The Grace of God
Scripture
Romans 5:15-21
Key Verse –
“…how much
more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one
man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”
Study
Tozer writes,
“In God mercy and grace are one; but as they reach us they are seen
as two, related but not identical.”
Grace is God’s
mercy put into action. We may see mercy as a matter of forgiving
and forgetting, to turn the other cheek, to not retaliate when
retaliation is deserved. In our humanity we are capable of doing
this. God is capable of doing this in respect to many things –
preventing calamity, healing sickness, causing miracles to happen.
But once again
it comes down to our sin. God cannot just turn the other way. He’s
not capable of just changing His mind and choosing to pretend our
sin did not occur. That is why grace is needed.
G.R.A.C.E.
Many have seen
or heard the acronym for grace – God’s Righteousness at Christ
Expense. Mercy can be extended to any problem. A person shows up
late for work, the boss can extend mercy and overlook the
infraction. A driver is pulled over for speeding and the cop lets
them off with a warning. There is nothing more that needs to be
done.
Grace however,
is the result of a payment that has already been made. The word
mercy occurs slightly more often in the Old Testament than the New.
However, grace occurs ten times as often in the New Testament as the
Old. The New Testament is all about the price that Christ paid on
the cross. It is the story of His righteousness and how God applied
it to humanity.
Grace in
the Old Testament
The Old
Testament is not absent of grace. As we’ve constantly observed, God
did not change and thus He did not just become a graceful God in the
New Testament. Instead, grace was extended as the Old Testament
believer obeyed God and followed His commands. The OT believer did
not earn their salvation any more than a Christian does today.
Instead, God credited them with righteousness – the same
righteousness that we have gained at Christ’s expense. Romans 4
tells the story of Abraham believed God and was credited with
righteousness.
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