CHAPTER FOUR

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CHAPTER FOUR

THE PLACE OF GRACE

in the Old and the New Testaments

Grace is neither dictatorial nor dithering,

but direct and dynamic.

In this survey, it is good to look up verses noted, and ponder them,
the lead being given, as also the perspective
and the place in the progress of divine grace for our race.

Maximise its profitability therefore, by studying
what the Bible says where the verses indicate,
and if details are needed on the way,
please use the hyperlinks provided below for this purpose.

It is then that the whole scope of divine grace may be compared with both the need of man,

and his own frequently paramount lack of it,

so that in this, where solace is simply superficial in any lesser Being,

or any lesser transformation of man,

a spiritual foundling with vast potential and devastating wrong both present,

is found the resolution of the dynamism of spiritual delinquency which seems as natural to fallen man,

as the tempest to the ocean.

In short, man is a participant in a species of glory and shame, unstable except when knowing God,

insufficient, proficient and pliable, like a ship without balance or knowledge in its captain,

until he meets the counterpart of his created vulnerability and defilement,

the One who removes the latter and at length, displaces the former.

PART I

THE WAY IT CAME

The Place of Grace has an enormous scope.

The divine grace was given

To make us what we are and can be - Genesis 1-3, Psalm 8.

To give us such scope toward heaven and earth - Genesis 3-4, as has enabled vast works for good and evil, to devastate and inspire, according as man thinks in his heart.

To give us immediate attention at the Fall, meaningful only because of the prior grant of grace.

Nothing makes sense without God, and freedom is no exception, nor is responsibility. That model is blocked at every turn. Once you understand God, however (Jeremiah 9:23-24), it is irresponsibility which does not make sense, and sedition which leaves the untended graveyards of mass-killer, man (cf. Revelation 6). The model from God answers problems in mind, covering all, and supplies answers for the heart as well (Isaiah 11:10).

To show to fallen man the immediate result of sin, at first given in type, but after the Fall, then in detail, both in rebuke and hope (Genesis 3:15, the protevangelion).

Thus it was the seed of the woman which was to be chosen for the arrival of the
power of God to overcome.

     This divine response included the testimony to wisdom and pride,
     in the initial offerings of Cain and Abel, and the opportunity for Cain to escape
     (Genesis 4:7) the caning he deserved, though he did not take this opportunity
     (Genesis 4:8-14). If sin lay at the door, immediate repentance and grievous sorrow
     and seeking for God was in place, but not found in grace. Instead, Cain slew Abel,
     who had pleased God. Even then, he appeared pre-occupied with the nature of the
     punishment, instead of acting at once, to seek more grace and place in pardon.

     Such has been the way for many since.

     Dulness toward sin's cure is a major malady of man, the obverse of his delicious
     freedom when walking with God. Instead, he digs deeper and then complains of
    the lack of light. Ignoring the invisible is easy; avoiding the results is not. This godless
     gaffe would cost!

To grant the simplicity of spiritual example. Thus the third son of the first pair, Seth, was the one "appointed" to replace fallen and cursed Cain, and from this line came in the seventh generation from the first pair, the blessed Enoch, who not only "walked with God," the most beautiful panorama on earth, since its flow is from heaven; but "God took him."

     It is this Enoch who prophesied (Jude 14) that the Lord is coming to come
     with ten thousands of His saints "to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are
     ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an
     ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against
     Him." While judgment is horrendous, justice is beautiful, since it shows the spiritual
    power from above is not inactive, though in His patience the Lord is wonderful,
    having left nothing undone.

     Enoch made things clear in word and spirit. Christ brought this to the uttermost
     perspicuity. Instead, then as now, however, man often imperiously, sometimes
     deliriously, digs deeper.

To cover the case majestically and magisterially at length, and this merely a prelude.

This came in the universal flood on the earth, so devastating and devastatingly attested in whole continents in amassed, broken, uprooted or displaced fossils beds, planation surfaces and waves of deposition, this last as shown in a matter of days at Mt St Helens towards the end of the last century, as if mimicking it on a small scale.

