Great Themes of the Bible (continued)
gospel grace instead of it, a "glory which excelleth" (2 Cor. iii. 10). Discoveries of grace are:now more clear, distribution of grace far more plentiful. This is grace instead of Grace.
(e) It speaks the augmentation and continuance of grace. "Grace for grace'' is one grace to improve, confirm, and perfect another grace. We are changed into the divine image, "from glory to glory", from one degree of glorious grace to another (2 Cor. iii. 18). Those that have true grace have that for more grace (Jas. ix. 6). When God gives grace, he saith, Take this in part, for He who has promised will perform.
(f) It speaks the agreeableness and conformity of grace in the saints to the grace that is in Fesus Christ. 'Grace for grace"' is grace in us answering to the grace in Him, as the impression upon the wax conforms to the seal, line for line. The grace we receive from Christ '"'changeth us into the same image"' (2 Cor. iii. 18), the image of the Son (Rom. viii. 29), "The image of the heavenly" (1 Cor. xv. 49).
3. JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE
It is this grace which begins the work of man's salvation, for we are "'justified freely by his grace"' (Rom. iii. 24). It is "by his grace'', not by the grace wrought in us, as the papists say, confounding justification and sanctification, but by the gracious favour of God to us, without any merit in us so much as foreseen. And, to make it more emphatic, Paul says it is 'freely by his grace'', to show that it must be understood of grace in the most proper and genuine sense. It is said that Joseph found grace in the sight of his master (Gen. xxxix. 4), but there was a reason; he saw that what he did prospered. There was something in Joseph to invite that grace. But the grace of God communicated to us comes freely, freely. It is free grace, mere mercy, nothing in us to deserve such favour. No, it is all through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. It comes freely to us, but Christ bought it, and paid dear for it, yet this is so ordered as not to derogate from the honour of free grace. Christ's purchase is no bar to the freeness of God's grace; for grace provided and accepted this vicarious satisfaction.
4. By Grace ALONE
Jewish teachers urged that circumcision was necessary to salvation. Peter shows (Acts xv. 11) it was so far from being so,