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Grace

by Jon von Ernst
8/03/2023 / Bible Studies

“God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3). God has given a measure of faith to every person. It is a gift from God. Everyone exercises this gift, their measure of faith, to believe in something. Some believe in themselves, in their strength, intellect, or natural abilities. Some believe in superstitions and false gods. Some have chosen to believe in the one true living God and the One He sent, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul writes in Romans 11:32, “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all.” God has imprisoned all in disobedience because all have sinned, so that He may have mercy on all. And again, in Ephesians 2:4, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us.”

God’s mercy is extended to all. Man’s sin had separated him from God. So God extended His mercy to all by sending His Son into the world to take away the sins of the world.

John the Baptist sees Jesus coming toward him and testifies, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, NIV). 1 John 2:2 says, “He Himself (Christ) is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.” By sending Jesus into the world to take away the sins of the world, God was extending His mercy to all. God made His mercy freely available to all who would willingly receive it.

Paul declares, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy” (Titus 3:5). Those that chose to receive God’s unmerited gift of mercy believed in Jesus. “To the one who does not work, but believes on Him who declares the ungodly to be righteous, his faith is credited for righteousness” (Romans 4:5, HCSB).

Those that did not trust in their own works, but exercised their faith to believe God, received the benefit of God’s merciful gift. They received the benefit of that gift of righteousness through faith. By faith in Christ, they had their sins forgiven and were reconciled to God.

By virtue of being reconciled to God by obeying God and believing in Jesus, they found favor in the sight of God. By believing, they merited God’s favor. Therefore, God blessed them by causing His power to work in them, sanctifying them by the working of His Holy Spirit. He caused the Holy Spirit to indwell them and make their spirit alive, restoring them to fellowship with God.

Now having been reconciled to God, much more, they are being saved by His grace. Paul writes, “For by grace you are being saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8, TFLV). Through exercising their faith to believe in Jesus, the believer is now in the process of being saved by grace. God gives this grace to those that have merited it by exercising their faith to believe in Jesus.

Now that we have obeyed the good news, the gospel of the kingdom, we begin to receive of the many blessings that God has prepared for us in Christ. Being reconciled to God, justified by the blood of Christ, having our sins forgiven by His love and mercy, God begins to pour out His grace richly upon those that have obeyed the gospel and joined works of obedience to their faith. It is by this grace that we are now being saved.

Paul encourages us, “Therefore accept one another, even as Christ also accepted you, to the glory of God. Now I say that Christ has been made a servant of the circumcision for the truth of God, that he might confirm the promises given to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy . . . Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:7-9, 13).

This is the much more that Paul speaks of in Romans 5:8-10. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (NASB).

Again Paul writes, “For by grace you are being saved through faith which is not your own but instead is a gift from God” (Ephesians 2:8, TFLV). We have been saved, being justified by the blood of Christ and, by it, reconciled to God. We are now in the process of being saved by Christ’s life within us, by this amazing grace of God.

This grace is what God is using to save us now in this new and ongoing phase of the salvation process. It is by God’s grace that we are being brought on to maturity in Christ and are being purified, sanctified, and enabled to live a godly life in the midst of this corrupt sinful world. We are, right now, in this life, enabled by the leading and empowering of the Holy Spirit to live as Jesus lived, to walk as Jesus walked, fully pleasing to the Father.

This, now, is where we need to exercise the portion of faith that God has given to each of us. As we believed God for our initial salvation, now we need to believe God for our sanctification. As we believed God for our being restored to fellowship with Him by the blood of Jesus, we now need to believe God for our being transformed into the likeness of His son by the life of Christ working mightily within us by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

As we believed God to free us from the penalty of sin, we now need to believe God to free us from the power of sin. We need to exercise our portion faith to believe that the life of Christ indwelling us as the Holy Spirit in our spirit is able to lead us, empowering us to walk in continual obedience, abiding in Christ, doing the will of the Father, and not fulfilling the lust of the flesh.

This indwelling Holy Spirit will teach us all that is ours in Christ. He will cause us to know the hope of glory that is ours. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). We begin to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, that we might attain unto the best resurrection.

God favors the righteous. “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous” (Psalm 34:15). He watches over them. “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment” (2 Peter 2:9). He protects the righteous, but He punishes the wicked.

God punishes those that refuse to believe in the One He sent, those that refuse to repent and turn back to Him. God gives His grace to those that have exercised their faith to believe in Jesus. They are no longer condemned. He does not give His grace to those that refuse to believe. They are condemned already and remain condemned unless they turn back to God and believe in the One He sent.

