By Rev. Thomas Spurgeon, London, England.
WHAT IS “GRACE”?
Once upon a time, I met, on board an Australian liner, an aged man of genial temperament, and of sound and extensive learning. He managed to dwell in well-nigh perpetual sunshine, for he followed the sun round the globe year after year, and he was himself so sunny that the passengers made friends with him, and sought information from him. It fell out that a discussion having arisen as to what “Grace” was, someone said, “Let us ask “The Walking Encyclopcedia”; he will be sure to know.” So to him they went with their inquiry as to the meaning of the theological term, “Grace.” They returned woefully disappointed, for all he could say was, “I confess that I don’t understand it.” At the same time he volunteered the following extraordinary statement: “I don’t think that they understand it either who so often speak of it.” Like the medical man of whom the Rev. T. Phillips told in his Baptist World Congress sermon who said of Grace, “It is utterly meaningless to me,” this well-read traveller comprehended it not. Some among us were hardly astonished at this, but it did occur to us that he might have allowed that it was just possible that on this particular theme, at all events, some less learned folk might be more enlightened than himself. Now, it chanced that on that same vessel there was a Christian seaman, who, if he could not have given a concise and adequate definition of “Grace,” nevertheless knew perfectly well its significance, and would have said, “Ay, ay, sir; that’s it,” with bounding heart and beaming face, if one had suggested that “Grace is God’s free, unmerited favor, graciously bestowed upon the unworthy and sinful.” And if Mr. Phillips himself had been on board, and had preached his Congress sermon there, and had declared that “Grace is something in God which is at the heart of all His redeeming activities, the downward stoop and reach of God, God bending from the heights of His majesty, to touch and grasp our insignificance and poverty,” the weather-beaten face would have beamed again, and the converted sailor-man would have said within himself, “Oh, to Grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.”
Verily, the world through its wisdom knows not God. The true meaning of “Grace” is hidden from the wise and prudent, and is revealed to babes. “Cottage dames” are often wiser as to the deep things of God than savants and scientists. Our learned traveller dwelt in perpetual sunshine, but he was not able from experience to say, “God hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Dr. Dale, long years ago, lamented that the word “Grace” was becoming disused. It has, alas! been used a great deal less since then. His own definition of “Grace” is worth remembering: “Grace is love which passes beyond all claims to love. It is love which after fulfilling the obligations imposed by law, has an unexhausted wealth of kindness.” And here is Dr. Maclaren’s: “Grace - what is that? The word means, first, love in exercise to those who are below the lover, or who deserve something else; stooping love that condescends, and patient love that forgives. Then it means the gifts which such love bestows; and then it means the effect of these gifts in the beauties of character and conduct developed in the receivers.”
Dr. Jowett puts the matter strikingly: “Grace is energy. Grace is love-energy. Grace is a redeeming love-energy ministering to the unlovely, and endowing the unlovely with its own loveliness.” Shall we hear Dr. Alexander Whyte hereupon? “Grace means favor, mercy, pardon. Grace and love are essentially the same, only Grace is love manifesting itself and operating under certain conditions, and adapting itself to certain circumstances. As, for instance, love has no limit or law such as Grace has. Love may exist between equals, or it may rise to those above us, or flow down to those in any way beneath us. But Grace, from its nature, has only one direction it can take. GRACE ALWAYS FLOWS DOWN. Grace is love indeed, but it is love to creatures humbling itself. A king’s love to his equals, or to his own royal house, is love; but his love to his subjects is called grace. And thus it is that God’s love to sinners is always called GRACE in the Scriptures. It is love indeed, but it is love to creatures, and to creatures who do not deserve His love. And therefore all He does for us in Christ, and all that is disclosed to us of His goodwill in the Gospel, is called Grace.”
IS “GRACE” DEFINABLE?
Delightful as these definitions are, we are conscious that the half has not been told. Oh! the exceeding riches of His grace. Whereunto shall we liken the mercy of God, or with what comparison shall we compare it? It defies definition, and beggars description. This is hardly to be wondered at, for it is so Divine. There are some things of earth to which no human pen or brush has done justice - storms, rainbows, cataracts, sunsets, icebergs, snowflakes, dewdrops, the wings that wanton among summer flowers. Because God made them, man fails to describe them. Who, then, shall tell forth fully that which God has and is? The definition we have quoted from Dr. Jowett is worthy of his great reputation, yet he himself confesses that “Grace” is indefinable. Thus choicely he puts it: “Some minister of the Cross, toiling in great loneliness, among a scattered and primitive people, and on the very fringe of dark primeval forests, sent me a little sample of his vast and wealthy environment. It was a bright and gaily colored wing of a native bird. The color and life of trackless leagues sampled within the confines of an envelope! And when we have made a compact little phrase to enshrine the secret of Grace, I feel that however fair and radiant it may be, we have only got a wing of a native bird, and bewildering stretches of wealth are untouched and unrevealed. No, we cannot define it.”