I’m sure you’ve heard the hymn by John Newton, “Amazing Grace.” The lyric goes, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” But what is grace? Why is it amazing, really?
You could say grace is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.” AW Tozer said grace was, “the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits on the undeserving.” JI Packer defined grace as, “God’s love in action toward people who deserve the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves. Grace means God sending His only Son to the cross so that we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven.” At the end of the day, God’s grace is His favor on those who don’t deserve it (which is everybody, including you).
To really understand grace, though, you have to go to the Old Testament. That’s where a true study of grace begins. The Old Testament is rich with God giving grace to unloveable and disobedient people. From the first chapters of Genesis, when Adam and Eve sinned, God showed amazing grace. They deserved death and punishment, and He sought them out in their shame. He covered their nakedness. He maintained a relationship with them. He punished them for disobedience but did not destroy them. He began His plan to send Jesus into the world, to fix the sin problem (Genesis 3:15). This is amazing and marvelous grace.
Consider the days of Noah in Genesis 6: The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart, so He said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land…” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. That is grace. Or consider what happened to Abram in Genesis 15: When Abram was very old, the Lord brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he promised, “So shall your offspring be.” What did Abram do to deserve that wonderful promise? Nothing! That is grace.
Grace is how God defines Himself to Moses in Exodus 34, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…” Grace is the foundation of the sacrificial system of the Jewish temple in the days of the Old Testament. Grace is the promise of a Messiah-Savior to come in Isaiah 53, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” We deserve punishment for our sins against God, but God gives that punishment to someone else. How amazing is God’s grace!
What do you do with God’s grace towards you? Do you know His grace? How precious is God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love! His grace carries you through “many dangers, toils, and snares.” And grace will lead you home. And we will sing of God’s grace through all eternity: “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, then when we’ve first begun.”