in
the USA, or the entire nation, as we call it “a sovereign nation”, meaning that
it is completely independent and does not answer to any other nation. Well, the
Bible teaches that God is independent and does not answer to any other being,
or force in the universe.”Shall the thing formed say to Him that
formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” (Romans 9:20b) He is the
creator of the universe and all that
is! This is the God that gives us more
grace. It’s okay to ask Him for His grace, because you could not, and would not
ask Him if He didn’t put it in your heart to do so! I pray that He will do it for you.
"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
"The
greatest thing we can desire, next to the glory of God, is our own salvation;
and the sweetest thing we can desire is the assurance of our salvation. In this
life we cannot get higher than to be assured of that which in the next life is
to be enjoyed. All saints shall enjoy a heaven when they leave this earth; some
saints enjoy a heaven while they are here on earth.."
Joseph Caryl, 1602-1673
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