What IS the Grace of God?

Man, Sin, & Salvation
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Paidion
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What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Paidion » Sun Feb 07, 2021 6:59 pm

What is “grace”? What does “the grace of God” do for people?

It is a prevalent view among professing Christians, that “grace” refers to God's forgiveness of sin. So that though a Christian may sin, since he trusts in Christ, he will be forgiven as often as he sins. Perhaps he is unable to stop sinning, but that doesn't matter, since he will be forgiven through God's grace and thus God will provide no adverse consequences for his sin.

But is it true that God's grace refers to forgiveness? The apostle Paul affirmed that God's grace is His enablement to deliver us from our sin. Consider the following passage from Titus 2:11-12:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

In this passage, Paul clearly stated that God's grace brings, not merely forgiveness of our sin, but deliverance (or “salvation”) from sin itself, training us to renounce sin, and to live righteous lives. Paul then states, not that Jesus gave Himself for us in order that we might be forgiven, but that He gave Himself to redeem us from lawlessness or sin, and to purify us, so that we might be zealous for living righteously.

Is this not the meaning of God's grace and its purpose?
Paidion

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Homer
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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Homer » Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:50 am

Paidion,

You asked:
Is this not the meaning of God's grace and its purpose?
I would say you are partly right; you got half of it.

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Paidion
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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Paidion » Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:24 am

I would say you are partly right; you got half of it.
And you have the other half?
Please enlighten us.
Paidion

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dwight92070
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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by dwight92070 » Mon Feb 08, 2021 2:29 pm

"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace." Ephesians 1:7
By His grace, we have many things, not the least of which are redemption and forgiveness of sins and as you said, the enablement to turn away from sin.
I don't know where the Bible teaches that we are totally freed from the consequences of our sins, even when our sins are forgiven. The prime example, David, was not.

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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Paidion » Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:54 pm

Thanks Dwight. I thought perhaps "forgiveness" was "the other half" to which Homer referred. But I wanted to hear it from his own lips (or rather "read it from his own typing").

I just want you to know that the Greek word in Ephesians 1:7 is "αφεσις" (aphesis). This word is does not mean "forgive" in the usual sense.

Greek lexicons give the primary meaning of the Greek word “αφεσις” ('aphesis” in English alphabet characters) as “release from bondage or imprisonment”.

What follows is an example of the word as it occurs in Luke 4:18 ESV:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

In both instances of the word translated as “liberty”, is a form of the Greek word is “αφεσις”.

Clearly the word doesn't mean "forgiveness" in this context (nor in any other in my opinion).

Though there are many passages which read in most translations (or mistranslations) that Jesus died for "the forgiveness of sins", they should read that Jesus died for "the forsaking of sins."

There IS a Greek word for "forgiveness" in the usual sense. This word is "χαριζομαι" (charizomai). Here are a few instances in which it is used:

Lu 7:42 “And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely FORGAVE them both.
2Co 2:7 so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to FORGIVE and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow.
Eph 4:32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, FORGIVE one another, just as God in Christ FORGAVE you.
Col 3:13 bearing with one another, and FORGIVING one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ FORGAVE you, so you also must do.

And Paul using the word in a sarcastic sense:
2Co 12:13 For what is it in which you were inferior to other churches, except that I myself was not burdensome to you? FORGIVE me this wrong!
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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Homer
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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Homer » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:14 pm

Hi Paidion,

You wrote:
It is a prevalent view among professing Christians, that “grace” refers to God's forgiveness of sin. So that though a Christian may sin, since he trusts in Christ, he will be forgiven as often as he sins. Perhaps he is unable to stop sinning, but that doesn't matter, since he will be forgiven through God's grace and thus God will provide no adverse consequences for his sin.
I think you error here. Substitute "repents" for "sins" and you will have it right. It seems you have made a strawman statement; I understand prevalent to mean dominant view and I do not see that it is.

Doesn't this statement from Hebrews inform us that there is a sacrifice for sins that saves us from judgement, and that it does matter if we keep on willfully sinning?

Hebrews 10:26

26. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27. but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

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Paidion
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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Paidion » Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:41 pm

You are right, of course, Homer, concerning the statement from Hebrews.

I didn't say that I agreed with the prevalent view among professing Christians that "grace" refers to God's forgiveness of sin. Indeed, I disagree with that view. I simply stated that it was a prevalent view among professing Christians (not all of professing Christians are genuine Christians).