This flood too, as II Peter 3:5-6 points out, attested that just as earth was amid water in the early stages of creation, so it was flooded, overthrown in judgment. This fact, linked in turn to judgment still to come, was to be, as it now is, subject to suppression by scoffers, following the lusts of their own hearts. Such was Peter's prediction: abundantly fulfilled in our oewn generation!

Thus, these things were numbered amongst God's actions in the past and through Peter's prediction, this species of pseudo-scientific distortion, which is now current, was exposed for the future. We are not without warning. If Japan's recent case appals, that is minor by comparison, but it all portends ... The godless can stiffen the neck so often that there is no remedy (Proverbs 29:1).

To give confidence (Genesis 8:21, 9:11-12) and covenant with Noah, the rainbow a celestial result of divine action in creation, as supplemented in the flood and its results, coming and going in the heavens, as man comes and goes on this earth.

To disrupt the futile building of a tower, that of Babel, intended to probe or possess the heavens, again something with conspicuous modern parallel! This asinine aerobics, this architectural loftiness, God confronted directly, with a dynamic diversification of language, so that where man's majesty was being indulged by the proud humanism of the day, so he was stripped of having one language, and in rebuke for such godless purposes, confused and dispersed. Man can be marvellously and wilfully obtuse at WRONG WAY, GO BACK signs.

This is as in Genesis 11:1-8. The lesson not only has not been learned by this, our race, but it is being reflected back in increasing rebellion by haughty mankind, as he tries in endless unities of convenience, such as the fallen UN, to connive with himself, to oust God in the glamour of government. Australia, for example, goes this way at fervid pace (cf. 10).

So it was confirmed that like ants wanting to become bees because they like honey, you need to go to your source for your gifts! There is no place for self-trust, self-belief, a self-centred humanity living as of, by and for itself. "The lie" lies right there (Romans 1:17-19,25), thereby following on from the first lie shown in Genesis 3.

To engineer what is now called the Old Covenant, as in Genesis 12, 15, 17, 22, one with special coverage for the Abraham-Isaac-Jacob line, and general provision for this world.

Thus, in one of the descendants of this people, indeed of the woman, would come the blessing for all (Genesis 22:18), One able to assist as man, and enable fallen man to overcome both the vast power of the evil adversary and his own folly, Himself a direct Conqueror as God through woman's seed, to confront and crush the lofty tempter (Micah 7:18-19, Romans 7-8, Hebrews 2:14-18, I John 4:4) in his artful deceit.

This divine work, foretold from the first from Genesis 3:15, is shown selectively to the last through Shem, then his seed Noah, thence through Abraham, thence in Israel; and this, not only with the gift through it, of its Bethlehem child, deity in human form (Micah 5:1-3, Psalm 72, Isaiah 9-11), but sadly through its own patent fall (Isaiah 65:13-15). Thus, from One the blessing came, to One it went, singularised in just One, the Just One (Acts 3:14, Romans 5:16-18), through Him the gift by grace (Romans 5:15), Himself perfect and impervious, the only hope and unique remedy of grace, for man in his plight. It was God Himself who came to do it (Hosea 13:14, Ezekiel 34, Isaiah 48:12-19, Philippians 2).

Thus did Israel exhibit as a nation the divine prediction concerning its history as in Leviticus 26, and Deuteronomy 27-32, both to curse and to bless. For blessing came the seed of the coming New Covenant (Romans 4:16-25), singularised, in that "new thing in the earth", a woman encompassing a man (Jeremiah 31:22), in order that deity in the form of man, for man might prevail. Thus, Abraham, for his part, was found believing in God that what "He had promised, He was also able to perform."

As always, what He promised, He did.

As for the curse on Israel, gladly even this had its answer in divine grace (Romans 11:25ff.). Thus the blessing is wrought through faith; and as to that, Abraham believed that if necessary God could raise his son from the dead (Hebrews 11:19), though God vigorously removed all thought of slaying his son (Genesis 22:12-13), providing the sacrificial lamb, free and ready, entirely by His own means! So was he taught to look to the God of all grace for His place for the race, BY FAITH. Not yet had the lamb of God come; for He would be sent! (cf. John 1:29), when the time was ready (Galatians 4:4).

