By Grace Alone
It is the season of celebration of the birth of grace. Some sing Jingle Bells. I ponder the darkness in my depths.
For a long time, I've understood the Christian theological precept that we must accept that we are all sinners. Otherwise we're just not being honest. Even Jimmy Carter, practically a saint by my standards, admitted to having lusted in his heart. And that's tame compared to what I've done, in my heart and elsewhere.
It's been harder to grasp why in the Christian faith "by grace alone are we saved". True, believing that's the case is a good preventative for self-righteousness, one of the more insidious of sins in itself. And it's a pretty good way to keep relatively well-behaved people going to church, rather than allowing them to just count on their good behaviour to get them to heaven.
But I've come to realize that grace is the necessary faint-hope clause for those whose sins come to outnumber their good acts. Were there no hope of grace, it would be simple math for these people to conclude that they were bound for hell.
I sadly come to this conclusion having determined that my sins are too numerous.
Grace is a very beautiful word. If I should ever get a sense of what it feels like I am convinced it will be as beautiful as it sounds.
I wonder if it's available a la carte, or if you actually have to buy in to an entire religion to get some?
For a long time, I've understood the Christian theological precept that we must accept that we are all sinners. Otherwise we're just not being honest. Even Jimmy Carter, practically a saint by my standards, admitted to having lusted in his heart. And that's tame compared to what I've done, in my heart and elsewhere.
It's been harder to grasp why in the Christian faith "by grace alone are we saved". True, believing that's the case is a good preventative for self-righteousness, one of the more insidious of sins in itself. And it's a pretty good way to keep relatively well-behaved people going to church, rather than allowing them to just count on their good behaviour to get them to heaven.
But I've come to realize that grace is the necessary faint-hope clause for those whose sins come to outnumber their good acts. Were there no hope of grace, it would be simple math for these people to conclude that they were bound for hell.
I sadly come to this conclusion having determined that my sins are too numerous.
Grace is a very beautiful word. If I should ever get a sense of what it feels like I am convinced it will be as beautiful as it sounds.
I wonder if it's available a la carte, or if you actually have to buy in to an entire religion to get some?
posted by David Newland at 11.12.07
2 Comments:
do faith and religion have to come as a package?
I hope not.
... I suck at the religion thing.
Grace is immediately present, ever and always, here now everywhere. Receiving it requires, however, to gouge into the Christian termin[ation]ology your engaging in, 'conversion', which means, literally, 'turning around'. 'Turning around'; choosing to 'change your ways' is the 'gravity' of grace, and grace doesn't fire up without gravity, any more than electricity lights up without both positive and negative.
"Grace without gravity's
got no place to ground,
and gravity without grace
is spinning round and round."
Gravity is the blessed hard work we engage in and, as the word 'grave' suggests, it ain't easy, and maybe even feels a little like dying...
Best wishes to you David.
I stumbled across your blog via Evan Jennings invite.
Nik Beeson
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