We Don’t Get the Grace of God
I have been a student of the Scriptures since at least my high school days – over fifty years now. Some parts of the Bible are incredibly challenging to understand: What are the signs of the Second Coming of Christ? How did God create the world? Why does a good God allow evil and suffering? No truth of Scripture is more difficult to understand than that of the grace of God.
Grace runs contrary to our nature. We have been taught very early that if we work hard enough, we can achieve almost anything. Work hard and you will be successful. Grace teaches that you cannot work hard enough.
We have learned that when we are good, our parents will be pleased with us. No matter how fine our parents are, a little part of us wonders, “If I mess this up, will my parents still love me?” Graces teaches that no matter how much we mess up, God still consistently loves us.
We have learned that if we are good enough, our parents will overlook an occasional mistake. Grace teaches that we can never be “good enough” and that God cannot overlook mistakes. Instead, in order to consistently be gracious, He will have to pay the price for our mistakes himself.
We have also learned that we are to guard our hearts. Grace instead teaches us about the “reckless love of God.” (Two important resources about God’s gracious love: Grace Awakening and Crazy Love.)
Understanding the Grace of God
Our nature also tends to make comparisons. We place a label classifying the degree of the severity of the sin. We identify “little lies” that are almost justifiable when compared to the deeper, darker lies. For those of us who have been believers for a lengthy amount of time, we think of ourselves as less ”sinful” than others who have yet to come to know Christ. We forget that before Christ, our sins – regardless of our determined severity – had condemned us to hell.
Our nature makes it very difficult to understand the grace of God. Let me show you what I mean.
Think about how you would answer this question. “Does God reward you because you keep his commands or because of His love for you?” Is the covenant of God conditional, based on our obedience, or is it unconditional, based solely on God’s love?
Look for a moment at two amazing truths found in Psalm 111. Peek first at verse ten.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.
Psalm 111:10 NIV
The truth at the beginning of this verse is found in several places in the Bible. If you want to be blessed – happy – wise, you need to start with a healthy fear of the Lord. You need to know the God of the Bible for who He is and what He is doing.
When you know God, not just know about Him, you will follow his precepts – His commands. Not because you think that it will make you happy if you do, nor that God will repay you for being good. You obey His precepts because it is the right thing to do.
The Truth of Psalm 111
First, you have to know the God of the Bible. Second, you have to grasp the graciousness of His covenant. The word “gracious” is found in verse four. The psalmist mentions “covenant” twice.
The idea of a covenant occupies an important place in biblical theology.
A covenant is a solemn, almost sacred binding or agreement between two parties. They pledge they will be loyal to each other.
The closest thing that we have to a covenant today is marriage. Two parties agree that because of their love and commitment to each other they will be loyal to each other.
God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt and said if you keep my covenant, you will be my people and I will be your God. Fearing Him – obedience to His laws – was a part of keeping the covenant.
He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.
psalm 111:5, 9 NIV
He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever – holy and awesome is his name.
The Seeming Contradictions of the Grace of God
Biblical scholars point out that the Old Testament contains several oxymorons – statements that seem to contradict each other. “If you keep my law” seems to imply the covenant is conditional; yet another statement affirms that God will never forget or break the covenant. Is it conditional or unconditional?
The answer is “Yes.”
Verse nine contains such an important concept. The psalmist says that God “provided redemption for his people.” The word means “to free people from slavery” and of course, points both to God bringing Israel out of slavery in Egypt and ultimately to God bringing us out of our slavery to sin.
But it means more than that. The word literally means to pay the ransom for freedom from slavery. In ancient times, slavery was often an economic condition. People were enslaved because they were in debt. If you wanted to redeem someone from slavery, you had to pay the debt they owed to the master.
Somehow God took it upon himself to pay the debt the Israelites owed for their slavery and brought them into a covenant relationship that He would never forget or forsake.
Somehow. Throughout the Old Testament, the somehow remained a mystery.
But today we have the “know how.” Paul even uses the word several times – the mystery of the gospel … that Jesus Christ paid the ransom – the wage – the debt – for our sins.
But doesn’t that still mean we have to keep the commands? I should be so thankful that Jesus paid the debt for my sin. I should never, never sin again. It is true. I shouldn’t. But I do.
The Old Testament Example
And the Master Teacher explains that to us through the one illustration of a covenant that we still understand. Marriage.
Think of the Old Testament prophet Hosea. The Bible tells the story of Hosea and his wife Gomer. Gomer was unfaithful to her husband Hosea. The Law said that Hosea could have divorced her. But through Hosea’s agonizing prayers with God and because of his love for Gomer, he chose to take her back.
But she continued to be unfaithful – so much so to the degree that she became a prostitute and was eventually sold into slavery. After all of the unfaithfulness, Hosea owed her nothing. There was no obligation for a marriage. The covenant was broken.
But in the climax of the prophet’s book – and his life – God comes to Hosea and proclaims,
And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.
hosea 3:1-2 NIV
Hosea bought – redeemed – Gomer from slavery. Most people in the first century were slaves because they were in debt. In order to “buy” someone out of slavery, you had to pay the debt that the slave owed. Hosea paid the debt that Gomer had accumulated.
