Grace of God

Wilhelmus a Brakel (1635-1711)

You have heard that God is gracious, which is true. You are guilty, however, of distorting the essential meaning of the grace of God by interpreting it to refer to remission of sin and absolution from punishment apart from satisfaction. Such, however, is not grace. There is no contradiction in God. The justice of God, which cannot be compromised to the least degree, of necessity demands the punishment of the sinner. God cannot deny Himself, and thus grace does not negate His justice. Grace is not incompatible with justice, but confirms it. This is the grace of God so highly exalted in His Word – that God, without finding anything in man, yes, contrary to his desert, gave His Son as a Surety. He transferred the sins of the elect from their account to His and by bearing the punishment justly due upon their sin, satisfied the justice of God on their behalf. This is grace, namely, that God offers Jesus as Surety in the gospel. It is grace when God grants faith to a sinner to receive Jesus and to entrust his soul to Jesus. It is grace when God converts a sinner, granting him spiritual life. It is grace when God permits a sinner to sensibly experience His favor. It is grace when God sanctifies a sinner, leading him in the way of holiness to salvation.

(From: “The Christian’s Reasonable Service” )

Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952)

Grace is a perfection of the Divine character which is exercised only toward the elect. Neither in the Old Testament nor in the New is the grace of God ever mentioned in connection with mankind generally, still less with the lower orders of His creatures. In this it is distinguished from “mercy,” for the mercy of God is “over all His works” (Psa. 145:9). Grace is the sole source from which flows the goodwill, love, and salvation of God unto His chosen people. This attribute of the Divine character was defined by Abraham Booth in his helpful book The Reign of Grace thus: “It is the eternal and absolute free favour of God, manifested in the vouchsafement of spiritual and eternal blessings to the guilty and the unworthy.”

Divine grace is the sovereign and saving favour of God exercised in the bestowment of blessings upon those who have no merit in them and for which no compensation is demanded from them. Nay, more; it is the favour of God shown to those who not only have no positive deserts of their own, but who are thoroughly ill-deserving and hell-deserving. It is completely unmerited and unsought, and is altogether unattracted by anything in or from or by the objects upon which it is bestowed. Grace can neither be bought, earned, nor won by the creature. If it could be, it would cease to be grace. When a thing is said to be of “grace” we mean that the recipient has no claim upon it, that it was in nowise due him. It comes to him as pure charity, and, at first, unasked and undesired.

The fullest exposition of the amazing grace of God is to be found in the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. In his writings “grace” stands in direct opposition to works and worthiness, all works and worthiness, of whatever kind or degree. This is abundantly clear from Rom. 11:6, “And if by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. If it be of works, then is it no more grace, otherwise work is no more work.” Grace and works will no more unite than an acid and an alkali. “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” (Eph. 2:8, 9). The absolute favor of God can no more consist with human merit than oil and water will fuse into one (see also Rom. 4:4, 5).

There are three principal characteristics of Divine grace. First, it is eternal. Grace was planned before it was exercised, purposed before it was imparted: “Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (II Tim. 1:9). Secondly, it is free, for none did ever purchase it: “Being justified freely by His grace” (Rom. 3:24). Thirdly, it is sovereign, because God exercises it toward and bestows it upon whom He pleases: “Even so might grace reign” (Rom. 5:21). If grace “reigns” then it is on the throne, and the occupant of the throne is sovereign. Hence “the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16).

Just because grace is unmerited favor, it must be expressed in a sovereign manner. Therefore does the Lord declare, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious” (Ex. 33:19). Were God to show grace to all of Adam’s descendants, men would at once conclude that He was righteously compelled to take them to heaven as a meet compensation for allowing the human race to fall into sin. But the great God is under no obligation to any of His creatures, least of all to those who are rebels against Him.

Eternal life is a gift, therefore it can neither be earned by good works, nor claimed as a right. Seeing that salvation is a “gift,” who has any right to tell God on whom He ought to bestow it? It is not that the Giver ever refuses this gift to any who seek it wholeheartedly, and according to the rules which He has described. No! He refuses none who come to Him empty-handed and in the way of His appointing. But if out of a world of impenitent and unbelieving rebels, God is determined to exercise His sovereign right by choosing a limited number to be saved, who is wronged? Is God obliged to force His gift on those who value it not? Is God compelled to save those who are determined to go their own way?

