Grace.
God's grace. Give me grace. Grace alone.
We use this word so often, but what does it actually mean? What is grace (aside from my cute, feisty 11-year-old daughter)?
How we answer that question will impact a variety of other theological topics, including soteriology, sanctification, and the sacraments. It is the last subject that I want to highlight today.
The Reformed Tradition commonly refers to the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) as means of grace. The Westminster Confession Faith makes it clear that they are "holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace." (27:1) The Belgic Confession insists that "they are not empty and hollow signs to fool and deceive us," but, as the 39 Articles says, they are "effectual signs of grace." The Reformers rejected the Roman Catholic view of the sacraments (not simply Transubstantiation, but the sacerdotal, meritorious system as a whole), but they refused to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. The sacraments retained an important place in their theology and ecclesiology. They were, in fact, means of grace and, therefore, remained important for the life of the individual Christian and the corporate Church.
If we accept this premise--that the sacraments are means of grace--we are still left to answer the question: what is grace? When we don't start here, we talk past each other and are bound to misunderstand how God wants the sacraments to function in our lives. If we misunderstand grace, we are bound to misunderstand how these physical signs convey grace to us.
What is grace? Let's start with two negations. Firstly, grace is not salvation. When we say that Baptism and the Lord's Supper convey grace, we do not mean that they impart salvation. We certainly do not mean that they are acts we perform in order to earn salvation or by which God grants us salvation. We are saved by grace (Eph 2:8-9), and salvation is certainly a gracious gift of God, but grace and salvation are not synonyms, strictly speaking. They are inseparably linked, but not equivalent.
Secondly, grace is not a substance. I think we often envision grace as this invisible, ethereal substance that God mystically transfers into our spirits. That's not what grace is. Grace is not a substance, physical or metaphysical. We cannot be filled with grace in a literal way, as if our spirits were containers with a certain capacity that God refills by certain means. Certainly the Holy Spirit, a spiritual Person, indwells us, and certainly that is a gracious act of God, but we should not understand being endued with grace in this way. We can be more or less aware of and engaged with the effects of grace, but grace is not measurable in the sense that we can have more or less, enough or less than enough, etc.
Now to answer the question positively. Simply put, grace is relationship. Grace is access. Grace is Presence. Grace is God giving Himself to us.
Allow me to explain. Grace is commonly described as undeserved favor. We deserve judgment and wrath; instead, we receive the favor of God. We deserve to be out of His favor; instead, we are in His favor. This definition is good and Biblical, but this concept of favor may be difficult for us to understand in our culture. It conjures imagery of a king inviting you into His presence or a wealthy person patronizing someone less fortunate. It connotes attention and affection being paid to someone who has done nothing to warrant it. Grace is the love of God despite our sin. It is God smiling upon us, despite our sin (actual and original) and rebellion against Him.
When Paul says we are saved by grace in Eph 2:8, he uses the Greek word charis. This word has a broad scope of meaning and is translated using words like grace, favor, benefit, and thanks. It conveys a sense of kindness or generosity that is unmerited. The Hebrew word in the Old Testament that corresponds to charis is channah (Hannah), which connotes an act of stooping or inclining oneself towards an inferior. Another Hebrew word sometimes translated grace is chesed, which implies covenantal love and mercy.
While a full word study would be would be useful, etymology only gets us so far in understanding this topic. Theologically, the Bible gives us pictures and symbols that convey the message of God's Presence. It gives us stories, or rather, a story that shows us that the central idea of grace (indeed, of the Bible) is access to God's Presence. Let's summarize the metanarrative of Scripture through this lens.
In Genesis we find our first parents created to dwell in the Garden with their Creator. They violate the terms of the relationship, rejecting the proper Creator/creature dynamic, and are forced out of the Garden--out of the Presence of their Creator. Cherubim with flaming swords are placed at the entrance to keep mankind from returning to Eden. The opening chapters of Genesis go on to show us the effects of sin upon the Creation, culminating with the Tower of Babel, mankind's attempt to climb back into the Presence of God.
Then God visits a man named Abram. He condescends. He stoops. He covenants with a man and his family. The promise of a Messiah in Genesis 3 will be fulfilled through this man's seed. Abram, renamed Abraham, will be given many descendants, and those descendants will occupy a land where God will dwell with them. These descendants find themselves in Egypt, but they are miraculously delivered out of bondage in order to be led to this Promised Land. They are led by the visible Presence of God in the form of cloud and fire.
