There are many aspects of God’s grace brought before us in the Scriptures, grace that was first seen in His own Son come in flesh, even as the Apostle John wrote, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). This grace has come to us in the Gospel, and is ministered to us for every circle in which God has set us, and is ministered by Christ from His place in glory. Grace for the wilderness comes to us from the throne of grace, grace sufficient for every servant comes from our exalted Master, and the grace needed by every saint from Him who has gone on high, having led captivity captive, and given gifts unto men. In 2nd Timothy we learn of the grace for the last days that is in Christ Jesus, and we read in 1 Peter of the grace that is to be brought to us at the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ
While encouraging the saints in Corinth regarding the collection for the poor saints in Judea and Jerusalem, the Apostle Paul speaks of this as grace manifested in them. They were not impoverishing themselves to help the poor, though they were doubtless making sacrifices. The Apostle then turns to One who is the supreme example for His saints, though giving an example that none could follow, for what Christ did was peculiarly His own. They could not follow Christ in His going down to the depths of poverty, but they could seek to follow Him in this, they could give to those who were needy from what they possessed.
Before coming into the world, the Lord Jesus was rich (2 Cor. 8:9), and His were riches beyond all human computation. He was the creator of the universe with all its riches, the One before whom all the great angelic beings worshipped, and delighted to serve. In order that we might be rich, the Son of God became poor, coming into Manhood’s form, laying aside the glory that He had with the Father and as Man was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger. How deep was His poverty in His entry into this world.
Passing through this world, He had not where to lay His head. At His command, a fish provided the money demanded of Him by the Jews, for He, the possessor of all things, had nothing here. He had to say, “Show me a penny,” for He did not possess one. All this brings out the extreme poverty of Jesus in this world, but how can any describe the depths of His poverty when He died upon the cross? Even His garments were taken from Him; but this shame was nothing compared to what He entered into when the divine judgment fell upon His holy head.
There was not a shred of His royal glory in evidence when He died, though a poor dying thief, by faith, could discern it. All the riches connected with Israel’s throne were His by right, but He had nothing when He died. He was the appointed Heir of all things, but for the moment everything had been relinquished. The depths of poverty and degradation were His for every human eye to see; but no mortal eye could penetrate to the awful depths into which His soul entered when He was made sin, and bore the wrath of God.
All this the Lord Jesus passed through that we might be rich. We could never have part with Him in the divine riches He laid aside, but we can now have part with Him in the riches He has acquired by His going into death. How wonderfully rich is Christ in the place He now occupies in heaven, and the Lord called Saul of Tarsus, and gave Him an administration of grace, that he might make known the Gospel of His “unsearchable riches” (Eph. 3:8). Because of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in becoming poor, God has now enriched us from the riches of His glory, and the riches of His grace, and soon we shall share, as co-heirs, the inheritance that we have in Christ Jesus.
Christ Tasted Death for Everything
We have seen from 2 Corinthians 8:9 that Christ became poor to make us rich. By faith, we now look up to heaven, where Jesus is in all His unsearchable riches, and see Him “who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every thing” (Heb. 2:9). It was by the grace of God that Christ tasted death. He tasted it that we might not taste it, but rather that we might be delivered from its power and dread. But in going into death the Lord Jesus has claimed every thing.
Everything was Christ’s in the right of creation, for by Him were all things created. He has also a claim on all, for He is the “appointed Heir of all things.” Now He has another claim in the rights of redemption. When the high priest of Israel was anointed, the whole tabernacle system was anointed with him (Lev. 8); surely telling us of Christ’s title to the universe as God’s Anointed Man; but, on the day of atonement, the whole tabernacle system, the priests and the people, came under the atoning work of the sin offering; and this surely indicates that the whole universe is claimed by Christ on account of His death.
Men may deny “the Lord that bought them” (2 Peter 2:1), but He has rights over them as their creator, and as having bought them by His death. At the coming of the Lord the groan of the creation will cease, for it will also come under the benefits of the death of Christ, for He tasted death “for every thing.” How very thankful we should be to God that, in His grace, He gave His Son to die for every thing, for this has enabled Him to send the Gospel forth to all men, and to bring those He has redeemed by the precious blood of Christ into all the blessings that are brought before us in Hebrews 2.
The Celebration of Grace
When one who sat in the presence of the Lord said, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15), the Lord spoke to him of the great supper that God has prepared to celebrate His grace, and to which Israel were first bidden by the Lord Himself on earth. Alas! Israel refused the invitation of divine grace, making the paltry excuses that showed they had no heart for God or the feast He had spread. Is it any wonder that God was angry at the treatment of His invitation?
God will not be frustrated, and if those to whom the invitation was first given refused it, He has assured that there will be a company that will appreciate and enjoy the celebration of His grace. After the Lord rose from among the dead, God sent out His servants to those who were despised of men, “the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind,” and many accepted His invitation. As there was still room at His table, God sent His servants to invite the Gentiles, those in “the highways and hedges,” to come to the feast, compelling them by the preaching of His Gospel to accept His invitation.
