God has shown His grace toward us in many ways. One. especially, is that He has granted to us the partaking of His divine nature, through believing His exceeding great and precious promises, and thus He makes the way of escape for us from the corruption that is in the world through lust. A good definition for grace is, “the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life: including gratitude”. Since God is love, His influence upon the heart causes it to reflect His love in the life and thus makes His people more like Himself, gracious, and through this ascends praises to the “glory of His grace.”
In Ephesians 1:3 the apostle breaks forth in praises to God with these words, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” This is enough to overwhelm us for what do we know about spiritual blessings and what are we to do with them? And to think of it, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places! One of these blessings is our status before Him. We are holy and without blemish in love! But someone will ask, “How are we to be holy and without blemish?” From the moral and fleshly standpoint, we are not, for we are still sinners. We sin and ask daily for forgiveness. But from the spiritual viewpoint we are holy. We are righteous for Christ is righteous, and our faith in Him is reckoned unto us for righteousness. He has clothed us with His righteousness, and we stand in His presence, cleansed by the shedding of the blood of Jesus; forgiven, sanctified, and justified. He has adopted us as sons unto Himself and we have become His heritage, a people for His own possession; to the end that we should be unto the praise of the glory of His grace. And He has also given us the Holy Spirit which is a pledge to us that He will fulfill all His promises to us even to making our bodies immortal!
In the first epistle of Peter, chapter one, verse three, he exclaims, “Blessed be the God and Father, who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Here he speaks of an inheritance which is “incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away.” This in heritance or salvation is eternal life, the gift of God. Our present bodies are corruptible, and they must put on incorruption, like His own glorious body. The new body is undefiled. Our present bodies are defiled. Paul speaks of them as “vile bodies”. The new body does not fade away. Our present one is like the flower of the grass, it soon dies.
The second epistle of Peter, chapter one, speaks of our obtaining a like precious faith in the righteousness of our God and the Savior Jesus Christ. And we have granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. And it is through these “all things” that the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is to be supplied.
In 1 Corinthians 1:4-9, Paul thanks the Lord always for the grace of God which was given to them in Christ Jesus. In everything they were enriched in Him, in all utterance and knowledge, so that they came behind in no gift, waiting for the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has indeed been gracious to us in giving us a Savior and Redeemer; all knowledge for our learning; the divine nature that we may become more and more like our blessed Lord, perfecting our selves against the day of His glorious appearing and the changing of this corruptible body for one like unto His own! Now shall we, with Paul, pray for “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; having the eyes of our heart enlightened, that we may know the hope of our calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places. . . . ”?
Let us accept His gift of grace, abound in it, and let it reflect His love in our lives, to the end that we may become more gracious and give praise to the glory of the grace which He has bestowed upon us.
-Part 2 of 3 in a series by E. A. Rhodes, in “Missionary Messenger,” Vol. XXXV, No. 7, July 1958