What Is Grace?
by Pator Cornelius R. Stam
“The father of lies” always hates the truth, but he does not always
oppose it by the same methods. If he fails to succeed as a roaring lion
he may appear as an angel of light, suggesting that surely a God of love
will not condemn Christ-rejectors forever. Sinners, he will contend,
are not responsible for their sins anyway, for does not Eph. 1:11 teach
that “[God] worketh all things after the counsel of His own will”? And
thus God Himself is supposed to have conceived the idea of sin as “a
gracious means to a glorious end,” and to have caused man to fall into
sin so that He might finally save him from it!
Why an almighty, all-wise, all-loving God permitted sin to enter the
universe must, for the time being, remain an impenetrable mystery to us,
but one thing is certain: He is not the author of sin, and never
accepts the responsibility for it — except that in grace and love He
bore its penalty for man.
God calls sinners “children of disobedience” and “children of wrath”
(Eph. 2:2,3), explaining in the clearest language that He hates sin and
that His anger is kindled against it (Rom. 1:18; Eph. 5:6; John 3:36).
But if God meant man to sin and caused him to sin, how was man
disobedient and what cause could God have to be angry? Those who would
shift the responsibility for sin from themselves to God should remember
that He proclaimed His standards of righteousness in the Law “that every
mouth may be stopped and that all the world may be brought in guilty
before God” (Rom. 3:19).
The contention that all will finally be saved may at first sound like
wonderful grace, but actually there is not one particle of grace in it,
for it is based on the theory that since God got us into sin it is only
just that He save us from its penalty. But grace is God’s mercy and
kindness to the undeserving. In Eph. 2, after calling sinners “children
of disobedience” and therefore “children of wrath,” the Apostle Paul
goes on to say:
“BUT GOD, who is RICH IN MERCY, for His GREAT LOVE wherewith he loved us… hath quickened us… raised us up… and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come He might show THE EXCEEDING RICHES OF HIS GRACE IN HIS KINDNESS TOWARD US THROUGH CHRIST JESUS”
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