by Henry Knapp
This fall around Hebron, I’m hoping you will feel the encouragement to engage deeply in your faith—in God-centered worship, in in-depth biblical study, and in passionate service to our King. I am convinced that our devotion to Jesus, our love for the Father, and our experience of the Spirit will be richer as we pursue these goals. However, as always, sin seeks to distort that vision, and we risk losing sight of that great blessing in our lives, the grace of God given to us in Christ. To misunderstand grace is to misunderstand the whole nature of the gospel. To comprehend all of God’s law, or His purposes in creation, or even His sovereign character and power, and yet to fail to grasp grace is to miss the heart of Christianity.Unfortunately, it is precisely here that we see a common problem within the church—many people speak of God, His love, ways, and authority. Yet without grace, all this talk is merely the clanging of symbols; it lacks the central core of the Christian worship of the Lord. God’s love, laws, morality, character and nature are all vitally important to the Christian. But standing alone, they lack the tie that binds them to our hearts and experiences—the overwhelming gift of God’s pleasure given to us freely through Christ.
However, this free grace which God offers us should not be thought of simply as sweet, pure, and peaceful. Yes, the influence of grace upon us is often sweet. It often brings about purity in our hearts, and peace to our souls. But Scripture portrays that grace, not as coming to us gently and in a sweet manner, but coming by means of great violence. Much that God does to show us His gracious love involves a vicious conflict between our own sinful desires, and God’s path of mercy. Consequently, grace’s operation in our lives is forceful and challenging, often very painful. That which is good, that which is gracious, comes to us by means of God violently imposing His love upon our un-loveliness.
But it is not simply the work of grace in our own hearts that is violent. The very purchase of grace on our behalf, the very outworking of God’s redemptive plan, was accomplished in a brutal manner – a manner which paralleled our own betrayal of God. Grace is so beneficial and wonderful to us that we can easily forget the violent act whereby it was purchased for us. Again, the experience of our communion with God through the gift of grace is so lovely and comforting that we run the risk of missing the fact that the purchase of that grace centered around the broken, bleeding, shattered body of the God-man, Jesus Christ.
I fear we do not sufficiently dwell upon the nature of the sacrifice of Christ—the violent substitution in death of one person for another. To fully appreciate what God has done for us in Christ, I believe it is necessary to highlight both the gracious benefits of the Cross, and the violent means whereby those blessings are made ours. Christ turned aside God’s wrath and hatred; the benefits are evident—God no longer rejects us for our sin! Yet, the cost to Christ was staggering: the eternal Son, who was forever loved by the Father, had to bear the vicious hatred of His Father.
May God grant us to know and experience the depth of His love and grace—all to the praise of His glory! Henry
