The Knowledge of the Holy: The Grace of God
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Grace. It’s a word we use so often we sometimes forget what it means. In the last five years of church history, the word has taken on a whole new dynamic. There are men that are called “hyper-grace” believers and there are others being called legalists for not emphasizing grace enough. And if we’re not careful we can talk much about a word we barely understand, all the while thinking we totally understand part of God’s nature. Because grace is something that God is, our understanding of it is essential in this hour.
Hang with me here. Because I know that on Friday we talked about God’s mercy. And while Tozer (and I) will acknowledge that in God these two attributes are one, they are experienced in our humanity in slightly different ways. Mercy is God in his goodness confronting our guilt. But grace is God bestowing benefits upon undeserving people.
Picture the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). He has squandered his father’s inheritance and has realized what a terrible wrong he has done. He then returns home to a father, unsure of his father’s reaction and willing to be a slave just to survive. When he returns home, a watching father runs to his son while he’s still a long ways off and embraces him. The son repents. Now we know the father forgives this son. This was mercy. But when the father sends for the robe, the ring, sandals, and the feast, this is grace. Grace is what causes God to take us from the ash heap and seat us with princes (1 Samuel 2:8).
As I’ve pointed out before, Tozer likes to remind us of the foundation he has already laid in previous chapters. Because God is eternal and immutable, it’s not as if God suddenly developed grace as a part of His nature in response to our need. Instead, God has had grace in His nature since before the foundation of the world. Men in the Old Testament received grace. The sacrifice of Jesus has always been pointed to as the channel of this grace. And men and women since the New Testament have been recipients of grace. All of this comes through Jesus, who was looked forward to in the Old Testament and who has been looked backward on since His death and resurrection.
We do well to remember, as well, since grace is part of God’s nature, it is also infinite. There is no end to God’s grace. Tozer compares God’s grace to our need. Picture mankind’s great sin. If all of them were to be numbered, it would seem innumerable. And yet, Scripture makes it clear, where sin abounds, God’s grace abounds much, much more (Romans 5:20).
One of the things that I love about grace that we forget is that we don’t deserve it. Usually we don’t forget this when we are asking God for grace for ourselves. We usually remember this very easily. But we do forget this when we are dealing with others. Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve. GRACE (as some have very nicely described it) is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. We get access to this by the free gift of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. And so when we’re dealing with others, as those who have tasted God’s grace, we should be gracious, giving beyond what people deserve. This is the question we need to ask ourselves: Has my life been a picture of God’s grace to others?
At the same time, we should understand that grace is not given as a license for sin. Yes, we can sin and be recipients of grace. Sinning happens. But true recipients of grace are not content to take advantage of grace. Because grace is access to God’s riches and power to overcome sin is part of God’s riches, we should be quick to use grace to overcome sin. Paul, who was accused of being hyper-grace in his day, said “Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase? No!” (Romans 6:1-2). Grace, in the economy of God, for a person who is constantly late is a watch that they could not afford. Grace empowers, it doesn’t entitle.
And so my encouragement today is for you and I to become hungry to receive and know God’s grace more than we already do. Let’s enjoy the ring and the feast that our Father has brought to us. Let’s show that grace to others who still think their father only wants slaves. But lets also use the grace given us as more than just an excuse for sin. Let’s use it to overcome those things that have held us back. Let’s truly experience real grace and show it to others. .
That’s my takeaway today. What’s yours? Leave a comment so we can all grow together!
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
The Knowledge of the Holy: The Mercy of God
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Yesterday’s post ended talking about this crazy paradox that believers in Jesus are called to navigate: We serve a just God who shows justice and at the same time is completely full of mercy. This idea is so hard for us that Christians for centuries have tried to understand how God’s justice and His mercy mingle together. But make no mistake, the fact that we are not immediately consumed when we sin, the fact that there are more chances to repent and change, and the fact that Jesus died to save us from sin all point to a God unfathomably rich in mercy. Our job is to respond to that mercy appropriately.
Tozer tells us early that the mercy God has is a deep motivation from inside the Godhead to show compassion to those who do not deserve it. He spends time talking about how only mercy can take a man or woman who was once God’s enemy and show that man or woman goodness. We should live in the wonder of God’s mercy.
