Did the witers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - EYEWITNESS

THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

The meaning of grace

William Barclay, in New Testament Words, says that the Greek word for grace was originally a military term. When an emperor came to the throne or celebrated a birthday, he would give his troops a donatirim (donation) or charisma, which was a free grant of money, a free gift. They had not earned it as they had their wages; it was given out of the goodness of the emperor’s heart. Whatever other meanings the word may have carried in the Greek language, it is this emphasis that is picked up by the writers of the New Testament when speaking of the grace of God. It is essentially something that is unearned. It is also undeserved. I may give someone a gift that is unearned because I think they deserve it. However, grace goes further and gives to the undeserving.

Someone has said that justice is getting what I deserve; mercy is not getting what I deserve; and grace is getting what I don’t deserve. In this sense, grace goes beyond mercy, though it does seem that Paul often uses grace and mercy interchangeably without regard to the precise distinction in their respective meanings.

It is unfortunate that the word “grace” has a different meaning in popular speech from that which it has in the Bible. In everyday English usage it generally means “a seemingly effortless beauty or charm of movement, form, or proportion.” For this reason, many miss the point when they come across the word in the Bible. So in order to capture the theological significance of the Greek word, traditionally rendered “grace” in English Bibles, the revised global edition of the Contemporary English Version (CEV) now uses the phrase “God’s gift of undeserved grace”. For example, Romans 3:24 reads: “Thanks to God’s gift of undeserved grace, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins...”

It is this undeserved nature of God’s grace that makes it so remarkable and effective in transforming human lives. Karl Barth made the comment that Jesus’ gift of forgiveness, of grace, was to him more astonishing than Jesus’ miracles. Miracles broke the physical laws of the universe; forgiveness broke the moral rules. “The beginning of good is perceived in the midst of bad...The simplicity and comprehensiveness of grace—who shall measure it?” Or as Miroslav Volf puts it in Exclusion & Embrace, in God’s way of doing things “the economy of undeserved grace has primacy over the economy of moral deserts.” C. Samuel Storms, in The Grandeur of God, sums up this undeserved nature of grace as follows:

Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit…Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the presence of human demerit…[Grace] is treating a person without the slightest reference to desert whatsoever, but solely according to the infinite goodness and sovereign purpose of God.

We need to focus on this aspect of grace if we are to begin to understand the message of the New Testament. To quote Barth again, from Deliverance to the Captives:

By grace you have been saved! Whatever else we do, praying and singing is but an answer to this word spoken to us by God himself…The Bible alone contains this sentence. We do not read it in Kant or in Schopenhauer, or in any book of natural or secular history, and certainly not in any novel, but in the Bible alone.

It is sad that not only the meaning of the word “grace” in popular conversation, but also our early conditioning, can so easily cause us to miss the significance of the word in the Bible. From our earliest years at school we are evaluated and graded into top, middle or lower groups. Test papers come back with errors exposed in red ink. Our success in sporting activities depends on ability and hard work. Work places insist that we pay our way and our income is usually dependent on our ability to earn it. The idea that we could receive from God that which we don’t deserve and could never earn is difficult to accept.

There is an obvious connection between God’s love and his grace. However, the word “grace” puts the emphasis on the undeserved nature of that love. The focus on grace also underlines the fact that God’s desire for our worship and companionship does not result from any unmet need. Primal nature-gods were said to need offerings to appease their darker emotions. However, when God created the world he did not do so because he was selfishly motivated by some deficiency within himself, but simply because he is love, and grace and the desire to give is part of his very nature. It is our need, not his, that is God’s concern.

There are two parables (stories told to illustrate a point) Jesus told that give us some insight into the nature of grace. The first is in Matthew 20:1-16. This has traditionally been called the parable of “The Workers in the Vineyard”. Jerry Bridges, in Transforming Grace, suggests that it would be better called “The Gracious Landowner” as this focuses on the real point of the story. The story describes how a landowner employs various groups of workers he finds in the marketplace throughout the day. Some work for twelve hours, some for six, some for three and some for only one hour. When pay-time comes, each person receives a denarius, which was the equivalent of a day’s pay. Those workers who have worked for the whole day complain at this. “ ’These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ But he answered them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?‘ So the last will be first, and the first last.”

