GKACE
GKACE
grace that is in Christ into somu l^iuJ m1' i.|iinisition to the justice that is in Goil. Smii, tiim-- a,:,'ain i] x<'/"s stands alone; for the A|iii-il.' ti.:ii> it at times not merely as a Divine uunijuic, Imt :ls the operative principle of the wiiole economy of re- demption. But as it is Christ who embodies tliis great principle in His own person, as it is in Him that the Father's gi'ace is revealed, and by Hiui that it is mediated to men ; as, to use his own words, ' the grace of God was given you in Christ Jesus' (1 Co 1^), and 'grace reigns through Jesus Christ our Lord ' (Ro 5'-'), he does not hesitate to speak of it again and again, and especially in the benedictions with which he concludes his Epp., as ' the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ ' (Ro 16-", 1 Co 16=3, 2 Co 13", Gal B's etc. ; cf. the opening saluta- tions, Ro 1', 1 Co P, 2 Co 12, Gal P etc.).
(2) When we ask how St. Paul arrived at this distinctive conception of the Christian gospel as an economy of grace, and of Jesus Christ as the dis- penser of grace, the answer undoubtedly is that he owed it to that revelation of the Lord Jesus Him- self near the gates of Damascus by wliich his whole life was suddenly transformed. 'As a Pharisee he had sought to earn salvation by his zeal for the Law. But everything he Iiad done had proved inett'ectual. The commanduient which was unto life he found to be unto death (Ro 7'"). Nay, in his endeavours to be exceedingly zealous according to the Law he had been led into the greatest sin of his career — his furious opposition to Jesus Christ, his savage persecution of the saints. Then came the great, astonishing act of spontaneous grace. Christ appeared in person to this bitter enemy, convincing him beyond the possibility of doubt that that Jesus wliom he persecuted was no other than the Lord of glory, and at the same time addressing him in those tender and gracious and yet heart-shaking words of reproach and appeal by which Saul the persecutor was turned into the slave of Christ. From that day Christ was to Paul the Lord of grace no less than the I^ord of glory. It was the grace of God in Christ, and that grace alone, which had called him and saved and made him what he was (Gal l'^, l Co 15"). And that same grace which had redeemed Paul at the first was with him all along. It guided him in the path of wisdom (1 Co 3^"). It enabled him to be more abundant in labours than all others (15'"). It taught him how to beliave liimself in the world (2 Co 1'2). Ai.a wl„.n tl,.. nn. .-,..,.„.,• ,.i Satan came to bulli;t liim. .im^I iir ilni.c lif„,uulit. the Lord that this ihiiiu iin-li! ] |.;,i;, i; ^^,,- ihr Lord Himself who sai.l t.. Hi- -inaiit, ■ Mv Jiace is sufficient for thee' (li'"'-*).
(3) What did St. Paul understand by the grace of Christ, as he used tliat term in his fully de- veloped teaching ? What distinctive contents did he put into this great Christian idea, which he knew in his own experience to be a great Christian fact ? (a) We shall perhaps find our best starting- point in a passage in which he sets a certain Wew of that grace before the Corintliians as one with which his teaching had made them familiar. He regards it as an act of astonis/iinr/ sclf-sacrificc. 'For ye know,' lie writes, ' the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that tliough he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through'his poverty might become ricli ' (2 Co %\ How much was in- volved in this self-sacrifice he shows more fully in another Epistle, where he describes it .-is a self- emptying, on Christ's part, of His Divine form, the assumption of a lowly human nature, and the rendering of a lifelong obedience even unto the death of the cross (Ph 2?'-). It is in this quality of self-sacrifice most of all that the grace of Christ in the NT diff'ers from the mercy of God as revealed in the earlier dispensation. C'lirist's grace is not
merely tlie compassion which a great and strong and blessed nature feels for one which is sinful and sorrowful and weak. It is the self-renouncin» love which so yearns to save that it surrenders all the wealtli that is its own, and welcomes all tlie poverty tiiat is another's. It is that luvc wliicli finds its crowning symbol, as it found it- absolute e.xpres- sioii, ill the cross of our Lord Jesus ( 'hrist. ' I am poor and needy,' said a saint of the OT, ' yet the Lord thinketh upon me ' (Ps 40"). ' The Son of God,' exclaims St. Paul, ' loved me, and gave him- self up for me ' (Gal 2-").
(6) The absolute freencss of Christ's grace was another element in the Apostle's conception. This brings us to his characteristic antithesis between grace and law. We noticed this antithesis already in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel, but it was St. Paul who first formulated it when he >vrote, ' Ye are not under law, but under grace ' (Ro &*). Formerly the Divine blessings were secured by obedience to the Law. Righteousness was the fruit of works, and rewards were reckoned not as of grace, but as of debt (Ro 4^). But now we are 'justified freely (Supeav) by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus' (Ro 3-^). The grace that .saves us has nothing to do with works (Ro 11°) ; it is the 'free gift' of God by ' the one man, Jesus Christ ' (Ro 51^, cf. Eph 2*).