This
Sunday, June 3rd, we continue our three-week series on the Christian
understanding of grace. As we noted last
week, for the purposes of this series, we will simply define grace as “God’s free and unmerited love, which seeks
out every person and assists us in developing a loving relationship with the
Divine.” Grace is pivotal within Christian thought
because it forms the grounding for our understanding of God’s relationship with
human persons—and with all of Creation.
John
Wesley, the founder of United Methodism, suggested that there were three
different forms of grace, corresponding to different stages in the Christian’s
spiritual journey:
1.
Prevenient
Grace. Prevenient grace is God’s
initial love, which seeks us out and invites us into a loving
relationship. It is God calling us—even
luring is—into a relationship.
2.
Justifying
Grace. With justifying grace,
God gives us the confidence and courage to completely put our faith and trust
in God.
3.
Sanctifying
Grace. After we have entered
into a relationship with the Divine, sanctifying grace is God’s nurture and
encouragement as we grow in our relationship with the Divine.
In order to explain his three-fold distinction of grace,
Wesley used the metaphor of walking up and into a house.
a.
Prevenient
Grace. Walking up onto the front
porch of the house.
b.
Justifying
Grace. Opening the door and
crossing over the threshold into the house.
c.
Sanctifying
Grace. Once inside the house,
exploring all of the rooms.
Last week, we began our
series by examining “prevenient grace.” We
saw that prevenient grace is God calling, welcoming us into a loving
relationship with the Divine. This week
we continue our reflections by reflecting on “justifying grace.” In the proclamation, I will use Romans 4: 1-5
as the foundation for my reflections on justifying grace:
“What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our
ancestor according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to
boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and
it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now to one who works,
wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who
without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as
righteousness.”
In this passage, Paul is
trying to demonstrate that the covenant which God made with Abraham was always
intended to include both Jews and Gentiles.[1] To understand the context of Paul’s claim, we
must refer to Genesis 15. In this
chapter, God promises Abraham, who is currently without a male heir, that his descendants
will be more numerous than all the stars in the heavens. “And he believed the Lord and the Lord
reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).
The claim that Abraham’s belief—or, faith—was
reckoned as “righteousness” refers to Abraham’s membership in the covenant with
God. In other words, Abraham’s faith in
God and belief in God’s promise meant that Abraham had entered into covenant
membership with God. As scripture
scholar N. T. Wright writes, “Abraham’s faith was the sure sign that he was in
partnership with God; and God sealed this with the covenant…”[2]
In the next verse (v. 4),
Paul uses the metaphor of bookkeeping to develop his argument. He notes that for someone who works, the
wages from that work are not reckoned a gift, but rather the money which is due
for the labor performed. Paul’s point is
that Abraham received covenant membership not because of any work, or
accomplishment which he performed. He
did not earn covenant membership through obeying God’s Laws or any other sort
of good works. Instead, he entered into
covenant relationship with God because of his faith.
In verse 5, Paul switches
metaphors, moving from a bookkeeping metaphor to the metaphor of a law court
and his understanding of covenant. Those
who trust God, without relying upon their own good works, are received into
covenantal membership with God. At this
point, a caveat is in order. It is easy for
Christians to see their faith as a sort of substitute or alternative form of
work, even if they recognize that God’s gift of covenant is free and
unmerited. That is, justification by
faith is not something we do or gain.
Instead, it is more of a state that we find ourselves in, when we wholly
and completely trust in God.
This is where Wesley’s
concept of God’s justifying grace proves helpful. For Wesley, even trusting God is not something
which we can do without God’s love and assistance. Justifying grace is God’s free and unmerited
love which seeks us out and assists us in trusting God so that we can become covenant
members with God; entering into a growing relationship with God. Justifying grace gives us the confidence and
courage to completely put our faith in God.
Justifying grace gives us the strength to turn to God and accept God’s love
and reconciliation.
Sometimes we refer to a “leap
of faith.” In some sense, justifying
grace makes the “leap of faith” possible.
Yet, we must be careful in how we use this term. A leap of faith is not unthinking, but rather
carefully considered and rational. Further,
a leap of faith is not groundless, but rather based upon our experience of God’s
Presence within our lives. The leap of
faith is more a state in which we realize that—just as Abraham, before us—we believe
and trust in God’s love and care for us.
For Wesley, this moment of
realization that we really do trust God marked the point when we crossed over
the threshold of God’s house. In Wesley’s
personal life, this moment was profoundly and poignantly transformational. It was the threshold of a new life, with new
possibilities. As United Methodist
Bishop Kenneth Carder writes, “That is justifying grace, turning toward a new
future.”[3]
If you live in the
Lincoln, Nebraska area and do not have a place of worship, then I invite you to
come and join us at Christ United Methodist Church this Sunday, June 3rd, as we
explore God’s profound love for us, demonstrated through justifying grace. During the proclamation, I will share several
fascinating illustrations of how justifying grace has been experienced in the
lives of individual Christians. Christ
UMC is located at 4530 “A” Street in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our two traditional Worship Services are at
8:30 and 11:00 on Sunday morning.
Come, join us. Everyone is welcome and accepted because God
loves us all.
[1]N.
T. Wright, Commentary on Romans in the New
Interpreter’s Bible, vol 10, (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2002), CD-ROM
Edition.
[2]
Ibid.
[3] Kenneth
L. Carder, “A Wesleyan Understanding of Grace,” Interpreter Magazine, November-December 2016. Accessed online at http://www.interpretermagazine.org/topics/a-wesleyan-understanding-of-grace,
19 May 2018.
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