“By his grace,” what does it mean?
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:23, 24, NET. Traditionally, “justified by his grace” presented a problem when determining its true meaning. The difficulty results from the misconception of “grace.” The “grace” applies to a person, Jesus Christ, concerning our justification. The “justified by the faithfulness of Jesus” and the “justified by grace” express the same idea. “Justification” results from removing sin from sinners to make them righteous in God’s eyes. The sinners could not be made righteous without justification by the faithfulness of Jesus. Similarly, sinners could not be justified and yet not righteous in God’s eyes. In Romans 3:24, the noun “grace” is associated with Jesus Christ exclusively. Jesus Christ IS our grace. What God accomplished on our behalf in the body of Jesus Christ on the cross at Golgotha is what we have here and now. God gave it to us “through his grace, Jesus Christ. We could say, in human terms, that it pleased God to subject Jesus Christ to the “Cross of Christ” on behalf of the undeserving sinners. Isaiah 53:10.
Paul, in Romans, employs “grace” to address God’s love for the undeserving enemy. Paul addresses God’s favorable disposition, in love, toward worthless sinners. In his forbearance, God delayed the punishment for sin until the Messiah came at just the right time. The “justification by faith” in Romans chapter three defines God’s fulfillment of the new covenant in Jesus Christ as a demonstration of his graciousness toward the sinners. There is no grace apart from Jesus Christ. He is Grace.
The new covenant promise is that God will give us a new human spirit, our new life. God promised to give us a new heart to make us willing to obey him. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26. (emphasis is mine). The sinful humankind needed a new spirit because the spirit God gave us at creation sinned in Adam and was condemned to eternal death by the Moral Law. The sinful spirit could not be made good again; he had to die forever. A deliberate decision by the spirit and its consequences are irrevocable. However, it pleased God to put the sinful spirit into the body of Jesus Christ and destroy it forever. God replaced it with the new and perfect spirit he gave us in Jesus Christ – the Second Adam, at the incarnation. The Holy Spirit, whom God gave us, communicates the wonderful exchange on the cross at Golgotha to our new spirit. The Holy Spirit in us assures us that we are children of God in Christ Jesus. We are not God’s children like Jesus. We are God’s children IN Jesus only.
Continued in the next blog.