But because of our human nature we spend a large amount of time confused about God’s mercy. We sometimes feel like the God of Israel (or the Old Testament) was a the just judge whose judgment is only held back by the mercy of Jesus as demonstrated and taught in the New Testament. But Tozer reminds us of the ground we have already covered. God is one and not conflicted. He is eternal and not prone to divine mood swings. Mercy emanates from Him because He is eternally merciful, not because He had a change of heart.
The challenge for us, then, is to live as if mercy from God is real and constant. We cannot believe in mercy but exist as if it’s some kind of heavenly lotto we hope to win one day. We have to begin to live lives that reflect having tasted God’s mercy. This is harder than it sounds. It starts with believing that God is truly merciful. We have to renew our minds with the idea that mercy isn’t God’s temporary disposition. It’s who He is. As we renew our minds, we begin to walk in the experience of God’s mercy. The sins and regrets of the past slowly have less and less power over us.
This is the area where I need to grow significantly in. Over and over I’m struck by Tozer’s description of God as someone who isn’t merciful on a whim. My mercy is short-lived, but God’s mercy is constant and we can grow in our ability to live in freedom by believing God’s mercy is ever toward us.
Can we, by faith, walk in a greater experience of God’s mercy? I believe so. Let’s not (as Tozer says) “starve outside the banquet hall.” This was never God’s heart for His children. He desires that we know Him as the God of all mercy and comfort. Pray for me today, that I would know God’s mercy as a truth of who He is and not a divine mood swing.
That’s my takeaway today. What’s yours? Leave a comment so we can all grow together!
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
The Knowledge of the Holy: The Justice of God
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
We all want a God who gives us our fair share and protects us from who would wrong us. We also deeply want a God who forgives us for the evil that we participate in. And if we have a bad view of God, one who is injust, we will either be terrified of God because of the wrong we have done or we will attempt to take advantage of Him for the forgiving God that He is. Either way, at the end of the day, only by understanding God as a God of justice will we relate to God as He truly is.
To understand God’s justice, we first have to understand that righteousness and justice are the same thing. God is just because He is righteous in all He does. Psalmists and prophets of the Old Testament called out to God to judge the world and when they did they made an appeal to God to make the whole world right again. Justice, as Tozer tells us, contains the idea of moral equity. God’s judgments (and therefore His justice) are His way of setting the world right.
Tozer is also faithful to point out where we have elevated someone or something above God. He takes aim at the places where we have constrained God and said “he must do such and such because it’s just.” And it’s in this place where we have made justice something God is bound to. God is not bound to justice. Justice is bound up in God. Justice is the way God does things. Its part of His nature that we have learned and applied to things, but nothing is just if it isn’t found in God. God acts the way He acts, and we on the outside view that and call it justice.
All of this talk of justice, of God acting just all the time, could be used to persuade us that God is only just and never merciful. It can produce a kind of fear of God that would dread Him but never run to Him, that is to say, an unbiblical kind of fear of God. But God’s justice is never at odds with His mercy. To quote Tozer “goodness without justice is not goodness.” And whenever God acts justly, He is also acting with mercy. No more clearly is this seen than in the cross of Jesus. Justice was done and mercy was given, but neither justice nor mercy was diminished. Both attributes of God’s nature are in full force simultaneously manifested without the least bit of contradiction. And the result was the justification of you and I.
And this is where I feel like the real meat of our discussion is today. God is just and He makes just decisions. So many today say things like “only God can judge me” or “judge not, lest you be judged,” and in the ultimate sense these statements are true. But they tare an attempt to escape God’s judgment and treat Him as if He is not just. They treat Him as if He does not see sin or as if the sin doesn’t matter to Him. But sin matters deeply to God. It cost Him you. It cost Him His son. It’s not a light thing. So we must tremble before God. We must believe that He really takes this issue called iniquity very seriously.
And yet simultaneously, we cannot run away from God because we have sin. The justice of God is most fully displayed in the death of His son. He crushed sin in His Son to draw us closer to Him. How awful would it be to know remorse for your sin but to hate it so much you never received its cure?! In Jesus we have both Judge and Attorney. He helps us and vindicates us. And our victory over sin is never accomplished until we run to the judge who will stand in our place for us.
So acknowledge today both the places where you have treated sin lightly and where you haven’t run to Your judge with Your sin. If you deal with both issues, You will find a just God who gives mercy. And in that place, we find freedom.
That’s my takeaway today. What’s yours? Leave a comment so we can all grow together!
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 