The Provision of Grace
If in Luke 14 we have the celebration of God’s grace, in the reception of the prodigal in Luke 15 we have the provision of grace. The prodigal surely tells us of man turning his back on God, and in self will, gratifying himself in sin, in the distance from God. Having come to the end of himself, the prodigal recalls the goodness of God, and the abundance of His house, and, in repentance, turns his face towards the God against whom he had so grievously sinned. It was indeed the goodness of God that led him to repentance.
The eagerness of God to forgive and welcome is told in the running of the Father to meet the prodigal, who is covered with kisses as he confesses his sins and unworthiness of relationship with his Father. Divine grace is surely told out in the Father’s provision for the returned wanderer; the best robe telling of the righteousness provided to make him fit for the Father’s presence; the shoes speaking of fitness to walk in the Father’s house; the ring announcing the dignity of sonship; and the fatted calf that death has made provision for the feast at which the grace of the Father is enjoyed.
Grace Expounded
God’s grace, as made known in the Gospel, was preached by the apostles on the day of Pentecost, and wherever the Gospel message was proclaimed; but the Apostle Paul, in the epistle to the Romans is used by the Spirit of God to teach us that divine blessing comes to men in the grace of God. In chapter 1 the Apostle shows that righteousness of God is proclaimed in the Gospel, on the principle of faith, and in Rom. 3:24 that we are “justified freely by” God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
In chapter 4 we learn that divine righteousness is to “him that works not,” (verses 4, 5), but “is of faith, that it might be by grace” (verse 16); and in chapter 5 it is written that we stand in God’s grace (verse 2), and that under Christ’s headship we have “the gift by grace” (verses 15, 16), and “abundance of grace,” (verse 17); and that grace abounds over sin (verse 20), and that grace reigns “through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ out Lord” (verse 21). Many other references to grace are found in this epistle.
The Teaching of Grace
Paul, in writing to Titus, counselled him to exhort the saints in Crete to “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things” (Titus 2:10), then adds, “For the grace of God that brings salvation to all men hath appeared, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.” God has saved us that we might be for Himself while we wait for our Lord Jesus to come and take us to be for ever with Him, and the grace that has saved us also teaches us how we are to live so as to adorn the teaching in which we have been instructed.
Sobriety is not a feature of man naturally, but the Christian is to be sober in all things, exercising that self-control that commends Christianity to others, and is a mark of true conversion to God. If grace teaches us to do this, grace will also supply the strength to do it. In relation to others we are to live righteously, doing what is right to others in the sight of God. This is not the legal righteousness of Judaism, but the righteousness that proceeds from the knowledge of God and His grace. We are also to live piously, that is for God in this world, manifesting that which gives Him pleasure, that which is of Himself.
Paul’s Defence of Grace
The intrusion of Judaism into Christianity was a very serious matter as the Epistle to the Galatians shows. It was a different Gospel, which was not another, for there was no blessing with it, and it’s reception perverted the Gospel of Christ, and removed those who received it from the God who had called them into the grace of Christ (Gal. 1:6-7). Paul’s own life, as saint and servant of Christ, was controlled by divine grace, he did not have the law as his rule of life, he lived “by the faith of the Son of God,” who loved him, and gave Himself for him. It was all grace from start to finish, he did not set aside the grace of God, but those who brought law into Christianity did; and he would have them understand that “if righteousness (was) by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. 2:19–21).
God’s promise of the inheritance to Abraham was not on the ground of law, but by divine promise, and therefore by grace; and the blessing of sonship was by faith in Christ Jesus. Grace had brought believers into liberty, and Paul exhorted them to “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1). Those who insisted on circumcision are reminded that they are debtors to do the whole law, and if they seek to be justified by the law Christ will have become of no effect to them, and they are “fallen from grace” (v. 2–4). Divine blessing must be through sovereign grace: there is no other way of obtaining it.
God to be Manifested
Divine grace has been given to us that it may affect our lives, even as Paul wrote to the saints, “We then…beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor. 6:1). The saints were not to give offence to any that the ministry might not be blamed. They were not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, but to come out of every association that bound them to the men and things of this world, so as to be received of God, and to know His care amidst all the opposition that separation from the world would bring upon them.
Grace had been manifested by the churches of Macedonia who, though very poor, had been rich in liberality; and Paul desired that the same grace would be manifested by the saints of Corinth, so wrote, “Therefore, as ye abound in everything…and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also” (2 Cor. 8:1–7). What the saints of Macedonia and Corinth provided for the needs of the saints at Jerusalem and in Judea is again spoken of as grace “which is administered” to the glory of the Lord by those who carried what had been collected.
How blessedly is the privilege given to the saints to make known in all the assembly of God, that we have been made the recipients of divine grace. Soon we shall have left this world for ever, the scene where we have the opportunity of setting forth what God is, so that we should value the privilege given to us, redeeming the time, knowing that the coming of the Lord draws nigh.
R. 6.12.67