10.

To show in this Old Covenant, the "exceedingly sinful" character of sin (Romans 7:13), just as to stress in the New Covenant, to demonstrate that where sin abounds, grace abounds the more! (Romans 5:20). Thus Isaiah 3:8-9 shows the showy shove of sin in spirit, deed and look.

This was also abundantly shown in the prophets, who foretold the Messiah and His death date and illustrated in such sacrifices of old, as that in the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16-17), commemorating the paschal lamb of the Exodus day of divine deliverance, when each had to put the blood of the lamb on the door of his house, so that death might pass over them, and they should be spared. Thus Zechariah foretold the foundation stone to come, beyond all Old Covenant symbols, at which they would cry, "GRACE, GRACE!" - Zechariah 4:7; and Isaiah speaks of the foundation stone, precious and tried, that to come and now has come, where the faithful would find the very faithfulness of God (Isaiah 28:16). His rest is indeed glorious (Isaiah 11:10).

11.

To manifest in Jesus Christ the features and functions of salvation, able to exterminate the judgment on sin and to institute the everlasting life which like mercy, smiles in the face of judgment (James 2:13), or triumphs over it; for He has already died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Thus faith in Him receives the eternal grant of this saving grace (Romans 6:23, Ephesians 1:11, Romans 5:1-17, I John 5:11-12, Hebrews 6:19, 9:12, 10:10-14).

With God, all acceptable relations are by faith; and without it, you CANNOT please Him (Hebrews 11:6), just as EXCEPT you forsake all that you have (sin, ambition, dream), you cannot be His disciple. God does not MIX His thoughts with those of man (Galatians 1, 3, 5, Proverbs 30:6), though He DID mix, without sin however, His format with that of man (Romans 5:1-5, 8:1-3, Hebrews 1:1- 2:3), in sending His eternal Word to be born of a virgin (Matthew 1), to bear, but not to bear with, the follies of man, This grace is applied WHEN and only when faith works, and these, being yielded up, are freely received by God and so freely resolved (Romans 5:15, Ephesians 2:1-8, 1:11).

The divine foreknowledge concerning man does not remove WHAT it is that He knows about each one of us, and there is no room for presumption with God (Psalm 8); nor yet is there loss of any of His redeemed (Romans 9:29ff., John 10:9,27-28). God is clear, sure and effectual. Sin killed; but THROUGH Christ TO faith came the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17).

Rejoice then in His grace that requires neither performance nor punishment as the WAY to be saved eternally (John 5:24, I John 5:11-12, Ephesians 2:1-12), but DOES require repentance and that trusting reception of His redemption, reality and gift, of which the prophets spoke (Isaiah 66:2, Psalm 32, 51:17).

In the next Part, we proceed to the other phases of grace, to the days of the Lord, the last days and their phases, and THE LAST DAY! For some, this is the last day of false hope, for others the last day of struggle; for here is the end of such pathways of divine grace, when it reaches the final place amid all grace for life in eternity, or despatched, for judgment. Indeed, with the resurrection to come, there is another wonder in parallel: ITS first day!

THE PLACE OF GRACE

in the Old and the New Testaments

Part II

Remember first the following.

Grace is neither dictatorial nor dithering,

but direct and dynamic

In this survey, it is good to look up verses noted, and ponder them,
the lead being given, as also the perspective
and the place in the progress of divine grace for our race.

Maximise its profitability therefore, by studying
what the Bible says where the verses indicate.

OTHER PHASES OF GRACE AND ITS IMPLANTATION

The place of grace has enormous scope.

The divine grace was given for the 11 reasons already given.

It was also given:

12. to exhibit dominance over devastation: Incarnate, Christ banishes both death and disease at will, on demand, at time stated (Mark 2, John 11),delivering thousands irrespective of the malady, rigorously (Matthew 4:23-25, 12:15, Luke 3 6:17-19.)

13. To spread the testimony world-wide, the zeal and the world co-extensive (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 13-16, Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, Jeremiah 16:19-20), so that with the Gospel rejected, darkness becomes not only traditional, but re-affirmed as merely evil desire.

