Salvation Is By God's Grace

This space in last month's paper was given to the discussion of a few reasons why one should be a Christian. Being a Christian, as one understands it from the New Testament, is the same as coming into a saved relationship in Christ Jesus. While there are a number of things by which the New Testament says we are saved, our focus here is upon grace and its relation to our salvation. Grace may be understood as goodwill, friendly disposition, or favor of one toward another. When used of God toward man, it means favor undeserved. The observant reader will see in such passages as Rom. 5:1-2,6-8; Eph. 2:4-5 and Tit. 3:3-7 that man certainly did not deserve the great favor shown him by God in the sending of His Son as the propitiatory price for man's sin. Through God's gracious provision in Christ, vile and sinful mankind may be delivered from that against which the wrath of God is directed (cf. Rom. 1:18; Col. 3:6).

THE EXPANSE OF GRACE. Paul tells us that God's grace and the gift by that grace is abundant (Rom. 5:15,17). Whiteside comments, "…Paul assures us that the blessings through Christ abound much more than the curse through the trespass of Adam; they include deliverance from our own sins" as well as "the evils resulting from Adam's sin." When Paul who "was formerly a blasphemer, persecutor, and an insolent man" referred to his own forgiveness, the Lord's grace became "exceedingly abundant" (I Tim. 1:14). The Ephesians were assured that the forgiveness of sins, the redemption wrought through His blood, was "according to the riches of His grace which He has made to abound toward us…" and "that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1:7-8; 2:7). A hymn we sing speaks of "Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt…Grace that will pardon and cleanse."

THE GIFTS OF GRACE. Jesus and His death for everyone is a gift of grace (Rom. 5:15; I Cor. 1:4; Heb. 2:9). And what a great gift is the gospel which Paul calls "the gospel of the grace of God" and "the word of His grace" (Acts 20:24,32). The gospel is the good news which unfolds the scheme of redemption in Christ (Eph. 1:7-11; 3:1-12).

SALVATION BY GRACE. This is a fact plainly declared in many passages. Peter spoke of his confidence that "through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" both Jew and Gentile would be "saved in the same manner" (Acts 11:15). Paul said to the Romans that we "are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24). And to the Ephesians he wrote, "For by grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9).