In one of Peter Leithart’s essays on grace he talks about this very thing, and to illustrate it he uses the example of a young man who is interested in having a relationship with a young woman. (what follows is my memory of Leithart’s example; as I don’t have it in front of me, my apologies for any inaccuracies or misrepresentation)

If a young man was interested in pursuing a relationship with a young woman, it would be necessary for him to show her his interest. And he would do this by using any number of symbolic gestures; things like buying her flowers, writing her letters, speaking to her often and in the specific ways that suitors do. Someone who was trying to focus on the supremacy of the “spiritual” or the intangible might argue that these actions are “mere” symbols of the actual affection and relationship that the young man is trying to establish. But this is not a sufficient explanation, for if the young man were instead to perform none of these “symbolic” actions, he would have a very difficult time convincing his young lady that he was truly interested in her at all. In fact, one could argue that these “symbols” actually make up a very significant and very real part of the relationship.

It is in the same way that these ordinances of the faith are not “mere” symbols. Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, marriage, corporate worship, and so on, each of these things, while they are definitely representative of spiritual truths, also make up a significant aspect of our relationship with Jesus Christ. And they do so to the extent that if a person who claimed to be a believer and lover of Christ did not partake in these actions, they would have a difficult time convincing anyone that they truly loved Him at all.  [Edit: You should read the comment by Jonathan below]

Comments?

All of that will change very soon though. Today, they are taking him from the Johnson City hospital he was life-flighted to, and they are moving him to Winston-Salem for physical therapy. He’ll have two fairly intense weeks there, with visitation limited to three hours in the evening (that includes his wife) and then it will be time to go home. And I imagine that is when he will need our prayers the most.

So if you have time in the next few weeks, say a quick word of prayer for Mike and Ginger Martin. Pray that Mike will continue to grow in the Lord and that he will lead his family spiritually. Pray that Ginger will love and submit to her husbands leadership and that she will cast all her cares upon God. Pray for them as you would pray for any other couple that you know, because the truth is, the challenges that they will face haven’t changed in their nature, just in their appearances.

God’s
Riches
At
Christ’s
Expense

(This one is the best because it both defines and spells Grace at the same time!!!)

And while I don’t really want to knock those definitions (except maybe the acrostic), I wonder if you’ve ever felt like me that such simplistic definitions do not do grace justice?

I should point out that I’m not saying that we can completely understand grace. In fact, as we discuss grace a little bit, I’d like to try to show that to understand grace completely, we would have to understand God completely.

The seed thought that I have for thinking about grace is this:

Grace is associated with the specific work that God is performing in any situation. What we identify as grace is the interaction of God with us as His creation to accomplish His purposes. Grace is tied up in the specific actions of God and in our perception of those actions (think revelation).

In this post, I want to focus on the specificity of grace in any given situation.
As I was growing up, I tended to think of the world as a complex system that God had put into place and that ran, machine-like with only occasional “intervention” needed by Him. And while this abstraction of the world serves quite well for some purposes, much like Newtonian physics, it is a severely flawed way of understanding both God and the world He has created. You see, Scripture defines God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and outside of time. It also says that he actively sustains the world. Because of this, any system that God has created is, by His very nature, constanly being intervened upon. Or to say it another way, God Himself IS the system (and therefore, is not a system at all.)

If we accept this, that a Sovereign God as described in Scripture demands a completely involved God, and that God’s involvement in our lives is of a personal nature, we begin to see how specific grace must be.

I should also state this: If you do not believe in a sovereign God, then it is not my intent with this post to convince you of it. The goal of this post is to bring previously separate concepts about God and His grace together into something of a cohesive whole (and, as with all my posts, to perpetrate excessive comma usage upon the world)

Let me give some examples that demonstrate my understanding of grace in action:

Example 1:
Let’s suppose for the purposes of this example that God’s ideal for a functioning home is some form of home school. This is for example purposes only. Let’s also say we have FamilyA and FamilyB. The Mom and Dad of FamilyA have been saved for about 6 years and are in a small Bible preaching church in a small town with no Christian schools. Several church members teach at the local public school and DaughterA and SonA both attend there. FamilyB attend a different church in the same town and the Mom and Dad of FamilyB have been saved for approximately the same amount of time. The elders at the church that FamilyB attends all home school their children and they have recommended home school to the members of the church. FamilyB decides to home school their children and do so for several years. At some point, the Dad of FamilyB decides that home school is costing them too much in terms of time and energy. He talks to his wife and they decide to put their children in the local public school for the last four years of high school. This part is the key: in this example, FamilyB’s reasons for stopping home schooling are carnal and are based on their own selfishness.

Based on what I know of grace in Scripture, it would not be unreasonable to expect that God would treat these two families very different for their decisions. He may very well bless FamilyA and protect their children from certain dangers while FamilyB and their children may have a very different experience in the same school during the same time period.

Example 2:
Two young Christians get married and have a couple of children. Because of the way they were taught, and the church that they are attending, and the best advice that they can get, they do not begin disciplining their children in earnest until they are three or four years old and they rarely spank them. Nevertheless, their children are relatively well behaved and respectful of their parents, their rules, and the Word of God. Over the next 14 years, the parents do not have any more children, but they do change churches and they mature quite a bit in their faith and in their understanding of Scripture. At this point, they have two more children in short order. Initially, they treat these children much as they did the previous two, but these children are much more unruly and do not respond to the limited discipline that they get.