To get the point of this story, it is important to understand something of the background. This parable comes immediately after Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-30). Jesus told him to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow him, and that in doing so he would receive a heavenly reward. Reflecting on this, Peter says, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” Like other Jews of his day (and many of us!), Peter was operating on the basis of merit, what was deserved. Jesus does not rebuke Peter for his merit mentality. He assures Peter that God does indeed give rewards, but he operates on the basis of grace, not of merit. In fact grace always gives far more than we have earned—“a hundred times as much” (19:29). And to illustrate the point he tells the story of the workers in the vineyard.

Another important factor was the local custom for hiring labourers. This was done on a daily basis. In the labour culture of that day, workers were paid daily. They would go into the marketplace in the early morning and wait there in the hope that someone would give them work. If no one did, then the poor among them and their families would probably go hungry. In paying a full day’s wage to those who had worked for only one hour, this generous landowner was not giving them what they earned, but what they needed. Those workers who had bargained for a day’s pay got what they had earned. They complained because of the generosity of the landowner.

So it is with God. If we are operating on the basis of merit in our hope of God’s acceptance and reward, then we are in serious trouble. Because of our record, we are as likely to get judgement as reward! However, if we are recipients of his grace, then we can be fully assured that “God will meet all [our] need [1] according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). He will do so on a daily basis. He encouraged us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). And we have no basis for complaining if we think that God is giving some people a better deal. Martin Luther, in his exposition of Deuteronomy 8:17, 18, wrote about “blessings that at times come to us through our labours and at times without our labours, but never because of our labours: for God always gives them because of his undeserved mercy.”

The other story that beautifully illustrates God’s overflowing grace is the well-known story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. The setting for the story is the muttering of “the Pharisees and teachers of the law” (v. 2). They complain, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them”. The Pharisees thought they deserved God’s favour because of their supposed good behaviour, therefore they looked down on others who didn’t keep the rules. Jesus responds by telling three stories, the last of which is the one about the Prodigal Son.

In this story, the son in question has deeply shamed his father, wasted his inheritance, behaved immorally and ends up in a pigpen with nothing to keep him alive other than the food he feeds to the pigs. When he comes to his senses and figures out that even his father’s servants are better off than he is, he decides to return, in the hope that he might be accepted back, even if only as a servant. However, his father, who has been looking out for him over the months and years and longing for his return, sees him coming in the distance, runs to meet him, throws his arms around him, kisses him, and then throws a party. He says to the servants, “’Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate” (vv. 22-24). This is all too much for the prodigal’s elder brother, who obviously represents the Pharisees and teachers of the law in the story—those who operate on the basis of merit and have little understanding of grace. On hearing the noise of the celebrations and enquiring as to the cause, he takes offence, refuses to go in and so misses out on the party.

God is like the father in the story. As Jesus had indicated earlier in the chapter, “there will bemore rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (v. 7; cf. v. 10). When people do come to God through Christ, the reward is always out of all proportion to expectations and always on the basis of grace, never on merit. And this is irrespective of what a person’s past may have been.

[1] Italics mine.

Grace and forgiveness

It is worth noting the similarity between grace and forgiveness. In fact, the verbal form of the Greek word for grace, charidsomai, often means “to forgive” and is so used twelve times in the New Testament. Yancey, in What’s So Amazing About Grace? says:

The very word forgive contains the word "give" (just as the word pardon contains donum, or gift). Like grace, forgiveness has about it the maddening quality of being undeserved, unmerited, unfair.