14. To draw together the strings of prophecy and divine enterprise, as with a string-bag containing groceries, so that all should be interpretable through One (cf. Ephesians 1:9-14, 2:17-22,Galatians 3:26-29, Romans 4),He the epitome and height of grace (John 1:14).

15. To prepare the way for His return as Divine Royalty, to regale His people with meekness, justice, mercy and loving-kindness on this earth, before its demise (Psalm 72, Isaiah 11, Micah 4, Psalm 2). .

16. To provide a new heavens and a new earth after the final departure of this model, one in which at last righteousness dwells; so that tests for life being over, spiritual life for the redeemed can become as apparent as the sun in the heavens (cf. Matthew 13:43).

17. To bring on the consummation when the people of God will see their Creator-Redeemer, face to face (Revelation 22, I Corinthians 13), freely, willingly and knowingly serving Him. Long has all of this waited, as did the world for Christ's first coming to purchase salvation. These were former times. What of the later days ?

THE LAST DAYS

There are many references to the last days. For example, in II Peter 3:2-5, we find them a site for scoffers who will ignore the formation stages of this world in water, and the flood which brought back some of this beginning, in overwhelming judgment (cf. Genesis 6). It is the day when people will become besotted with myths (cf. Romans 1), nature myths in which God is made a mere mirage amid creation, if that, and the gods that have not made the heaven and the earth (Jeremiah 10:11), will be idolatrised as things of force, or form, or this or that latent ability, man wilfully ignoring the Maker which other than nothing is the only logical option (II Timothy 4:3-4). Nothing however, like a bank account with that amount, can do nothing.

These, in II Timothy 4, are for the phase when "the time will come." It has an eschatological flavour, sitting next to judgment references. Again I Timothy 4:1ff. tells us this:

"the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith,
giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of devils,
speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron."

Note the charges of hypocrisy and collapsed conscience; for in the antagonism to God in His glory and kindness, truth and justice, there is an inveterate hostility on the part of many! Again, some forbid to marry and to eat certain foods, one other index of presumption, foods " which God commanded to be received with thanksgiving." This is famously exemplified by such powers as those of Romanism, a religion which remains one of the largest on earth, flicking its ash into our own day with its misuse and re-creation of Mary, the Lord's Supper, Peter and its creation of the pope (cf. SMR pp. 1032 -1088H, Matthew 23:8-10). Other parallel sects and spiritual vagrancies will flourish with many abashed in their woes (II Timothy 3:1-5, Matthew 24:12-14).

Another of their value-deducted features will be the use of fables, of myths, where the grounds for assertion lack the proper logical interface, sustainable causation, basis and validity, as in the theory of organic evolution, itself a fulfilment of II Timothy 4:4, and a stunning contribution to a national folk-lore, that of the White race on this occasion. This is the negative; but a vast channel is also opened for the positive, the spiritual, as the contest continues to its appointed end.

In terms of "the last days," Acts 2:17ff. speaks of the entire spiritual explosion when the Spirit came in the way Christ foretold (Luke 24:49), as it did there. It came unforgettably in power and clarity, the Gospel impelled with grace; and as time moves, further demarcating events were predicted, as in Acts 2:19, which suggests acceleration to the end. One such event, as at first foretold in Joel (2:28-32), is the column of vapour which, in so short a reference to that day, obviously is a monumentally obvious feature, abundantly fulfilled in our atomic mushroom cloud, deep portent of peril to mankind (cf. Matthew 24:22).

Indeed, in our day, this is without doubt one, if not the most spectacular and best-known, of the emblems of increasingly dauntless human power, in many linked to inveterate passion and recklessness. Further references to the last time are found in Hebrews 1:2, 2:1-3, Micah 4:1, Isaiah 2:2, as the times of testing move towards the restoration of the Lord Jesus Christ, before the scaffolding being removed, such times as these pass forever (Matthew 24:35, Isaiah 51:6), and salvation with the Lord's donated righteousness (Romans 5:17), or eternal shame without it, move into their stations.

