2:5b It is by grace you have been saved.
When Paul wants to put into a few words what God had done for us he repreats the phrase, “Saved by God’s grace.” If that statement is true, and I believe with all my heart that it is, then I can view life from an entirely new and helpful point of view in which the grace of God is a living reality, inviting me and all mankind to accept the free gift of God, not because it was free to God for it cost him the death of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, but it is free to me and to all believers. We need only accept what is already prepared for us, by God’s grace. We receive it, not by our effort or any other human merit, we receive it as a dead person receives life, from the outside, not from the inside which is dead!
If it is true that we are saved by God’s grace alone, then salvation is available for all who believe because it is free to all.
Included in the meaning of God’s grace is that all of our efforts to win salvation are futile. All the good works that were ever done, compounded to the highest integer, could not atone for even one wee sin. I am saved by grace. I live by grace, and my inheritance in Christ is mine because of the gift of God’s astoundingly rich grace. Who can even begin to understand this? None of us but that does not keep us from beholding a truth that sheds light on everything on earth and in heaven.
Paul, at this point, dwells on the marvels and realities of God’s grace.
1 comment:
Thank you Don! The words of a hymn come to my mind: "Oh, to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be; Let that grace now like a fetter Bind my wandering heart to Thee:Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it,Seal it for Thy courts above." It is hard to take it in - impossible but for the work of the Holy Spirit. I like how C.S. Lewis expressed it: We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see JESUS!
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