Grace
Grace
Acts 15:11
On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved
through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.
NRSV
In both our Doctrines section and our definitions of God’s attributes, we provided a definition of GRACE along these lines:
God’s unmerited favor bestowed freely upon His helpless and sinful creation, man.
This is an accurate definition as far as it goes, but . . .
Christians frequently have the desire to call love the greatest attribute of God. At one level this is certainly very, very true. At another level, the Christian church of the past century has elevated this attribute to a position of such pre-eminence that the other attributes have all but lost their meaning. A God of love Who cannot punish misses the concepts of holiness and righteousness. Without these, and other related attributes, we fail to understand God’s character and, in the process, misunderstand the teachings of Scripture. It is such an approach that has allowed such liberalism to invade the church that many groups now preach a non-biblical concept of universal salvation, a salvation that gives credit to false religions.
But, to return to the point of this study, one might raise the question, does love produce grace? Or is it grace that produces the love God shows for fallen mankind?
I do not intend to answer this question, as such, but I want to emphasize that grace is a fundament character of God, is a key theme to the entire Bible, and is the doctrine that distinguishes Christianity from all other manmade religions. Rightly understood, you should come to realize there is not a single false god who has grace. Nor is there a single godly action you may undertake without the presence of God’s grace.