But nothing more riles the natural man and brings to the surface his innate and inveterate enmity against God than to press upon him the eternality, the freeness, and the absolute sovereignty of Divine grace. That God should have formed His purpose from everlasting, without in anywise consulting the creature, is too abasing for the unbroken heart. That grace cannot be earned or won by any efforts of man is too self-emptying for self-righteousness. And that grace singles out whom it pleases to be its favored objects arouses hot protests from haughty rebels. The clay rises up against the Potter and asks, “Why hast Thou made me thus?” A lawless insurrectionist dares to call into question the justice of Divine sovereignty.

The distinguishing grace of God is seen in saving those people whom He has sovereignly singled out to be His high favorites. By “distinguishing” we mean that grace discriminates, makes differences, chooses some and passes by others. It was distinguishing grace which selected Abraham from the midst of his idolatrous neighbors and made him “the friend of God.” It was distinguishing grace which saved “publicans and sinners,” but said of the religious Pharisees, “Let them alone” (Matt. 15:14). Nowhere does the glory of God’s free and sovereign grace shine more conspicuously than in the unworthiness and unlikeliness of its objects. Beautifully was this illustrated by James Hervey, (1751):

Where sin has abounded, says the proclamation from the court of heaven, grace doth much more abound. Manasseh was a monster of barbarity, for he caused his own children to pass through the fire, and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. Manasseh was an adept in iniquity, for he not only multiplied, and to an extravagant degree, his own sacrilegious impieties, but he poisoned the principles and perverted the manners of his subjects, making them do worse than the most destestable of the heathen idolators (see II Chron. 33). Yet, through this superabundant grace he is humbled, he is reformed, and becomes a child of forgiving love, an heir of immortal glory.

Behold that bitter and bloody persecutor, Saul; when, breathing out threatenings and bent upon slaughter, he worried the lambs and put to death the disciples of Jesus. The havoc he had committed, the inoffensive families he had already ruined, were not sufficient to assuage his vengeful spirit. They were only a taste, which, instead of glutting the bloodhound, made him more closely pursue the track, and more eagerly pant for destruction. He is still athirst for violence and murder. So eager and insatiable is his thirst, that he even breathes out threatening and slaughter (Acts 9:1). His words are spears and arrows, and his tongue a sharp sword. ‘Tis as natural for him to menace the Christians as to breathe the air. Nay, they bled every hour in the purposes of his rancorous heart. It is only owing to want of power that every syllable he utters, every breath he draws, does not deal out deaths, and cause some of the innocent disciples to fall. Who, upon the principles of human judgment, would not have pronounced him a vessel of wrath, destined to unavoidable damnation? Nay, would not have been ready to conclude that, if there were heavier chains and a deeper dungeon in the world of woe, they must surely be reserved for such an implacable enemy of true godliness? Yet, admire and adore the inexhaustible treasures of grace–this Saul is admitted unto the goodly fellowship of the prophets, is numbered with the noble army of martyrs and makes a distinguished figure among the company of the apostles.

The Corinthians were flagitious even to a proverb. Some of them wallowed in such abominable vices, and habituated themselves to such outrageous acts of injustice, as were a reproach to human nature. Yet even these sons of violence and slaves of sensuality were washed, sanctified, justified (I Cor. 6:9-11). “Washed,” in the precious blood of a dying Redeemer; “sanctified,” by the powerful operations of the blessed Spirit; “justified,” through the infinitely tender mercies of a gracious God. Those who were once the burden of the earth are now the joy of heaven, the delight of angels.

Now the grace of God is manifested in and by and through the Lord Jesus Christ. “The law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). This does not mean that God never exercised grace toward any before His Son became incarnate–Gen. 6:8, Ex. 33:19, etc., clearly show otherwise. But grace and truth were fully revealed and perfectly exemplified when the Redeemer came to this earth, and died for His people upon the cross. It is through Christ the Mediator alone that the grace of God flows to His elect. “Much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ....much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ....so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:15, 17, 21).

The grace of God is proclaimed in the Gospel (Acts 20:24), which is to the self-righteous Jew a “stumbling block,” and to the conceited and philosophising Greek “foolishness.” And why so? Because there is nothing whatever in it that is adapted to the gratifying of the pride of man. It announces that unless we are saved by grace, we cannot be saved at all. It declares that apart from Christ, the unspeakable Gift of God’s grace, the state of every man is desperate, irremediable, hopeless. The Gospel addresses men as guilty, condemned, perishing criminals. It declares that the chastest moralist is in the same terrible plight as is the most voluptuous profligate; and the zealous professor, with all his religious performances, is no better off than the most profane infidel.

