The Power of Grace

The Lexam Bible Dictionary describes grace as the "gracious or merciful behaviour of a more powerful person toward another." Pretty much everyone would agree that this is a good quality to express and experience, both individually and as a society. And yet we live in a world that, for whatever reason, seems to be caught up in celebrating just the opposite. Power exerted over another, even to the lengths that the other person is humiliated, dehumanized and demeaned. This is contrary to the way that we should treat one another and it is an overturning of the appropriate way for one in power to act towards one under authority. It is, however, not that shocking in a world that is itself held in the grip of the most abusive power ever to exist.

In the Bible we read of this power that dominates every single person. It is the power of sin. In Romans 3:9, the Apostle Paul states that every single person is under sin. The picture is stark and difficult to accept, and the images these words convey are not enticing. These are not the images of which fantasies are made. Sin is the tyrannical master, pressing down on us and exercising its power over us, simply because it can. This is the authority that sin possesses over each of us. Unless something is done to emancipate us, we are under obligation to suffer sin's every whim and pleasure. It demeans us and breaks us. It rips into us and leaves us as little more than husks of what we were meant to be. "Sin is the grim tyrant," wrote Charles Spurgeon, "to whom, in the first place, man has bowed his willing neck." With a sadism and cruelty that stands unmatched in our world, sin breaks us under its whip, ultimately destroying us forever.

Contrast this depiction of sin's power with God's use of His power. God does not use His infinite power to dehumanize or demean us, but rather reaches out to us in compassion and grace. His behaviour toward us is kind, patient, compassionate, restorative. His power is not used against us, but rather on our behalf, for our good. It is the gracious and merciful behaviour of one who is more powerful then we are, yet uses that power for our good. This picture of grace reaches its climax in the gospel, where His power is brought to bear on sin and its domination of us, delivering us from the tyranny of its control over us as we reach out with broken fingers to receive it. And having delivered us, this power now conveys us into His family, where we experience His power in all its graces. Even when he disciplines us, He isn't doing it in order to satisfy some depraved desire, but rather He disciplines us as His beloved children, in order that we might come to the understanding that His grace is our good and so desire it even more.

Our broken world desperately needs to come face to face with this kind of behaviour. It needs to see the expression of power, not in the hands of a twisted and depraved sadist, but rather in the hands that were pierced for our transgressions and for our healing. In a word, our world needs to see the grace of God, and it needs to witness those of us who have been the benefactors of this grace celebrating it with an enthusiasm that super-abounds.