Sinners in the Hands of a Magnificent, Marvelous, Majestic MERCIFUL and GRACIOUS GOD! was originally published in January 2023.
“SALVATION IS OF THE LORD” (Jonah 2:9) (Psalm 3:8) (Psalm 62:1). This is a magnificent, marvelous, majestic truth proclaimed and demonstrated by God throughout the Bible, revealing to us His greatness and goodness displayed most prominently in the glory of His grace, His free and undeserved expressions of His goodness to sinful men and women who in our sin, our rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, have brought ourselves under the wrath and judgement of God, that will have its ultimate expression in eternal confinement to Hell. (Ephesians 1:6) (Romans 3:23) (Romans 1:18) (Romans 2:5).
Salvation is a big word in terms of what it encompasses in both the dictionary definition and what it represents in the Bible. Salvation – the act of being saved – is defined in the dictionary as the state or experience of being rescued from peril or danger, protected from harm or kept from calamity, loss or ruin – deliverance from destruction. It also includes the preservation of something of value or the restoration of something that has been damaged or destroyed.
When the Bible speaks of our salvation, our being saved, it is referring to our being rescued from God’s wrath, from His just judgement and condemnation of our sin in Hell (Romans 5:9) (1 Thessalonians 5:9), and our being restored to the glorious life with God for which man was created, what the Bible refers to as eternal life, which will have its ultimate consummation in a new heavens (universe) and new earth (Romans 6:23) (Revelation 21:1-7).
As I have noted in previous posts, sinful mankind has no ability to perceive our desperate and dire condition before a holy and just God, nor to do anything to escape it apart from the grace and mercy of God ((Jeremiah 17:9) (Ephesians 2:1-5) (Ephesians 4:17-19). While grace is God’s kindness and goodness extended toward those who have done nothing to earn or deserve it, mercy extends grace to those in misery who deserve to be in that misery (Exodus 34:5-7).
Thus, the Bible makes it very clear that our salvation is all of grace, a free gift, that costs us absolutely nothing but our damnable pride (James 4:6-7), which is the root of all sin. Pride, displayed in our rejection of our need for God and desire to be our own god, is the very thing which brought us under the condemnation of God in the first place (Genesis 3:4-5) (Isaiah 14:13-14).
God thus saves condemned men and women in a way that destroys man’s pride, and more importantly in a way that glorifies His grace, so that no one can boast in anything in regard to their salvation, but will only praise, honor and glorify God throughout all eternity for it. (1 Corinthians 1:27-31) (Revelation 5:11-13).
Saving or redeeming grace is received only through faith in the person and work of the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, who in the ultimate expression of true humility and of God’s unfailing love, came into this world as a human being, miraculously conceived in the womb of a teenage virgin, to accomplish through His perfectly obedient life, His substitutionary death on the cross, and subsequent resurrection from the dead, all that was necessary to secure the salvation of all whom God would call to Himself through the gospel, the good news of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ (1 John 4:9) (1 Corinthians 15:1-6) (Romans 1:16) (Philippians 2:5-10) The faith necessary to receive the benefits of Jesus’ saving work is also a gift (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Theologians have commented on the differing aspects of God’s saving grace, and have categorized them in various ways, which I will try to represent in what follows.
Salvation begins with what has been referred to as Electing Grace, wherein God, in eternity past. in the freedom of His will, chose or predestined whom He would save, independent of any individual worthiness or meritorious actions of their own (Ephesians 1:3-12) (John 15:16) (Romans 9:14-18). This is probably the most controversial aspect of salvation, yet the most God exalting as it proclaims and upholds the sovereignty of God, who freely chooses, according to the wise counsel of His will and to magnify the glory of His grace, whom He would save and conform to the image of His true image bearer, Jesus Christ (Romans 11:5-6) (1 Corinthians 15:49)
Then we have Justifying Grace, wherein Jesus, on behalf of His elect, lived the perfectly righteous and obedient life God required for a person to live in God’s presence, and took upon Himself, on the cross, the divine justice they deserve for their unwillingness to do so. Jesus does this so that God can justly forgive our sins and declare us righteous or in right relationship with Himself through our faith in and spiritual union with Jesus (Psalm 24:3-6) (Romans 3:24-26) (Colossians 1:13-14).
We have then what is referred to as Quickening or Regenerating Grace. To quicken means to make alive, and refers to God restoring spiritual life, what the Bible refers to as regeneration or being born again, to spiritually dead sinners (Ephesians 2:1) (John 3:3-8). It is accomplished by a sovereign, supernatural, irresistible work of the Holy Spirit in which a person is made spiritually alive, now capable of communion with God, given a new heart with new desires, new affections and new motivations that are centered on knowing, loving and being loved by God and knowing and doing His will ((Titus 3:4-7) (Ezekiel 36:24-26).
There is Convicting Grace, in which the Holy Spirit reveals to our now spiritually alive heart and mind that we are sinners, under the just judgement of a holy God for our sin and our need for perfect righteousness to escape that judgement (John 16:8, a need that is met only through faith in Jesus (Romans 3:20-22). The Spirit then opens our spiritual eyes to reveal the glory of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Grace (2 Corinthians 4:6), the good news of what Jesus has done to provide for that righteousness and to rescue us from God’s judgement, in which upon hearing this good news we are granted the faith to believe and to embrace Jesus as our all- sufficient savior and submit to Him as our Sovereign Lord (Romans 10:8-16). In doing so we are adopted by God as His beloved children, reconciled to the glorious relationship with Him for which we were created (Galatians 3:26) (Galatians 4:4-7) (John 1:12).
From that point on we are the recipients of Sanctifying Grace, in which we, aided by the Holy Spirit who now lives in us (John 14:16-17), strive to live our lives in a manner that pleases, honors and glorifies God, with the ultimate goal of being conformed one day to the perfect image of God revealed in the man, Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:12-13) {2 Corinthians 3:17-18). This is a process that begins in our inner man – our soul at the time of our being born again and will be completed when we see Jesus at our death (2 Corinthians 4:16) (John 3:1-3). The final stage of our sanctification will occur when our perfected soul is united to a glorified body at the time of Jesus’ second coming, what is referred to as glorification (Philippians 3:21) (Romans 8:28-30).
As God’s children we are now citizens of Heaven (Philippians 3:20). However, we presently live as sojourners in a world that has been corrupted by sin, cursed by God as a result of that sin, living under the spiritual influence of the devil and among multitudes who hate God and persecute His people (1 Peter 2:11) (Colossians 3:1-4) (1 John 5:19). Thus, God provides Sufficient Grace to sustain us in this world through the tests and trials we undergo in God’s sanctifying processes (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) (1 Corinthians 10:13) and Preserving Grace to keep us from falling away from Him completely under the wearisome burdens and worldly temptations we inevitably will experience in “this present evil world” (Jude 24-25) (Matthew 11:28) (Galatians 1:4).
And finally, there is Eternal Grace, the ultimate end or purpose for which all other graces God grants us point to, wherein throughout the ages to come, in a new heavens (universe) and new earth, He will reveal the “the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”, who loved us and gave His life for us, that we may know only fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Ephesians 2:4-7) (Revelation 21:1-4) (Galatians 2:20) (Psalm 16:11).
To Him be glory and honor, praise and thanksgiving both now and forever, Amen.
Grace and Peace ×