We don’t know the rest of the story. We don’t have to. Gomer may have been faithful to Hosea the rest of her life, but that certainly wasn’t the pattern that she had established. The story is that Hosea loved Gomer like God loved the children of Israel -like God loved Hosea himself – regardless of Gomer’s ability to keep the covenant.
The Example from Jesus
Jesus tried to reinforce the concept by telling a parable.
Peter came up to the Lord and asked, “How many times should I forgive someone who does something wrong to me? Is seven times enough?”
Matthew 18:23-35 CEV
22 Jesus answered:
Not just 7 times, but 77 times!
This story will show you what the kingdom of heaven is like:
One day a king decided to call in his officials and ask them to give an account of what they owed him. 24 As he was doing this, one official was brought in who owed him 50,000,000 silver coins. 25 But he didn’t have any money to pay what he owed. The king ordered him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all he owned, in order to pay the debt.
26 The official got down on his knees and began begging, “Have pity on me, and I will pay you every cent I owe!” 27 The king felt sorry for him and let him go free. He even told the official that he did not have to pay back the money.
28 But as this official was leaving, he happened to meet another official, who owed him 100 silver coins. So he grabbed the man by the throat. He started choking him and said, “Pay me what you owe!”
29 The man got down on his knees and began begging, “Have pity on me, and I will pay you back.” 30 But the first official refused to have pity. Instead, he went and had the other official put in jail until he could pay what he owed.
31 When some other officials found out what had happened, they felt sorry for the man who had been put in jail. Then they told the king what had happened. 32 The king called the first official back in and said, “You’re an evil man! When you begged for mercy, I said you did not have to pay back a cent. 33 Don’t you think you should show pity to someone else, as I did to you?” 34 The king was so angry that he ordered the official to be tortured until he could pay back everything he owed. 35 That is how my Father in heaven will treat you, if you don’t forgive each of my followers with all your heart.
The debt that the king forgave the servant was absurd. An ordinary working man in Jesus’ day could expect to earn one talent a year. Obviously, he could not save all of that.
Translated into today’s world, the average working class man makes about $40,000 a year. Multiply the figures and it makes the debt about $400 million dollars – more debt than anyone could amass and more than the gross national product of 80% of the countries of the world today.
No king in real life would have or could have given any servant 10,00 talents.
Jesus gave the idea of forgiveness a prominent place in His teaching. It appears that even in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:14-15), Jesus taught that if we deny forgiveness to others, God will deny forgiveness to us.
A stunning statement in light of what we are trying to understand about grace. It is another contradiction in terms found in the Scriptures.
Probably the most important truth in this parable is often overlooked. Human forgiveness must be based on an experience of divine forgiveness. If you read the parable quickly and superficially, you probably interpret Jesus as saying that God’s forgiveness of us depends on and is earned by our forgiveness of others.
The story doesn’t teach that. The concept really goes against our understanding of grace.
The king extends forgiveness first and then says the servant’s actions and forgiveness should have been motivated by the king’s forgiveness of him. Divine mercy changes our hearts so that we can forgive as God forgave.
There are three basic dimensions to Christian forgiveness. The first is vertical – God’s forgiveness to us. Second, there is something internal – our ability to grant forgiveness to someone who has wronged us. But the third dimension is crucial. It is horizontal – our ability to offer to reconcile.
The king’s forgiveness should have made the servant a forgiver. The missing link is in the heart of the servant.
Somehow the servant felt the king “owed” him forgiveness. His failure to forgive others meant there was a failure to understand the depth of what the king had done for him.
This statement by Jesus is in the language of hyperbole, not of calculation. Those who are concerned as to whether the figure should be 77 or 490 have missed the point. There is no limit, no place for keeping a tally of forgiveness already used up. Peter’s question was misconceived: if one is still counting … one is not forgiving.
R.T. FRANCE, THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW.
When I understand the grace that God has shown me, I will be gracious to others, regardless of what they do, have done, or will do in the future.
The Reckless Love of God
Is my forgiveness – my expression of the grace of God – conditional? Do I forgive so long as I expect to be treated well in return? God is gracious even though he knows I will continue to sin.
I don’t “get” that kind of grace. So when the driver cuts me off on the interstate and almost causes a wreck, I fuss and fume about it as long as I see the car and the driver until I reach my exit.
When I am cheated at work by my superior, I harbor anger and resentment deep within my soul. I vow to never be taken advantage of again by someone who has power or control over me.
When I am waiting for my food at my favorite restaurant, the overworked and underpaid waitress scurries past me for the thirteenth time, and again mumbles, “It should just be a couple more minutes.” My words explode about ineptness with a vow to never darken the doors again, as I demand to talk to a manager.
When I am wronged by someone whom I dearly love, I forgive them, but I know that I cannot ever enter into a trusting relationship with them again. I have to protect myself and the ones that I love.
If those are the ways I respond, I am certainly within my rights of the Law. It is logical to distance yourself from incompetence. It makes sense to protect yourself from harm and stress.
I don’t think that God holds it against me at all – although there are some theologians who would disagree with me. But I am not displaying the grace of God.
It seems to point out that I really don’t get the grace of God.
