“For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”- John 1:16-17
During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what belief, if any, was unique to the Christian faith. They discussed the fact that other religions had some form of incarnation, and accounts of someone returning from the dead. The debate continued until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. Lewis asked what the discussion was about, and heard that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s uniqueness among world religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”
The operating principle of grace is this: We are accepted by God through what Christ has done on behalf of His Church. As William Temple has said concerning the grace of salvation, “All is of God; the only thing of my very own which I contribute to my redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed.” Grace is not Jesus telling us how to live so we can earn salvation. Rather, it is Jesus coming to forgive and save His people through His life and death in our place.
True believers know that a basic premise of life, believed by many,…is that if you live a good life, things will go well for you…is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived (sinless, the Bible tell us), yet He had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, torture even death on a cross. And He came to His own to rescue us from God’s wrath against sin. Rescue, by nature, speaks of an act of sacrifice that is done on our behalf because we can’t do it for ourselves. The Godhead had determined before the foundations of the world that only Jesus would meet the requirements of His own law so He came; “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Gal. 4:4-5) This is God’s grace towards His own.
Every other major religion teaches that their followers must earn their “god’s” favor. Every other belief system demands obedience without guaranteeing grace or assurance for its adherents. The founders of other major religions essentially came as teachers, not as saviors. They said “do this…” and you might find god’s favor. But Jesus came as a Savior that taught, “I am God come to you, to do what you could not do for yourselves.” Christian’s are not saved by their record, but by Christ’s record. Nothing poisons spiritual growth more than the inner belief that I have to be good enough so that God will love me.
The only way true spiritual growth takes place is for one to know that the God of the Bible loves His children unconditionally despite their sin. Then the heart is free to respond to God’s love. I become motivated to follow His commandments not to earn his love but out of gratefulness for the love I already have!
This is His grace, and this is the truth that separates us from every religion on the earth, “For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”