I John 2:18 shows that the spirit of antichrist was already active (as in the account of Revelation 12!), and that THE antichrist was at that time still to come, as he is now in his distinctive horror (II Thess. 2), though his key stepping stones are more and more apparent both financially and politically..

Thus there is nothing foundational in the period between the predicted ransoming death of the Redeemer, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, His resurrection, the sending of the Spirit and His return as in II Thessalonians 1, except of course the increasing horror of spiritual disease, rebellion and misrule as shown in Revelation 13,17, the arising of a more united Europe and Israel's return to its land, all now accomplished (cf. SMR Appendix A, pp. 886ff., 902ff., 918ff.). These events come, with the impending destruction of the spiritually significant Rome (Revelation 18 cf. SMR pp. 946ff.) and the arising of multiplied foolish sects, using but abusing the Bible, deceitful and deceptive, as with the return of Israel (as in Luke 21:24), from its long dispersal (as in Matthew 24, Hosea, Ezekiel 36-37), to have victories in its valorous wars (Zechariah 12).

These predictions for Israel are already fulfilled not only in giant measure in 1948, 1967, 1973, with collateral in 1990-1991, but in staggering detail. That includes the division of Jerusalem into two sections, as happened in 1948, on the high road to the return of the Lord (Zecharian 14).

For it, the day of trial is seen trailing on till that small nation repents on a large scale (Zech. 12:10-13:1), even of the crucifixion wrought by its national authorities in the day of the Prince Peace on this earth: and then returns to the Lord. Another deliverance then comes (Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32), in scope parallel to that of the Exodus! (Micah 7:15). This leads on to one total Church in Christ, however assaulted for a short time, it may be by the Antichrist and his precursors. God's plans are deep (Romans 11). He forgets nothing!

As in II Peter 3:9, the time for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ is stretched to the uttermost; but it comes. Then after the first flush of judgment as in II Thessalonians 1, and Revelation 19, and the millenial demonstration of the rule of God so that the earth will then be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14, Isaiah 11, Psalm 72), there is JUDGMENT'S FINALE, after which the heaven and earth go (Matthew 24:35, Revelation 20), so that there are no more last days.

In this millenial period, following initial judgment as in Revelation 19, left are the resurrected saints, and those too young to know, too deprived to realise. Whether or not any of these be now converted, is not known, for it is not revealed; but it appears rather likely as Christ even descended into hell (in sequence, I Peter 3:18ff., cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4 ), being eminently concerned for all everywhere (as in Colossians 1:19ff.). His divine foreknowledge does not exclude His winning souls on earth or elsewhere, according to His own appointment, nor does it abate His missioning passion, but rather engages it. However those having rejected Him on earth face eternal shame (Luke 9:26).

THE LAST DAY OF THIS EARTH

and the ENDLESS TIMES of the Resurrection

Then with the terminal rebellion it ends. Heaven and earth flee away, we read, for there is no place found for them. All that is now past. Judgment has supervened, the book of life and the book of judgment alike, having had their last cases, being open, now are shut (Revelation 20:11-15).

Indeed, for this earth, and this universe (II Peter 3), this IS the last DAY.

Gone now is the whole systematic bloc of the beast's entourage, milling millions (cf. Rev. 19:21. As to the take-over attempt, abusing the divine liberty which God has SO given that He may be cordially detested while bestial elements seek to bring all mankind to enslavement to their foolish dreams, following the path of many preceding national dictators, but now international in theme: this fails as it did earlier assaults (Revelation 12). God is magnificently merciful and longsuffering, but there is an end, for the spirit of man cannot stand for ever the questing and the appealing that it so heavily resists (Isaiah 57:15ff.).

Left now are the resurrected saints, tried as gold ( I Peter 1, 4), whose hearts are with the Lord, whose love has expression in Him.

So grace has abounded, deception has been confounded, the place of testing has had its LAST DAY, and a new heaven and a new earth are there in their new profundity, where the inhabitants are now all righteous, pardoned, renovated, regenerated, completed (Hebrews 12:22-24). These now are ready for a non-cursed world and the beauty of irenic glory instead of the duty of participation in the route marches of righteousness over the brambled soil, the rambling follies of man and the wastelands of vanity, which have bred like rabbits in the fields of man, where he was wont to stay and to stray.

