GIFTED
What is grace? Some might think of a graceful gymnast, a picture of poise and agility. Others might think of a gracious sufferer, patiently and meekly enduring mistreatment and persecution. And still others might think of grace as getting a few extra days to pay a bill or resolve some issue.
But, if we’re trying to figure out what the grace of God is, these thoughts don’t help us very much. The first group would say the opposite of grace is clumsiness. The second group would say the opposite of grace is revenge. Perhaps the last group might say grace’s opposite is inflexibility. But how can one word have such extremely different opposites? Get ready to be surprised—the Bible gives us a fourth opposite for grace, just as different as the first three. The Bible, emphatically and repeatedly, says that the opposite of grace... is work.
Work! Work is the opposite of grace:
“God saved us, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace.” -Paul
“But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, since otherwise grace is no longer grace.” -Paul
Also, closely connected with the idea of work is the idea of wages—that those who work are owed and deserve to be paid:
“To the one who works, wages are not credited as a favor, but as what is due.” -Paul
Giving a paycheck for work completed is not graciousness on the part of any employer, but a matter of obligation and duty. To not pay your workers is simply and flatly wrong. You owe them—so pay them. Those who work are, very much, entitled to be paid.
But, what payment does our work entitle us to? Here is where the hard truth comes in:
“The wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Paul
Unless you have lived your entire life for God’s perfect will (and not your own will), then you have sinned—you have worked against God. Just like in a court of law, no amount of innocence in other areas can remove the guilt here. God does indeed owe us something—we are owed death, as the wages of our sinful works. We have no means whatsoever to ransom or redeem ourselves. What we desperately need is the one thing we absolutely do not deserve—God’s favor. We need God to look upon us with goodwill and mercy, and to do for us what we have no way of doing for ourselves. We need grace. But we can never earn or deserve or force grace from God. Grace always comes as a free gift, or not at all.
Like all gifts, any idea of earning grace changes it. Anyone who says “You owe me a gift!” shows that they don’t really understand gifts at all. We can know we’ve truly received a gift when we can say, “You didn’t have to do this”—and mean it. Similarly, God doesn’t have to give grace to us; when He does, it’s because He’s generous, not because we’re deserving.
“By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” -Paul
God has chosen to offer us eternal life in Christ, as a gift. We do not obtain this salvation from sin’s penalty through any sort of working, so we can never take any credit for it. The grace is the gift of God, the faith is the gift of God, the salvation is the gift of God. None, not a bit of it—is of ourselves. If we are boastful of receiving grace, or of having faith, or of being saved, something is amiss. Gratitude is the right response to being given a gift. Pride is not.
Some have felt that the grace of God is too gracious. When Paul spoke of sin, he repeatedly and resoundingly declared that we “receive the abundance of grace,” and, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” Paul had to take pains to keep from being misunderstood:
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Far from it!” -Paul
“Some claim that we say, ‘Let’s do evil that good may come of it.’ Their condemnation is deserved.” -Paul
Paul would not compromise in any way this essential truth: God’s grace is greater than sin. Let sin be ever so great, grace will be greater. Some claimed Paul was teaching that sin was somehow good because it led to greater grace from God. But note, they’d never have even thought this, unless Paul’s teaching had been so shockingly grace-centric, so exceedingly grace-full.
Now, some of you might be having a “wait a second” moment. Week after week, I’ve been writing all sorts of advice on what we (as seekers after God) should be doing. And now, here I am, seemingly saying, “Don’t do anything. Grace does everything. Don’t work. Just receive.” Like Paul, I’ve left myself wide open to this accusation. Fully declaring the amazing grace of God all but demands it.
On this subject, Jesus was once asked, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” His response sheds some light on all this:
“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” -Jesus
There are many places where Jesus says that simply believing in Him is the only thing necessary to “have everlasting life.” Here, He was specifically asked about what works to perform. Jesus could have given them an impressive list of commands, but He did not. Believing in Him was the one and only critical thing. Faith is needed. But not works.
Paul shows us the right way to move from faith to works:
“We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” -Paul
First, we must be “created in Christ” as “His workmanship.” This is the grace part. You didn’t create yourself in Christ, you didn’t save yourself, none of this was your workmanship. It was God’s work. He did this work (of grace!) in us so that now, in Christ, we might ourselves do good works—never, never to be saved, but because we are saved. That’s grace.