So I fail to see in what respect you think me to be in error.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Homer » Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:35 pm

Hi Paidion,

I apologize for not responding sooner as I had intended. As I was reading the other day in Alford's commentary on Hebrews I came across the following commentary on Hebrews 1:3:

Hebrews 1:3
New American Standard Bible
3.And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Sin was the great uncleanness, of which He has effected the purgation: the disease of which He has wrought the cure. This καθαρισμός must be understood by the subsequent argument in the Epistle: for that which the Writer had it in his mind to expand in the course of his treatise, he must be supposed to have meant when he used without explanation a concise term, like this. And that we know to have been, the purifications and sacrifices of the Levitical law, by which man’s natural uncleanness in God’s sight was typically removed, and access to God laid open to him. Ebrard’s note here is so important that, though long, I cannot forbear inserting it:—“ καθαρίζειν answers to the Heb. טִהַר, and its ideal explanation must be sought in the meaning which suits the Levitical cleansing in the O. T.cultus. Consequently, they are entirely wrong, who understand καθαρίζειν of moral amelioration, and would so take καθαρισμὸν ποιεῖν in this place, as if the author wished to set forth Christ here as a moral teacher, who by precept and example incited men to amendment. And we may pronounce those in error, who go so far indeed as to explain the καθαρισμός of the propitiatory removal of the guilt of sin, but only on account of later passages in our Epistle, as if the idea of scriptural καθαρισμός were not already sufficiently clear to establish this, the only true meaning. The whole law of purification, as given by God to Moses, rested on the assumption that our nature, as sinful and guilt-laden, is not capable of coming into immediate contact with our holy God and Judge. The mediation between man and God present in the most holy place, and in that most holy place separated from the people, was revealed in three forms; α. in sacrifices, β. in the Priesthood, and γ. in the Levitical laws of purity. Sacrifices were (typical) acts or means of propitiation for guilt; Priests were the agents for accomplishing these acts, but were not themselves accounted purer than the rest of the people, having consequently to bring offerings for their own sins before they offered for those of the people. Lastly, Levitical purity was the condition which was attained, positively by sacrifice and worship, negatively by avoidance of Levitical pollution,—the condition in which the people was enabled, by means of the priests, to come into relation with God ‘without dying’ (Deuteronomy 5:26); the result of the cultus which was past, and the postulate for that which was to come. So that that which purified, was sacrifice: and the purification was, the removal of guilt. This is most clearly seen in the ordinance concerning the great day of atonement, Leviticus 16. There we find those three leading features in the closest distinctive relation. First, the sacrifice must be prepared (Leviticus 16:1-10): then, the high priest is to offer for his own sins (Leviticus 16:11-14): lastly, he is to kill the sin-offering for the people (Leviticus 16:15), and with its blood to sprinkle the mercy-seat and all the holy place, and cleanse it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel (Leviticus 16:19); and then he is symbolically to lay the sins of the people on the head of a second victim, and send forth this animal, laden with the curse, into the wilderness. For (Leviticus 16:30) ‘on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.’ In the atonement, in the gracious covering ( יְכַפֵּר, Leviticus 16:30) of the guilt of sin, consists purification in the scriptural sense. (And so also were those who had become levitically unclean, e. g. lepers, Leviticus 14, cleansed by atoning sacrifices.) So that an Israelitish reader, a Christian Jew, would never, on reading the words καθαρισμὸν ποιεῖν, think on what we commonly call ‘moral amelioration,’ which, if not springing out of the living ground of a heart reconciled to God, is mere self-deceit, and only external avoidance of evident transgression: but the καθαρισμός which Christ brought in would, in the sense of our author and his readers, only be understood of that gracious atonement for all guilt of sin of all mankind, which Christ our Lord and Saviour has completed for us by His sinless sufferings and death: and out of which flows forth to us, as from a fountain, all power to love in return, all love to Him, our heavenly Pattern, and all hatred of sin, which caused His death. To speak these words of Scripture with the mouth, is easy: but he only can say Yea and Amen to them with the heart who, in simple truthfulness of the knowledge of himself, has looked down even to the darkest depths of his ruined state, natural to him, and intensified by innumerable sins of act,—and, despairing of all help in himself, reaches forth his hand after the good tidings of heavenly deliverance.” It is truly refreshing, in the midst of so much unbelief, and misapprehension of the sense of Scripture, in the German Commentators, to meet with such a clear and full testimony to the truth and efficacy of the Lord’s great Sacrifice.
Alford and Ebrard (whom Alford quoted at length) explained my position much better than I could so I decided to save much time by posting their comments.

Jesus' great sacrifice accomplished much more than the amelioration of sin.

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Paidion
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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Paidion » Wed Feb 17, 2021 10:26 pm

Jesus' great sacrifice accomplished much more than the amelioration of sin.
Yes, it accomplished much more that amelioration — improvement, betterment.
It accomplished the possibility of elimination.
But that elimination is not instantaneous; it is a life-long process.
Paidion

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Homer
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Re: What IS the Grace of God?

Post by Homer » Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:06 am

Paidion,

You wrote:
Yes, it accomplished much more that amelioration — improvement, betterment.
It accomplished the possibility of elimination.
James 3:2
New American Standard Bible
2. For we all stumble in many ways.

1 John 1:8
New American Standard Bible
8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.


When John wrote those words, have and deceiving, he used the present indicative active; I'm sure you know what that means. For us to live perfectly without sinning we would have to know God's will for us in every instance and and always comply with it. Otherwise we would no longer need to pray "forgive our sins" as our Lord taught us.

As I said earlier, you have half a gospel - amelioration of sin, and that is no small thing. But James, as quoted above, hit the nail on the head.

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