Is Grace a "Substance" or a Relationship with God?

    "I believe we are saved by the grace of God." Nearly all Christians can say this. But, why does it seem that many don't mean the same thing? Some say, "I believe that grace is the favor of God." Or, "Grace is the way God relationship with me on account of Christ." On the other side, we hear a different voice: "I believe that God gives us grace by which we can be saved." Or, "I believe grace is the power we must use in order to be saved." This begs us to ask: How many kinds of grace are there?

    Fundamentally, there are two very different theologies of grace in Christianity. The first view can be stated this way: We are justified by God's work of grace in us. This is taught by Roman Catholicism, and is carried on by a number of Protestants⁽¹⁾ who perpetuate it through contemporary churches, movements, and denominations.⁽²⁾ The other view of grace says: We are justified by God’s work of grace in Christ. This understanding is espoused by Reformation Protestants. The focus of grace in the first sense is Humanity. The accent in the second view is on Christ.

    Why is this so? Because the Roman Catholic (et. al.) view of grace teaches that grace is primarily the power of renovation or transformation working within the Christian. It is the "renovation of the interior man through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts, whereby man becomes just instead of unjust . . ." This is the classic Roman Catholic teaching concerning justification.

    Robert D. Brinsmead succinctly outlines the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification:

1) Justification is the eternal renovation and renewing of a man; 2) Justification comes by an infusion of God's grace. Man is justified by what the Holy Spirit has done in him; 3) Justification means that man himself is made just - made pleasing to God in his own person.⁽³⁾

This is validated by Catholic scholar Jean Daujat who stated:

Sinful man cannot, of himself, be pleasing to God. For that, he must receive a gift from God which transforms him interiorly, cleanses him and sanctifies him by adorning him with qualities that render him pleasing to his Creator.⁽⁴⁾

    At this point it must be asked: "How much grace must I have in me before I can stand justified before God? The Catholic view of grace is cultivated through things like prayer, repentance, or loving and obedient acts. How prayerful, repentant, loving or obedient must grace make me before God can accept me?" This question leads to another: How would we know when one has enough grace? One would need some sort of measure or standard by which to test the grace within us.⁽⁵⁾ What would that be? Those who would be see Scripture as their authority would look to the Bible for a standard. Would it be the Law given to Moses? Let's see what the Bible says:

The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness." (Deut 6:24-25)

    We are told that the Law can do more than provide a standard. It says that the one who obeys the Law can count that obedience as his righteousness. Now, how much righteousness would one need? How much of Law-keeping is needed? It would certainly take more than mere praying, repenting and loving to satisfy the Law. The Bible says that we need the righteousness of keeping the whole Law: "And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law." (Galatians 5:3 NAS) Even more, Scripture asserts that violating just one part of the Law would undo all the righteousness "accumulated" by keeping the rest: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." (James 2:10 KJV) No amount of grace or the Holy Spirit working within can compensate for a single violation of God’s Law.

    Returning to our earlier question, "How much grace would I need in me to be justified." The Law would say: We need enough grace to empower us to keep the whole Law. Some might interject at this point the argument: "But the Christian is not under Law, but grace. We don't have to keep the Law now." Well, then, what would you use as a standard to really know if you had enough grace in you? This last person might say, "We have Christ as our standard." We can look to Jesus’ teaching on the Sermon on the Mount as a standard. That may seem like a real resolution to the whole Law problem. But is it? Jesus taught:

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished. ( Matthew 5:17-18 NAS)

And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:35-40 NAS)

    Jesus did not suspend or supplant the Law, he came to fulfill it. Jesus was the incarnation of God and thus the embodiment of the Law of God. If Jesus is our standard of grace, then we must still look to the Law, only now in its purest and most powerful form. We might say that the standard that Jesus held was the Law "on steroids." It is the Law distilled to its richest quality. It is the Law at its zenith or greatest manifestation. This is how high Jesus set the standard of grace: Only those who love God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength, for every moment of every day, from the time they were born to the day they die, without a nano-second of diminution are righteous. Only these have enough grace according to the Law to be right with God. This is Jesus' standard. And it crushes Moses like grain under a meal stone.

    The only way any of us can be sure that we have enough grace working in us, is to measure it by God's standard. We have seen that both of God's supreme standards, the Law and Christ, set the bar higher than anyone can reach. That is, higher than all but One - Jesus Christ. Jesus fulfilled the Law perfectly, for He loved God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength every second of his existence. And he loved his neighbor more that himself. This is why the Reformation does not view justification as the grace which works in Man. It looks for justification by the grace that works in Christ:

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24 KJV)

   The redemption we have by faith is "in" Christ. The Greek New Testament is very clear about that. It says literally "in" (en) Christ. We are not justified by the grace that is in us. We are justified by the grace, through the redemption, that is IN CHRIST. That is why justification is what God has done outside of us, in the work of Jesus Christ, while we were yet sinners. It is not what God did within us that justifies us. Certainly God does a great work within us by the Holy Spirit, but this is not what justifies the believer:

Here is the dividing of the way between Rome and the Reformation. Rome declares that a man is justified by God's work of grace in his heart. The Reformation declares that a man is justified by God's work of grace in Jesus Christ.⁽⁶⁾

^{"Two Views of Grace" Part Two}

^FOOTNOTES

1. These Protestant churches carry on the Roman Catholic theology either because they are the descendants of churches of the Reformation who did not "protest" or reject the Roman Catholic teaching of the Gospel, as did the Reformers, or, they are inheritors of their church's/denomination's theology, which departed from the Reformation understanding of the Gospel somewhere in their past history. They may not be conscious of the fact that such a departure even took place.

2. This would include many evangelical, fundamentalist, pentecostal, and charismatic churches as well as individual Christians.

3. Robert D. Brinsmead, Justification, (Fallbrook, CA: Verdict Publications, 1980), p. 17.

4. Jean Daujat, Theology of Grace, p. 14.

5. Every theology of grace which defines justification by the amount of grace within the Christian will, by necessity, develop some standard of evaluation. Unfortunately, it usually is not the Word of God, but the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:9; Titus 1:14) This can be seen in the various "house rules," membership requirements, or "standards of holiness" taught by churches who hold to the Roman Catholic theology of grace. Extra-biblical standards are created in order to "measure the grace" in church members.

6. Brinsmead, Op. Cit., p. 20.