Root Words | The Attributes of God – Grace

Hey everyone! This is Bill Daly again from Bitterroot Valley Calvary Chapel with this week’s episode of Root Words. Well, you probably know by now, we’re continuing our series on the divine Attributes of God. Each week I like to mention that THE most important aspect of our Christian walk is that we KNOW our God. And then, having known more OF Him, that we are then shaped and TRANSFORMED by that knowledge. As you know, we’ve been spending time studying the nature and the character of God as He has revealed Himself to us in His word. And if you happened to be with us last week, we spent a few minutes discussing the “Holiness” of God. So this week, we’re going to examine: 

The Grace of God: This may sound shocking to you at first listen, but stay tuned because I’ll try my best to explain: Grace, one of the perfections of God’s Divine essence & character, is only extended to those whom God has elected and saved. Let’s speak of the election of the believer for just a moment because despite your own theological leanings, the doctrine of election presents us with some questions. See, if the human race actually possesses the freedom of will (to the extent that we can do good by looking to God on our own), then faith is an act of our own will and it comes from US, and we may therefore lose it or let go of it. If that’s true, there can be no certainty of salvation; no assurance of it because it entirely depends on us to hold on to it. But if on the other hand, the human race, in our fallen state, can do nothing BUT fall and we cannot will ourselves to look toward God on our own, then God must intercede in the matter of our wills, and provide us the will in the counter-direction. If that’s true, then we are saved by God’s will and not our own. And that, friends, is “election”. Psalm 14:2-3 tells us that not only do we NOT seek after God, but that we have all turned aside and all of us are corrupt, with no one – not even one – who does good. We have all inherited our sinful nature and the Bible tells us that we are dead in our trespasses and sin. What faith can we have if it doesn’t first come from the Father? How much faith can a dead person have? How much faith did Lazaurus have to be raised from the dead? None – Jesus Himself had to open the grave and call Lazaurus from death to life. 

So here is perhaps a shocking realization: that Grace is a perfection of the Divine character of God which is exercised only towards those He has elected. Now it’s important to note that the mercies which God bestows on the godless, the worldly, and the unrepentant are solely of a temporal nature, which is to say that they are strictly confined to this present life, here on earth. There will be no mercy extended beyond the grave. Grace has been often said to be defined as “unmerited favor”. That’s true – but it is so much more than that. Divine grace is the Sovereign and SAVING favor of God extended in the giving of it to those who have absolutely no merit of it and by the way, FOR WHICH no reimbursement or payment is required from. To go even a bit further, Grace is the favor of God shown to those who not only have no positive worth of their own in their fallen state but who are thoroughly deserving of Hell and the unmitigated Wrath of God. Divine Grace is forever (which is GREAT news), it is free (we can’t buy it), and it is sovereign (God extends it toward and gives it to whom He pleases and doesn’t extend or give it to those He doesn’t). Nowhere does the magnificent glory of God’s free and sovereign Grace shine more majestically and obviously than in the unworthiness of what it is extended TO. That means us. It is through Christ our Mediator alone, by Grace alone, through Faith alone, according to Scripture alone, to the Glory of God alone that the grace of God flows to us, His believers, His elect. George Sayles Bishop was a preacher in the 1800s and had written a book called “The Doctrines of Grace”. He sums up the Divine attribute of Grace like this: “Grace is the provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the axe of justice, so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures, so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him, so blind that they cannot see Him, so deaf that they cannot hear Him, and so dead that He Himself must open their graves and lift them into resurrection.” Thank God for His Grace toward us sinners. Thank God indeed. So I encourage you to let the knowledge of what God has extended to you – His Grace – seep into your heart and to begin meditating on it and allowing it to magnify the Gracious character, the Gracious essence of the God Who has saved you in your own heart so that you can enjoy a richer, more profound level of worship and intimacy with Him. 

Well, I hope this has been a blessing to you – or at least an aid to you – in your own investigation of the nature and character of God. I look forward to spending a few minutes with you next week – in the meantime, have a wonderful day in the Lord. God bless you.