Knowing God: Chapter 13 - The Grace of God

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Chapter 13 of Knowing God brings us to consider “The Grace of God.” 

To truly grasp and appreciate grace we must realize basic realities about both God and man. 

  1. The moral ill-desert of man - All people are “creatures fallen from God’s image, rebels against God’s rule, guilty and unclean in God’s sight, fit only for God’s condemnation...” We are not inherently good; we are inherently sinful. 
  2. The retributive justice of God - “...retribution (judgment of sin) [is] the moral law of God’s world and an expression of His holy character...God is not true to Himself unless He punishes sin.” (Thus, our need for someone to stand in our place as our representative and substitutionary atonement.)
  3. The spiritual impotence of man - We are incapable of saving ourselves from the wrath and judgment of God.
  4. The sovereign freedom of God - God is under no obligation or compulsion to love us or save us. Yet He freely chooses to love us and save us. 

And as we consider grace, there are three miraculous things that should draw our attention:

  1. Grace as the source of the pardon of sin - We are saved by grace alone. “Grace and salvation belong together as cause and effect.”
  2. Grace as the motive of the plan of salvation - We should “rejoice to know that our conversion was no accident, but an act of God which had its place in an eternal plan to bless us with the free gift of salvation from sin.”
  3. Grace as the guarantee of the preservation of the saints - “...as grace led me to faith in the first place, so grace will keep me believing to the end. Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace.”

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