The Gospel contemplates every descendant of Adam as a fallen, polluted, hell-deserving and helpless sinner. The grace which the Gospel publishes is his only hope. All stand before God convicted as transgressors of His holy law, as guilty and condemned criminals, who are not merely awaiting sentence, but the execution of sentence already passed upon them (John 3:18; Rom 3:19). To complain against the partiality of grace is suicidal. If the sinner insists upon bare justice, then the Lake of Fire must be his eternal portion. His only hope lies in bowing to the sentence which Divine justice has passed upon him, owning the absolute righteousness of it, casting himself on the mercy of God, and stretching forth empty hands to avail himself of the grace of God now made know to him in the Gospel.

The third Person in the Godhead is the Communicator of grace, therefore is He denominated “the Spirit of grace” (Zech. 12:10). God the Father is the Fountain of all grace, for He purposed in Himself the everlasting covenant of redemption. God the Son is the only Channel of grace. The Gospel is the Publisher of grace. The Spirit is the Bestower. He is the One who applies the Gospel in saving power to the soul: quickening the elect while spiritually dead, conquering their rebellious wills, melting their hard hearts, opening their blind eyes, cleansing them from the leprosy of sin. Thus we may say with the late G. S. Bishop,

Grace is a provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the axe of justice, so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures, so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him, so blind that they cannot see Him, so deaf that they cannot hear Him, and so dead that He Himself must open their graves and lift them into resurrection.

(From: “The Attributes of God”)

Francis Turretin (1886-1952)

VII. Grace succeeds love from which it is called chrism (“gracious,” Ex. 34:6) by which God is conceived as willing to communicate himself to the creature from gratuitous love without any merit in the creature and notwithstanding its demerit. Now it is usual to understand it principally in two ways: either affectively (as they say), i.e., with respect to the “internal act” in God; or effectively, with regard to the effects which it produces outwardly in creatures. The former is towards us, and we stand objectively related to it; the latter is in us, and we stand subjectively related to it. In the former sense, it denotes the favor and benevolence of God (or his benignant and disposed will) bestowing all things liberally and gratuitously, not from our merit or desert. Again, this implies either the favor by which he loved and elected us to life from eternity (in which sense election is called “the election of grace” [Rom. 11:5], and we are said to be “predestinated to the praise of the glory of his grace” [Eph. 1:6], i.e., of his glorious grace) or that by which he regards us as graceful and accepted in the Son of his love (in which sense, most especially, the apostle often invokes “grace and peace” upon the believers to whom he writes, i.e., both the favor and benevolence of God and its effects of every kind, which are signified by the word “peace,” according to the Hebrew idiom). In the same sense, mention is made of the grace of God in Rom. 3:24, Lk. 1:30 and Tit. 3:7.

VIII. In the latter sense, grace (taken effectively) indicates all the gifts (charismata) of the Holy Spirit gratuitously given to us by God: whether ordinary – of faith, hope and love – for each one’s salvation bestowed upon us in calling, conversion and sanctification (in which sense the word “grace” is used in 1 Cor. 15:10 and Eph. 2:7, 8); or extraordinary and miraculous – for the common edification of the whole church (which are designated by the name of grace in 1 Cor. 12:4, 7, 8 and Eph. 4:7). The Scholastics were accustomed to calling the latter gifts by the name of grace gratuitously given (gratiae gratis datae), but the others by the name of grace making acceptable (gratiae gratum facientis). But this is false both because the ordinary gifts no less than the others are gratuitously given and because they cannot make us acceptable to God (since this is the effect of the sole grace and righteousness imputed to us). Therefore grace making acceptable with more propriety implies the benevolence of God towards us by which (not from our merit, but by his gratuitous love) he makes us acceptable in Christ. By grace gratuitously given are indicated all the gifts gratuitously conferred on us through the Holy Spirit. And this grace in reference to the variety of its acts is distinguished into operating or preventing (which moves the will to will) and cooperating and subsequent (which effects the performance of the volition). We will treat the latter in the proper place.

IX. Again, grace is distributed into decretive and executive. The former denotes the eternal purpose of God concerning the electing of us before the foundations of the world were laid. The latter embraces the universal dispensation of that wonderful mystery (according to the variety of degrees and times) which exercised itself towards the elect in redemption and in calling, justification, sanctification and other salutary effects (which Paul alludes to in Eph. 1 and 2 Tim. 1:9, 10).

(From: “Institutes of Elenctic Theology”)