AMAZING GRACE


DEFINITION OF GRACE

      How do we define grace? What is grace? Grace is not tangible, audible, or visible, except as it is manifest in our conduct i.e., our speech, our actions, our body language. Grace becomes evident when people are under conviction, when they confess faith in God and Christ, when they are baptized, when they perform scriptural acts of service to God in the church.
      God provides no grace to serve Him outside a true local church, because when one rejects John's baptism he reject the counsel of God against himself (Lk 7:29-30), rejects the circumcision of Christ (Col 2:11-12), refuses to put on Christ (Gal 3:27), refuses to be baptized into the body of Christ, into Christ, (Rom 6:3; I Cor 12:12-13), and thereby stands in rebellion against God. There is no grace to SERVE God outside a true local church.
      We must recognize in the beginning that we are slaves of sin, which means our "will" (our mind) is a slave of sin. The result is that, by nature, we have no inclination toward God whatever. By nature, we cannot move toward God, and do not want even to hear about God.
      There is no way we can repent, believe, or do anything else, except God first quicken our minds (as in Rom 12:2); that is, God must, by His grace, prepare and bring our minds to the place where we can, still by His grace, repent and believe.

1. Definition Number One.

      "Grace is the unmerited favor of God." This is the common definition of grace, and it is a good definition -- altogether true. But it only begins to tell us what grace really is, and tends to leave the impression that grace is an unmerited and very favorable attitude of God toward a sinful and doomed human race. Again, that is true all the way, but grace is much more than God so very wonderfully doing many things FOR us. He is also doing many things IN and THROUGH us. The definition is accurate and beautiful, but needs more expression. Consider:

  1. Grace is God helping us to serve Him and obey His many commandments, Heb 4:16; 12:28; I Cor 15:10.

  2. Grace is God working in and through us to bring about our daily performance of His will, Phil 2:12-13; Mt 10:19-20; Heb 13:21.

  3. Grace is God enabling us to work together with Him as laborers together with God, I Cor 3:6-10.

  4. Grace is God sustaining us and making overcomers of us as we labor and suffer under His training, II Cor 12:9-10; I Pet 4:10,12-14; 5:10,12.

  5. Grace is God dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit, striving against our flesh nature for control of our minds and thereby for control over our whole being, giving us liberty of choice as He strives daily to quicken our sin-enslaved minds (This is God's own predestined counsel and purpose), and seeking to SHARE our struggles and anguish with us, Gal 5:17; Rom 8:23-27; Heb 2:17-18; 4:12-16; John 11:33-36; 13:1; 17:1-26; Eph 4:30.

  6. Grace is God through the Holy Spirit indwelling those in the church in a very special relationship, not only to enable them to do His will, but to share life with them in a very unique relationship within the firstborn sonship of Christ, over and above many other sons in the capacity of nations of saved people, Eph 2:20-22; John 7:39; Gal 4:4-6; Rom 8:23-30; Heb 12:23; Jms 1:18; Rev 14:4; 2:26-27; 21:23-26. See studies on the firstborn and the birthright.

  7. Grace is God demonstrating His love, mercy, power, majesty, and other attributes in bringing the weakest, most helpless of His intelligent creatures, after many years of sinning and rebellion on our part, into a state of sublime and celestial oneness with Himself, with Christ, and with the Holy Spirit, so that we, as His special treasure above many nations of saved people, will be filled with and will share all His divine fullness throughout the ages of ages to come, Eph 1:22-12; 3:19; Col 1:19; 2:9-10; John 10:30-36; 14:8-11,20; 17:21-23.

2. Definition Number Two.

      "Grace is the unmerited favor and help of God, which help is sufficient for salvation from hell, and also for every need in the christian life."

3. Definition Number Three.

      "Grace is the unmerited favor, help, and working of the Holy Spirit in and through us to do God's will according to the New Covenant."

4. Definition Number Four.

      "Grace is the unmerited favor and working of the Holy Spirit in and through us to do God's will according to the New Covenant; which grace of God is sufficient to comfort, sustain, and enable every true New Covenant church member to do the will of God throughout his or her christian life."

5. Definition Number Five.

      "Grace is the unmerited favor and working of God through the Holy Spirit which produces eternal salvation from hell, which working of the Holy Spirit in and through us is also sufficient to enable us to do the will of God according to the New Covenant; which grace of God is further sufficient to comfort, sustain, and enable every true New Covenant Church member to do the will of God throughout his or her christian life; which grace further enables us to share (taste) all the fullness of God's own person -- His virtues and attributes: His thoughts, aspirations, emotions, love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, patience, power, dignity, holiness, etc."
      The intent of these graduating definitions is to emphasize the richness of the meaning of grace, "the grace of God toward a doomed humanity."