John 3:18 tells us, “Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God.” The word condemned in this passage refers to the condemnation that God sentenced Adam to when He judged his sin and passed the sentence of condemnation against him that he would be enslaved to sin. In Adam, all sinned and therefore were under God’s condemnation as slaves to sin.

God, however, gives grace to those that merit His favor by faith in Jesus. Those that exercise their faith to believe in Jesus are set free, liberated, from this slavery to sin. They are no longer enslaved to sin. They have been justified, rendered innocent, in order to serve God in newness of life in the Spirit. They have been justified by receiving God’s merited favor. “So that having been justified by His grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7, HCSB). We that believe have been justified by grace. We now have the hope of eternal life.

Peter warns, “Be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:17-18). To receive this eternal life and the full inheritance that God has for us, we must allow this grace to grow in us and accomplish all that God desires, bringing us to maturity by transforming us into the image of Christ.

But what do the scriptures mean by this word grace? The idea of grace as used in scripture is very difficult to define. It seems to be a very abstract concept. It has many different meanings depending on the context within which it is used. These meanings, however, seem to be various shades of just one general idea.

This general idea is that grace is the effect produced in a believer’s heart and life as a response to God favoring that individual with His person, His presence, and His power. The effect produced as a result of the power of God working in the believer’s life is a great state of gladness that enables them to rejoice always. It causes them to be filled with the joy of the Lord.

The word grace in the New Testament is the English translation of the Greek word charis. It appears some 150 times in the New Testament. According to Strong’s Concordance, it means grace, favor which causes joy, pleasure, gratification, thankfulness.

Charis comes from the Greek root word chairo. Chairo means to rejoice, to be glad. There are ten other Greek words that come from the root word chairo. I will briefly identify each and give a brief explanation of their meanings according to Strong’s.

The next most frequently used derivative of chairo, used 60 times, is chara. It means joy, joyful, the state of great happiness or gladness. The next is eucharisteo used 39 times. It means give thanks to or to be thankful for something that makes you glad.

The next is charizomai. It is used 23 times. It means to grant to, to forgive, or to freely give that which produces joy. The next is charisma which appears 17 times. It has the meaning of favor bestowed, that which is freely given, a gift.

The next is eucharistia which appears 15 times. It means thanksgiving, thankfulness. Next is charin which appears 9 times. It means the reaction because of a favor or gift.

Next is synchairo which appears 7 times. It means to rejoice along with, rejoice together. Next is acharistos which appears 2 times. The ‘a’ at the beginning of the word means the negative or the opposite meaning of the original word. Therefore, acharistos means ungrateful, unthankful. The next is charitoo which appears twice with the meaning of to bestow favor on, to highly favor. Finally, eucharistos appears one time with the meaning of thankfulness for something done.

When the meanings and the usages of the Greek words related to the Greek word translated as grace are reviewed, the flavor of the word grace becomes clear. Grace is God’s favor, granted to those that are pleasing in His sight, and the corresponding reaction of joy and rejoicing that that favor produces in the life of the recipient of His favor. This favor of God can be manifested in various ways.

In some contexts, grace is used as part of a greeting. For example, “Grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:7 and 15 others). Paul used some form of this greeting at the beginning of every letter he wrote to churches and individuals in the New Testament. Peter and John also used grace in the same context. Here it seems to have the meaning of joy.

Sometimes it is very useful when trying to understand the author’s intended meaning of a word to substitute the meaning that you think that it may have for the word in question. We can do this for the word ‘grace.’ We could try substituting ‘joy’ for the word ‘grace’. For example, Romans 1:7 could be rephrased as, “Joy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”.”

This is similar to Romans 15:32, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.” The word joy seems to work quite well as a meaning of grace in this context.

In another context, grace is used in the closing of many of Paul’s letters as a sort of benediction. For example, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (Romans 16:24). Here grace seems to indicate something about an awareness of the presence of Christ in the believer’s life that produces a deep sense of inner joy or enjoyment.

In other contexts, grace seems to have a different meaning. For example, “For by grace you are being saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8, TFL). This passage reminds me of Paul writing to the believers in Rome “Much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by His blood, we will be saved through Him from wrath. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life!” (Romans 5:9-10, HCSB).

In Ephesians 2:8, grace is referring to something that is working within the born-again believer to save him. The genuine believer has already been saved by being born again, born from above. He has been saved by being reconciled to God by the death of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

However, having been saved by having been declared righteous by the blood of Christ that was shed for us, in fact, shed for the whole world, we will be saved through Him, through Christ Himself, from wrath. We will be saved by His life. The life of Christ, working within the believer after he has been born of the Spirit will, if the believer allows it by obeying its leading, save the believer from wrath.

