G – R – A – C – E
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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10)
I was listening to a preacher on the radio several years ago (Dr. Ron Jones, Something Good Radio), and he was talking about grace:
G – God’s
R – Riches
A – At
C – Christ’s
E – Expense
I’ve loved that acronym for “grace” ever since the first time I heard it many years – probably decades – ago. Dr. Jones was talking about how the price for salvation has already been paid and that we cannot reach into our wallets and pull out something to give in exchange for it.
I agree that you and I can do nothing to earn salvation. No price we could dream up would be enough because there was only one person who could satisfy the requirement for redemption … His name is Jesus.
However, there is something we exchange in the transaction of salvation, and that thing is the very essence of who we are.
If you recognize that you are a ragged and nasty mess and think that God could not possibly desire to have a relationship with you, He says this: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). This means there is no sin too great that God cannot or will not forgive if you bring it to Him.
Or if you are, like I once was, depending on your good works and self-generated righteousness for entrance into heaven, then this is God’s view on that: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Isaiah 64:6).
In other words, regardless of how many meals we have delivered to shut-ins, how much we have read the Bible, how many rowdy 5-year-olds we have taught in Sunday school or Vacation Bible School, the distance or length of mission trips we have gone on, God tells us that we are in the same position as the “ragged and nasty” bunch mentioned above. No better. No worse. Just equally as wretched and in need of a Savior.
Now don’t misunderstand me. When we do good works in response to God’s mercy and love, those are not the same as the “polluted garment” mentioned in Isaiah 64:6. In fact, Romans 12:1 exhorts us to give ourselves to God “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Serving God through serving others is a natural reaction of gratitude for His priceless gift of salvation. But what amount of even righteously motivated deeds could possibly be equal to what we receive?
It doesn’t matter what our old selves were: whether murderous, angry, bitter, abusive, or promiscuous, or whatever “bad” actions you name that are “red like crimson” – OR – self-righteous, prideful, unkind, idolatrous (worshipping at the altar of our own egos) … whatever less-evil-sounding-but-just-as-wicked label it would take to describe our “filthy rags” – none of that is acceptable to God. All of that is unrighteousness (sin), and all of it keeps us from a relationship with Him. As a matter of fact, anything that does not align with God’s requirement of sinless perfection separates us from Him.
But in God’s amazing and awesome holiness, love, and grace (remember, God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense), salvation is an exchange of who we are … for who Jesus is. We give Jesus all of that ugliness and wickedness and pain … and in exchange, we get to be covered in His righteousness … His beauty, purity, and holiness.
What a magnificent trade-off … for us. And what may be even more amazing is that God determined – before He even created us – that we would be worth the effort, the sacrifice, and the uneven rate of exchange entailed in the deal.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16-17).
He knew what He was getting into … but He did it anyway.
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul,
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul. – “What Wondrous Love Is This”
