In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).
There is a popular phrase in some well-meaning Christian circles. Perhaps you’ve heard it. Maybe you’ve even said it. The phrase is simply this: “Thanks for the grace!” Usually it is spoken in response to some unexpected act of kindness. Party A, for example, has agreed to make good on something, perhaps to keep a promise or meet a deadline or uphold their end of the bargain. But unforeseen circumstances intervened, and they didn’t or couldn’t follow through. Party B, who did make good on their side of the deal, must then shoulder the additional burden of Party A’s failures. Out of gratitude for this, Party A speaks those titular words, “thanks for the grace!”
- A Sunday School teacher couldn’t find time during their busy week to prepare the lesson and is forced to wing it. He tells his class: “Thanks for the grace!”
- An overextended Mom shows up 15 minutes late to pick up their kid from practice, forcing the coach to stay late, too: “Thanks for the grace!”
- A tired driver starts to drift over the centerline but, luckily, the driver in the adjacent lane is awake and alert and lays on the horn: “Thanks for the grace!”
- A co-worker fails to complete their part of the project on time, so the boss grants an extension: “Thanks for the grace!”
The unspoken assumption in each of these situations is the same, and it is deeply problematic: Grace is an excuse; a kind of last resort after every other option has failed. In other words, most of the time, we don’t actually need it. Most of the time we’re doing just fine on our own steam, and it’s only during particularly trying circumstances that we get to play the “grace” card. And even then, it’s only after all of our best efforts have been exhausted. Within such a paradigm, however, grace becomes a crack-filler in the otherwise structurally sound edifice of my own personal piety. Grace is good, to be sure. It is important. It is even, at times, necessary. But it’s neither integral nor load-bearing for all of life.
To push this metaphor a bit further, we often treat grace like what civil engineers refer to as an “admixture.” It works like this: When it comes to concrete, there are always three ingredients in any mixture: water, aggregate (rock), and Portland cement. Mix those together and you’ve got a concrete mixture. Once in a while, however, something “extra” is added to the recipe, and this is where admixtures come in. Admixtures are manmade “extras” that are manually added to a concrete mixture in order to make up for something. A water-reducing admixture reduces the need for water content. An air-entraining admixture improves freeze-thaw durability. An accelerating admixture greatly reduces cure time. Admixtures are good and helpful, but they’re always extra; an add-on that is sometimes useful and sometimes not. If the operator at the concrete plant is having an off-day and can’t quite get the mixture to optimal proportions, they’ll just drop in an extra bag of admixture to correct the imbalance. We think grace is like that. It’s basically an excuse for our failures. We only need it sporadically and, when we do, we’re ashamed that we need it at all. Maybe next time, we think, I’ll have less need for grace.
But when it comes to grace, the Scriptures speak differently. According to God’s good design, grace is neither an add-on nor an extra. It is always integral.
- Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
- 2 Corinthians 12:9: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
- Exodus 34:6: “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
- Titus 2:11-12: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”
According to these verses, God’s grace is the kind of thing that saves. It is the kind of thing that is self-sufficient. It is an attitude instantiated in God’s very nature. It trains us to renounce ungodliness. And in the coming of Jesus Christ, we see the very face of grace—God’s fullest revelation of his nature and character: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,” (Col. 2:9), and “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). In other words, in the sacrificial love of Jesus and his substitutionary death at the Cross, we see the fullest and clearest image of God’s heart for humanity. He was born in the manger completely unbidden, apart from human initiative or effort. Grace arrived on the scene purely out of God’s good, fatherly heart. Jesus wasn’t the Father’s last-ditch rescue strategy after plan A had failed. God didn’t just play the grace card after the well-trod steps of moralism and self-help had worn through. In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).
Grace is a firm commitment on the part of God to ally himself with sinners like you and me.
Grace is not an excuse to cover our failures. In fact, we even need grace to cover our successes. Isaiah 64:6 says “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Note especially the adjective prior to “deeds.” Which ones are polluted? “The evil deeds, of course,” we think. But Isaiah tells us otherwise. It is our “righteous” deeds; the ones we think are good. The ones we’re proud of. The spiritual resumes we insist must count for something. The reality is that we are never further from God than when we’re in love with our own awesomeness. We need grace not just on the days that we fail, but most especially on the days we succeed—not to mention every moment in between.
Grace is not an excuse. It is, in fact, the opposite. It is a firm commitment on the part of God to ally himself with sinners like you and me. It is a fierce love that refuses to look away or let go, especially when the chips are down. Grace is God in your corner. And for that we can truly say, “Thanks for the grace.”
