Grace is not a "thing"

Spotted this Q&A on the Gospel Coalition website today. It highlights a right and a wrong way of thinking about grace - you can't separate it from Jesus Christ. Very helpful stuff.

"Christ Clothed in the Gospel"

The current issue of TableTalk magazine has a brief interview with Sinclair Ferguson inspired by the forthcoming release of his new book, By Grace Alone. The third Q&A just may revolutionize the way you understand grace:

In the preface to the book, you write that grace is not a “thing.” What do you mean by this statement?

It is legitimate to speak of “receiving grace,” and sometimes (although I am somewhat cautious about the possibility of misusing language) we speak of the preaching of the Word, prayer, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper as “means of grace.” That is fine, so long as we remember that there isn’t a thing, a substance, or a “quasi-substance” called “grace.” All there is is the person of the Lord Jesus — “Christ clothed in the gospel,” as Calvin loved to put it. Grace is the grace of Jesus. If I can highlight the thought here: there is no “thing” that Jesus takes from Himself and then, as it were, hands over to me. There is only Jesus Himself.

Grasping that thought can make a significant difference to a Christian’s life. So while some people might think this is just splitting hairs about different ways of saying the same thing, it can make a vital difference. It is not a thing that was crucified to give us a thing called grace. It was the person of the Lord Jesus that was crucified in order that He might give Himself to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

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Belonging

Does a sense of belonging matter to you? I suspect it does. Even though we live in a very mobile culture in the UK most of us have somewhere that we identify as home – you only have to look at my “A Bit About Me” profile on this page to know that I do! So then, where do you belong? Where’s home?

I’m reading through Luke’s gospel at the moment and the other day I reached chapter 9 verses 57-62. My ESV entitles these verses “The Cost of Following Jesus”. I think my ESV may have missed something though. I’m not sure these verses are only, or even primarily, about cost, they’re about home. They’re about belonging.

The verses begin with someone saying to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus then starts talking about foxes and birds. Not an obvious response to the man’s declaration, so why this reference to the local wildlife? He’s contrasting them with himself – they have a home in this world, their holes and nests, Jesus does not. They belong here, he doesn’t.

Jesus then asks someone else to follow him. Jesus, no doubt knowingly, has made this request of a man whose father has just died. Given the circumstances therefore the man’s response seems perfectly reasonable, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus replies, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Why on earth would Jesus say that to this man? Does Jesus really expect us not to bury our dead parents and instead follow him? One answer to this question is no, Jesus doesn’t really expect us to neglect a parent’s burial, what he’s doing is using hyperbole (exaggeration) to make a point. Following Jesus is more important than anything else.

There is another way of explaining this reply of Jesus though. This second encounter has to be read in the light of the first one. This is a passage about where you belong. In the first encounter this world is described as a place where Jesus has no home, in the second we discover that it’s a world characterised by death. Jesus actually says to this man “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.” How can a dead person bury another dead person? The point Jesus is making is not so much to do with the cost of leaving this world behind, but rather that this world is a place of death, even those who are physically living are in a real sense dead – do you want to belong to a world characterised by death? Is that what you want to call home? Jesus then tells the man that he should “proclaim the kingdom of God.” The inference is that though this world of death is not Jesus’ home, there is a different place Jesus calls home, and it is characterised by life – it’s the kingdom of God. Be a part of that kingdom.

Finally we come to the third encounter and, as in the first encounter, we have a man approaching Jesus and saying that he will follow him. Notice though the condition he places on following Jesus, “let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Again Jesus’ reply is often explained in terms of counting the cost of following him. Fair enough, there is cost involved, but is that what Jesus is primarily talking about when he says, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” The problem for this third man is that he thinks he can follow Jesus while calling this world (a world of death remember) home. If this world is home, you’re dead, and if you’re dead you’re not fit for the kingdom of God.

I think that an unhelpful way to apply this last verse in particular would be to say that if you fail or struggle in any way in carrying out the work of God’s Kingdom, if you don’t plow in a perfectly straight line, then you’re not fit for the kingdom and God won’t accept you into it. No, what Jesus is saying in these verses is that where you consider your home to be matters. It matters a lot. If it’s this world then you’re dead, and if you’re dead you’re not fit for God’s Kingdom. But if you’ve been given life, a gift of God’s grace, then God’s Kingdom is your home, and you should consider it to be such.

If you’re a Christian look forward to where you belong, don’t look back longingly at a world of death as if it were your home.


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