Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges

Author:Jerry Bridges [Bridges, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth, RELIGION / Christian Life / Personal Growth
Publisher: The Navigators
Published: 2017-10-03T04:00:00+00:00

The grace of God, in this connection, is not the love of God, but the influence of the Holy Spirit considered as an unmerited favour. This is not only the theological and popular, but also the scriptural sense of the word grace in many passages.[47]

A “popular . . . sense of the word grace” refers to the way we speak when we say something such as, “By God’s grace I was able to love my disagreeable neighbor.” We refer, of course, to God’s enabling in an otherwise impossible situation. And we know that the aid we receive comes to us through the influence or help of His Spirit.

We can readily see this popular but biblical use of the word grace in a very familiar Scripture written by Paul, Philippians 4:12-13: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

If, in place of the words “through him who gives me strength,” we substitute the words “by His grace,” verse 13 would read, “I can do everything by His grace.” Although the change of wording sounds strange to our ears because of the familiarity of this verse, we have not changed the theological statement at all. “By His grace” and “through Him who gives me strength” express an identical thought.

So we see that grace, as used in the New Testament, expresses two related and complementary meanings. First, it is God’s unmerited favor to us through Christ whereby salvation and all other blessings are freely given to us. Second, it is God’s divine assistance to us through the Holy Spirit. Obviously the second meaning is encompassed in the first because the aid of the Spirit is one of the “all other blessings” given to us through Christ. We distinguish these two aspects of grace, however, because the first focuses on God’s grace as the source of all blessings, whereas the second focuses on God’s grace expressed specifically as the work of the Holy Spirit within us.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.