In this situation, though there is only one family, the passage of time and the greater revelation of God is what has changed. We have every reason to believe that God would not bless their current actions where they have greater knowledge of him in the same way that he would when they acted through ignorance, but through faith as well. We also have every reason to believe that if they begin applying what God has revealed to them over the past 14 years they will see results (not perfection, not all their problems going away, but God will bless their obedience)

What I am trying to get at with these examples is not that we can control the actions of God or that works produce righteousness, but instead the idea that we cannot always compare two separate actions and understand why God chooses to bless or curse as He does. (In fact, we cannot always tell what is a blessing and what is a curse. I am also not saying that life is inscrutable and that we shouldn’t try to understand God or His ways.) Because grace is not some magic pill that fixes things, but is instead exactly how God as a Father/Judge/Triune God is working in the world both through His actions and through His revelation to each and every man, it is not something that we can just wave our hands at and explain away. Grace is complex because God is complex and grace is the work of God. But Grace is also simple because all we have to do to receive it, is to obey.

There is, of course, more to be said about grace and what it teaches us about God, but I think this is enough for now. I realize that this is a rather long post for this blog, but if you’ve managed to fight your way through it, I’d love to know what you think.

Here’s a snippet:

God demonstrates intended goodness on the reprobate. God’s ultimate purpose is to display His glory and the men are objects of means wherewith God will draw all men to Himself. To paraphrase Jonathan Edwards the very fact that the rejection of this kindness heaps more judgment on the non-elect proves that it is actual kindness, else it would be of no consequence to the reprobate. The fact that wicked men abuse these good gifts and heap more wrath on themselves does not negate the intent of the gift. John Calvin states, “Proofs of the love of God towards the whole human race exist innumerable, all which demonstrate the ingratitude of those who perish or come to perdition.”

We all need a friend or two like that. The sort of person who will look at us and say the thing that needs to be said and not necessarily the thing that would be most pleasant. The sort of person who knows how to cut you, but kindly, the sort that Proverbs 27:6 speaks of when it says, “faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful”.

I think there’s a great deal more to be said about friendship, but I wanted to get this down while it was fresh in my mind. And to Bruce, who I’m not entirely sure will read this, I wanted to say thank you. You are and have always been a friend, and I appreciate that, more than you may know.

“Speak Eminence, your power is diminished,
Your time has come and Creation seals your fate,
You’ll take a place in a Hell of your devising,
And I will sow, this world with my hate.”
Christ breathed once more, his bloodied body rising,
And spoke the words of beginning, It is finished.

Satan roared and laughter rang loud from his throat:
“No, not yet finished, until I hold the throne,
They’ll come the third day to the grave with spices,
And when they do, they must not find him gone.
The die is cast, there can be no more devices.”
His laughter ceased, he would wait till then to gloat.

As always, comments are appreciated.

It’s Friday and the Almighty is spending the evening at home. He’s met someone you see, someone named Chad, and, well, He likes him oh so much. So, sprawled across his infinite pink bedspread, He is waiting by the phone, His elbows resting on His enormous fuchsia pillow, His cell phone in front of him: He is praying that Chad will call. Next to Him on the bed is a pad of paper where He has written, “Jehovah and Chad 4eternity (4real)” and “Jehovah loves Chad! AWESOME!!”. Suddenly the phone rings and the sound of Nichole Nordeman’s Legacy fills the air. In His excitement, the Alpha and Omega fumbles with the phone before answering. Breathless, He lifts it to His ear, only to be disappointed.”Hey J, has he called yet?” asks the Holy Spirit.”No, but I’m sure he will,” says the Self Existent One, I’ve made it so clear how I feel about him.”

“I don’t know,” says HS, “earlier today I was talking to an angel and he said he was talking to another angel and that angel told him that he saw Chad in the library and Chad was totally talking to Buddha.”

“Are you serious? This totally can’t be happening to me. I’m like God Almighty and stuff, y’know, and he’s my Chad. It would just be so dreamy if we were together!”

“I know,”  says HS, “I know. Sooner or later, he’ll come around.”

“I just hope you’re right.”

Jehovah ends the call and then buries His face in His pillow.”Oh Chad,” He sobs, “how I love you so.”

I hope the above scenario seems ridiculous to you. I hope that if you thought I was being serious, you would think me guilty of blasphemy. Let me assure you, I am not being serious. But can I submit to you, that this is exactly what we do when we preach an Arminian gospel?

If God is who He says He is, then it is He who does the choosing. If He is who He claims to be it is He who has ordained all things. I have written previously about the co-existence of free-will and predestination and won’t go back into it in any depth here, but I do want to declare to you that Jehovah is the Sovereign God, the I AM. Though He loves us, it is not with a fretful, trembling love. He is no tender-hearted girl hoping and praying that some will come to repentance, that some will come to know Him.

What do you say?

I have seen the mother, the wife, the girl,
sitting at her bedside, her dead child in her hands
weeping on his upturned face.
There is nothing selfish there.
She is broken, and weary.
She is full of pain, and strangely, guilt.
It is something that I can barely know.

I am most familiar with the man in the room
the one who stands behind her,
who believes that because she is broken, he must be whole,
who cries, but silently
who looks down through tear filled eyes,
and loves them both.

Is it just human to behave this way? To only say what we feel when there is a lesser chance that we will hear our own words?

Does this makes its way into our worship? Or is it rather, quite the other way around? Is our ability to show ourselves, and to even know ourselves, tied up in our love for God? Are we unable to speak truly of ourselves because we unwilling to speak truly of Him?

What do you say?

Not the foolish kind you made as a child,
but a real promise,
the sort you have been practicing to make
your whole life long.

Sometimes my wife and I will lay like that,
our fingers barely touching,
or her knee against my thigh,
or the heel of her foot pressed against the sole of mine.

Any more would be too much,
any more would break the spell.
It is that tiny, tiny touch, the barest sensation of contact
that is the promise to each other

“Who else could I lie with in this way,”
is what you are saying.
“Who else’s hand or knee or heel could feel
like it belongs to someone else and yet be mine?”