Now has grace abounded to the uttermost, truth seen now not as an illicit assumption of model-bound unbelievers, but an obvious outcome just as it has always been an available income where received; and righteousness is as lovely as the sun in the clear skies of monumental glory.

These things being so, let us receive divine grace with relish, including that of our own salvation, dispense it with relish, with longsuffering, kindness, amity, helpfulness, sense of mission, fulfilment of divine purpose, delight in the Lord as in a spiritual Spring, when the Winter of discontent no more parades its storms. In this way, the dilemmas, delinquencies and insufficiencies of man, that astounding creation with potential for access to God Almighty and for ruin because of the lack of it, are lost in the loveliness of a fulfilment not only necessary for reality, but inherent as health is in chronic disease: needing release!

What grace is to be found, moreover, in the concept of eternity. For my part, so far from this seeming strange, it is most natural. The idea of being naturally liable to death is so abhorrent as to seem vile; of losing what has been achieved, obtained, grown into becomes a flourish of horror: it appears a violation in integrity. Now because of sin, and heaven preserve me DV from those who do not know they are sinners, who tend to appear as spiritual slobs, too deeply in themselves as ultimate to even know the least about themselves, integrity is precisely what lacks. It may be that certain canons are zealously kept; but integrity means far more.

In the end, it means that what you ought to be, you then are; and where you ought to be in life-maintenance, you are now to be found in completion; that how you ought to relate to your God and Maker, you do relate, and what you ought to know of Him, you do. In its sublimity, however, it is now to be gained only by grace, and this first as a power to be continually transformed to the likeness of Christ, in adequately humbling circumstances to prevent unrealism (II Corinthians 3:17-18, 12), while retaining liberty, indeed realising to the uttermost, both what it is and how it works. Then, we shall know as we are known (I Cor. 13:12).

Being allotted place, through the sacrifice of Christ, duly received, and His resurrection, duly taken to heart, even of the body, and even of His own body as in Acts 2, so that one is to be with "the spirits of just men made complete" by no means involves no kind of development or growth. Thus you can have a young oak, which though delightful, is obviously not yet fully formed. You take it some years later and there are the thrills of its large and spreading branches, the delicate wonder of the contrast in Spring of its tassels with its robustness, and there is the feeling of permanence, and a stability in which one can both rest and delight, exploring as a child might, by crawling about its branches.

For years after reaching this maturity, the oak yet develops. For most of its life, it becomes a MATURE and COMPLETE tree, without ceasing in any way to develop into yet more richness of nooks and areas of abundance, sheer grace and loveliness, its Autumnal eruptions of colours more and more delightful.

So when the spirit of man, clothed in a body so that it is no wisp or will-o'-the-wisp, but definitive, decisive, definite (as in II Corinthians 5), as the resurrection arrives on the scene, is it a mere static thing, because now innocent of sin ? or is its pure deliciousness of development before the God who is INFINITE in knowledge, wonder, loveliness and holiness to be imagined incapacitated ? Can not what is perfect, in the Greek sense used in Hebrews 12, that is completed, be yet allowed to grow in the presence of the infinite; and is maturity a barrier instead of an opportunity for the more wonderful trips into reality and growth into more and more of the wonders that the illimitable God has prepared!

Does it not declare this (Psalm 31): "Oh how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have prepared for those who trust in You in the presence of the sons of men," and indeed I Corinthians 2 extends the concept.

His understanding is infinite (Psalm 145), so there is never lack for learning, and indeed in Hosea 14 you see something of the rampant joy in living entirely in His presence. Where sin is banned, and with it that spoliation which is so tragic in the best of mankind, when curse is cast out, and life is unmitigated, why to me this is the most natural, normal, unharassed fulness imaginable, except that in KNOWING GOD PERSONALLY with all this, in the resurrection, even this more advanced (as in I Corinthians 13) than it is now, there is a blessedness so intense, so rational, so realistic, so delivered from a sort of life-threatening profanity, urbanity, superficiality, that it is almost impossible to give voice to the excellence of the joy involved.