Forgiveness involves the willingness of someone to overlook a wrong done and relate to the person who has done that wrong as if it had not occurred. However, grace goes further than forgiveness. This is well illustrated in the story of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s classic, Les Miserables. Valjean is a prisoner on parole, branded by his past and prison number, who is given food and shelter by a kindly bishop. He rewards the bishop by stealing some valuable silverware from his home, but is caught red-handed by the gendarme, who takes him back to the bishop with the stolen goods. He is stunned to hear the bishop tell the gendarme that the silverware was a gift. Not only that—the bishop goes back into the house, gets some more silverware, hands it to the thief and feigns surprise that he left some of what he had given him behind. This is more than forgiveness. This is grace upon grace. Valjean is overwhelmed, and the direction of his life is dramatically changed from that moment. His transformation continues until eventually he dies a good and godly man, beloved and serenaded by his adopted daughter and her husband, and welcomed into the presence of God by a shimmering white angel. The musical version of Les Miserables is worth seeing. This is the sort of grace that God is offering us, and forgiveness of others is one of the ways we demonstrate our experience of it.

Where there is no grace and forgiveness, the result is bitterness and resentment. The writer of Hebrews has something pertinent to say about this. “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many” (12:15). Harbouring grudges only causes troubles and defilement. These are only too obvious in this present world. The antidote is an abundant supply of grace. Like a weedkiller, it goes to the root of bitterness and destroys its power. It is our responsibility to see that we don’t fall short of it. One of the great stories of forgiveness in the Bible is that of Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers, in Genesis 37, 42-47 and 50. Terry Virgo, in God’s Lavish Grace, [1] says of this story:

No Egyptians were in danger of hearing from Joseph how wickedly his brothers had treated him. He gave them such honour and received them with such evident and unmixed joy that no suspicions arose. He had obtained grace and God’s grace was sufficient for him.

[1] Monarch Books, 2004, ©.

Before moving on, I would like to share two real-life stories that illustrate how our sharing of undeserved grace can impact people’s lives. The first is told in The Human Journey by Bruce Wilson concerning a small aboriginal schoolboy who lived in the north of Australia. His white schoolteacher took out her racist feelings on him, constantly beating and berating him. One day he reached breaking point. Tearfully he ran from the classroom and crawled under the toilet block. The teacher called the police who used their dogs to chase him out. Shaking with rage, the teacher began to beat and berate him again, telling him he was “a black nothing, a filthy, lazy abo”.

Another teacher appeared in the schoolyard. Physically pushing the first teacher aside, she quietly asked the boy, “Who are you?’ The youngster replied, “I don’t know, Miss.” The second teacher put her arms around his small black body and said, “I know who you are. You’re Harry. I want you in my class.” That is what divine grace is like—the unexpected gift of accepting love. Harry grew up to be a leader of his down-trodden people, whereas he could easily have joined many of his race whose despair has often led to alcoholism and early death. The teacher’s love gave him new life and dignity.

The other story is told by Rob Parsons in ‘Low on Grace’, an article in Christianity. Some years ago he was invited by Dr R. T. Kendal, then pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, to hear a guest preacher at the morning service and have lunch with him afterwards. On inquiring who the mystery preacher was, he was told, “It’s Jimmy Bakker—the disgraced American television evangelist who was jailed for fraud.” Parsons continues:

The man I heard preach that day had been broken by his experiences. He has lost his reputation, his ministry, his wife and his living. And he expressed deep sorrow and repentance, not only for what he had been charged with in court, but for some of the ways he had gone about raising money in the first place. He told a little of what life had been like for him in prison. One of his jobs was to clean the toilets, a task for which he wore a special set of old clothes. One day a guard came to his cell and announced that he had a visitor. Bakker was dirty, unshaven and had just got back from his cleaning job, still wearing his latrine duty clothes. He asked the guard if he could have a moment to make himself presentable, but his request was denied.

As he made his way down the corridor towards the governor’s office, Bakker wondered who was there to see him. At that time of his life most Christians wouldn’t have crossed the street for him, let alone come to visit him in prison. When he entered the room his visitor strode towards him and Bakker found himself engulfed in the warm embrace of Billy Graham. And it was the Graham family who, when he was released, asked him to join them for church. He remembers that they kept a seat for him, next to them, at the front.

Maybe this gives us one clue as to why Billy Graham has been such a successful evangelist.