In this context, grace is the enjoyment, the confidence, the courage, the strength, that is experienced by the believer in becoming aware of the reality of the person and power of Christ working within him, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, both to know and to do the will of God. “But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves (2 Corinthians 4:7).

In Acts chapter 3, after the lame man was healed, the crowd rushed over to Peter and John greatly wondering about the power that had healed him. Upon seeing them, Peter said to the people, “You men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? Why do you fasten your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk?” Peter tried to assure the people that the power that healed the lame man was not of themselves, but it was the power of God operating through faith in the name of Jesus.

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the boundless greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might. . . I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. . . Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 1:18-19, 3:7, 20-21, NASB).

Paul was praying that God would open the eyes of the believers that they might know the boundless greatness of God’s power working within them. The gift of God’s grace was given to Paul according to the working of this power of God. God is able to do all we need through the working of His great power working within us. This indwelling Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the glorified Christ, is the power of God working within the believer to know and to do His will.

Let’s look at the account of Stephen in the book of Acts. Stephen is testifying to the religious leaders of Israel. The scriptures describe Stephen during this encounter in Acts 6:8 and again in Acts 7:55, “Stephen, full of faith and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. . . But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”

Being full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen was full of faith and he was full of the power of God working in him. It was this power of God, not his own strength or natural ability, that enabled him to testify of the glory of God in Christ even while he was being stoned to death for his faith.

Paul explains, “For it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure. . . For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our lowly condition into conformity with His glorious body, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Philippians 2:13, 3:20-21, NASB).

Paul continues to explain the powerful working of Christ’s strength, “God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this, striving with His strength that works powerfully in me” (Colossians 1:27-29, HCSB).

The strength of Christ, working through the indwelling Holy Spirit, works powerfully in the believer to bring us to maturity and to conform us to His image. This is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

As we attempt to understand the author’s intended meaning of the word ‘grace’ let’s try substituting ‘the power of God’ for the word ‘grace’. For example, Ephesians 2:8 could be rephrased as, “For by the power of God you are being saved through faith.” That sounds reasonable. Let’s try this with some other verses where the word grace is used.

Romans 3:24 says, “They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” That verse could be rephrased as, “They are justified freely by the power of God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” This is reminiscent of Romans 4:25, “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” and Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection.” We are justified freely through the power of His resurrection.

Romans 4:16 says, “For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring.” This verse could be rephrased as, “For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to the power of God, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring.”

Romans 5:17 says, “For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.” This verse could be rephrased as, “For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of the power of God and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 1:4-5 says, “I always thank my God concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus; that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge.” This verse could be rephrased as, “I always thank God concerning you, for the power of God which was given you in Christ Jesus; that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge.”

As is becoming evident, this substitution could be done with a multitude of verses using the word grace in a similar context. The reading with this substitution seems quite reasonable. In a very real sense, grace is the power of God working in the life of the believer. However, there is more to the meaning of the word grace than just the power of God working in the life of the believer.

It is important to realize that the power of God working in the life of the believer produces a significant effect on the believer’s heart and life. This effect on the believer’s heart is very much related to the root word of grace, chairo. Chairo refers to being cheerful or calmly happy. It also refers to the meaning of charo, joy, joyful, the state of great happiness.

Nehemiah 8:10 reminds us, “Do not grieve, because your strength comes from rejoicing in the Lord.” In John 15:11 Jesus says, “I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”

Paul writes in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I will say, ‘Rejoice!’” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 instructs us, “Always rejoice. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you.”

Joy and rejoicing is an essential element of this grace, this power of God working in us to transform us. This grace produces a joy and rejoicing in the Lord that works to change the very character of the believer.

God uses this joy produced by His power working within us to increase our desire for more of Him. He uses this joy to cause our love for Him to grow. God’s grace utilizes the joy that it produces in our hearts to conform us to the image of Christ.

This transformation is accomplished by the believer continuing to joyfully walk by faith in obedience to the leading of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are perfected, brought to maturity in Christ, not by our own effort, but by the grace of God working in us. If we allow it, this power of God working within us will enable us to endure to the end and inherit all that God has prepared for those that love Him and are the called according to His purpose.

Writings By Jon von Ernst

The Lord of All Things Series - A Trilogy of Truth
Books in this series:
Book 1 - The Gospel of the Kingdom
Book 2- The Victorious Christian
Book 3 - Walking in the Light - Following in His Steps

*- Audio of these books are available free of charge at thepureword.net.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

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