Our Only Hope
The first mention of
the word grace in the Bible is as follows.
Genesis 6:7-8
7 So the LORD said,
"I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth,
both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry
that I have made them."
8 But Noah found grace
in the eyes of the LORD. (NKJ)
Of course, this was
the period of time in which God "started over" with the genealogy of
man.
Genesis 9:18-19
18 Now the sons of
Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was
the father of Canaan.
19 These three were
the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. (NKJ)
We are all descendants of Shem, Ham,
or Japheth, the three son's of Noah, but it was Noah who is said to
have found grace in the eyes of the LORD. The second mention of grace
in the Bible involved Moses.
Exodus 33:12
12 Then Moses said to the LORD, "See, You say to me, 'Bring up this
people.' But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet
You have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found grace in
My sight.' (NKJ)
Then Moses asked for
the Lord's help and God made a covenant with Moses, which exists to
this day.
Exodus 34:9-10
9 Then he said, "If
now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go
among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity
and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance."
10 And He said: "Behold,
I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as
have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the
people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD. For it is
an awesome thing that I will do with you. (NKJ)
Now listen to the specific
and unique grace God has bestowed upon Israel.
Deuteronomy 4:32-38
32 "For ask now concerning
the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God
created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other,
whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it
has been heard.
33 "Did any people
ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as
you have heard, and live?
34 "Or did God ever
try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation,
by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did
for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 "To you it was shown,
that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other
besides Him.
36 "Out of heaven He
let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed
you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the
fire.
37 "And because He
loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them;
and He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power,
38 "driving out
from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you
in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. (NKJ)
As an aside, given what has happened
and will yet happen in Jerusalem, this last sentence should give pause
to those who think that the promises of God regarding the resurrection
of God's people and the restoration of Jerusalem are outrageous expectations.
We limit God. Awesome is a word that barely approximates what we will
feel when God fulfills His prophecies. Listen to Samuel.
2 Samuel 7:22-24
22 "Therefore You are
great, O Lord GOD. For there is none like You, nor is there any God
besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
23 "And who is like
Your people, like Israel, the one nation on the earth whom God went
to redeem for Himself as a people, to make for Himself a name--
and to do for Youself great and awesome deeds for Your land-- before
Your people whom You redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, the nations,
and their gods?
24 "For You have made
Your people Israel Your very own people forever; and You, LORD, have
become their God. (NKJ)
Now read of God's Grace
to the house of David.
Zechariah 12:10
10 "And I will pour
on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit
of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have
pierced; they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and
grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. (NKJ)
When grace is extended to the house
of David, it says, "then they will look upon Me whom they have
pierced," placing the fullness of "grace" in the context
of a redeemer, the Messiah.
The first mention of
grace in the New Testament refers to Jesus, the Child, then to Jesus
the Man.
Luke 2:40
40 And the Child grew
and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God
was upon Him. (NKJ)
John 1:14-17
14 And the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 John bore witness
of Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes
after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.' "
16 And of His fullness
we have all received, and grace for grace.
17 For the law was
given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (NKJ)
Do not think that this
last verse somehow sets aside the law or your respect of it. The law
(referring specifically to the 10 commandments given to Moses) asked
you to do good and specific things and "grace" does not change
that expectation. The difference is that you are saved by grace and
grace only and the grace of God, in whom you place your faith, is a
gift. Paul makes this point for us. Listen.
Romans 3:23-31
23 for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God,
24 being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God set forth
as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously
committed,
26 to demonstrate at
the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier
of the one who has faith in Jesus.
27 Where is boasting
then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.
28 Therefore we conclude
that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
29 Or is He the God
of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the
Gentiles also,
30 since there is one
God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised
through faith.
31 Do we then make
void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish
the law. (NKJ)
There are many "Torah observant"
Jews. They respect and love the Law yet they adhere to it by faith and
know, absent the grace of God, that keeping the Law will not redeem
them. It is redemption first and then obedience. Obedience is good,
but not unto salvation. Redemption makes your obedience fruitful to
God, and the Holy Spirit in you is what enables you to obey, not the
will of your flesh. I offer the following verses with some anxiety,
not because they are not appropriate or true, but because they may offend.
If the Gospel offends, and Scriptures tell us it will, it is because
the listener is rejecting the atoning life of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
This book, written specifically to you, is intended to bring into focus
your choices and the consequences of those choices. Listen to some fairly
direct teachings from the Scriptures.
Hebrews 10:28-31
28 Anyone who has rejected
Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
29 Of how much worse
punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled
the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which
he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know Him
who said, "Vengeance is Mine; I will repay," says the Lord. And again,
"The Lord will judge His people."
31 It is a fearful
thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (NKJ)
Hebrews 12:14-29
14 Pursue peace with
all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord:
15 looking diligently
lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness
springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;
16 lest there be any
fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold
his birthright.
17 For you know that
afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected,
for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently
with tears.
18 For you have not
come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire,
and to blackness and darkness and tempest,
19 and the sound of
a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged
that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.
20 (For they could
not endure what was commanded: "And if so much as a beast touches the
mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow."
21 And so terrifying
was the sight that Moses said, "I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.")
22 But you have come
to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
to an innumerable company of angels,
23 to the general assembly
and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the
Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 to Jesus the Mediator
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better
things than that of Abel.
25 See that you do
not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him
who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from
Him who speaks from heaven,
26 whose voice then
shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake
not only the earth, but also heaven."
27 Now this, "Yet once
more," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken,
as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may
remain.
28 Therefore, since
we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace,
by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
29 For our God is a
consuming fire. (NKJ)
The grace of God is our only hope.
Grace is not something we can earn. It is an "empowerment,"
an enabling force that permits us to escape from serving the flesh.
Listen to Paul, the one Jew who God miraculously turned from hating
Jesus and His followers to what was and is perhaps the key role in bringing
the gospel to the Gentiles. God chose not only the Jews as His people,
but chose Paul, a Jew, as a primary oracle to bring the Gentiles under
the canopy of God's love. This love was extended primarily to the Jews,
until the birth of the Messiah. Listen to Paul.
Ephesians 2:1-10
1 And you He made alive,
who were dead in trespasses and sins,
2 in which you once
walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
3 among whom also we
all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, just as the others.
4 But God, who is rich
in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were
dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you
have been saved),
6 and raised us up
together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus,
7 that in the ages
to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness
toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you
have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the
gift of God,
9 not of works, lest
anyone should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them. (NKJ)
Paul just taught you so many basic
truths that I want to say again, go to the Holy Bible. Read first hand
and discover all that God wants you to know. The Word of God is a treasure
only surpassed by the redeeming presence of Jesus and the power of the
Holy Spirit in your heart. I probably should not even say that given
this next quote from John.
1 John 5:7
7 For there are three
that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit;
and these three are one. (NKJ)
Once your love for God is such that
you love Him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, you will
not want to distance yourself from listening to God. The manifestation
of your love may appear to be "works," as you diligently seek
Him, but no, it is by grace that you are saved. Let me quote for you
the last verse in the Bible.
Revelation 22:21
21 The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (NKJ)
This sentence places all of the emphasis
on Jesus. Why? One reason, in my opinion, is that if you don't understand
that sin requires sacrifice in order for cleansing and forgiveness,
then you fail to understand what God commanded Moses. I believe it is
safe to assume that every Jew understands the ritual of sacrifice for
the atonement of sin. It is the foundation of their daily renewal. But,
sacrifices to cover sin are over. Jesus paid the price and now, your
offerings are in "righteousness," His righteousness, not yours
and not mine. We "work" but not for salvation. We obey and
serve Him because we love Him.
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