Once delivered out of Egypt, but not yet into the Land, they are given the Law at Mt. Sinai. The Presence of God, awesome and frightening, is mediated by their prophet, Moses. He alone goes into the mountain to meet with God. There he receives the 10 Commandments and instructions for the Tabernacle, the place where God's visible Presence will dwell. This Tabernacle, along with its complex system of ceremonies, communicates that the Presence of God is available only through sacrifice and is mediated through a sacerdotal priesthood. The Ark, God's dwelling place, is kept behind a veil, accessed only by the High Priest but once a year with the blood on the Day of Atonement.
The rest of the Old Testament shares the spiritual ups and downs of the chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel). Their relationship with God corresponds directly to their relationship to the Land, the place where God dwells. Instead of a shining beacon, drawing people to God's Presence, they continually lose their distinctiveness and are removed from the land time and time again. We see a succession of covenants initiated by God wherein God gives Himself graciously to individuals and the people as a whole. All of this--the Tabernacle, the ceremonial system, removal and restoration to the Land--occurs in a context of expectation. There is One who will come to fix what is broken. There is one who will reverse the Fall--God's Presence will be restored and will be effectual. This Anointed One, the New Testament tells us, is Jesus Christ.
This Jesus, it turns out, is not simply a prophet, priest, or king. He is all three, and He is all three by virtue of His identity as the God-man. In Jesus Christ God has become Incarnate. He is Immanuel--God with us! This separation from the Presence of God has been once and for all healed by the Incarnation. God and man have been reunited in the the Word made flesh. God has tabernacled with man. Through the Person and Work of Christ we are reconciled to our Creator. By His life, death, resurrection, and ascension we are brought back into Eden. This is the Gospel. This is the Good News that we are to share with the world. We proclaim that access to the Presence of God has been restored through the God-man Jesus Christ.
This is all of grace. This is grace. Grace is God initiating a relationship with His rebellious creatures. Grace is God refusing to let the Fall have the final say--God seeking out His fallen image bearers. Grace is a restored relationship with our Creator God. Grace is God giving us the gift of Himself. All other gifts, including victory over the guilt and corruption of sin, flow from this gift. Forgiveness of sin through the substitutionary atonement of Christ and empowerment of life through the Holy Spirit are both a result of our union with the risen Christ!
It feels only appropriate to quote Hebrews at this point:
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, this securing an eternal redemption. (9:11-12)
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith... (10:19-22a)
Hallelujah and Amen!
Returning to our discussion of the sacraments: what do we mean when we say that Baptism effectually communicates God's grace to us? What does it really mean that we receive God's grace at the Table? Well, if grace is presence or access to God Himself, then the means of grace are physical, embodied acts where God gives us His Presence. God draws near to us at the Font and at the Table.
At the sacraments the spiritual and physical realms meet. It's important to remember that spiritual realities are just that--real. When discussing the sacraments, we often use the term "spiritually" to mean something like "less than literally" or "not really." In fact, spiritual realities are just as real as physical realities. These two realities, these two realms, collide in the sacraments. In other words, God meets us in the sacraments. He prescribes them and promises that we will encounter Him there. This is why misusing them is so dangerous. They do not automatically save or bless us, but they never do nothing. If we do not approach appropriately, we will receive cursing instead of blessing. We must come into the Presence of the Triune God through the Blood of the Lamb! We come humbly, but confidently, full of faith and joy.
Before we close, I want to say a brief word on how this idea--grace as access to God's Presence despite our sins--affects, or ought to affect, our liturgy.
What does our liturgy communicate about the Presence of God? Is it immediately accessible to all? Or is it mediated through a priest or some other human being? Is it within the people themselves? Or is it separate, to be observed, reverenced, and dispensed at the right moment?
Is it acknowledged at all?
Our Savior promised that when two or three gather, He will be present with us. When a congregation gathers, Christ is there. Indeed, the Triune God is there! Our gathering should reflect, and should reveal an awareness of, that reality. Immanuel--God with us!
Our God is looking for those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. A gathering of believers is not simply a collection of random religious individuals meeting for a sermon, but Body parts reuniting with one another through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are Christ's Body. As His Bride, we come to the wedding feast to be united with Him in a visible, corporate way. We look for our Savior's Presence, not at the front of the church building on an altar or in the person of a priest, but in His gathered Body.
We will leave the conversation there for now. In Part 2 we will address a few of the many unanswered questions, especially those surrounding the Lord's Supper or Eucharist.
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