“For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. (Romans 3:22-25)”
Grace, so ingrained in our protestant understanding of Christianity, seems to have an obvious meaning: God in his ultimate love for his created order sent his son the carry the burden of all sin to the cross and present himself as a holy sacrifice on our behalf. Grace in this sense is always for me. It is God’s solution to the problem of sin. We have fallen from God’s grace and therefore must receive it as a gift from his son. Yet what do we do with this gift; wear it like a badge of honor that reinstates our specialness, our position in glory? Am I now a new being in Christ in opposition to a still fallen world? Grace is for me, for my understanding of self, how precious am I in the sight of the Lord. Yet is there an aspect of grace beyond our own wellbeing and eternal security? Grace is not just the starting point of the Christian life it is the Christian life.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new. (Revelation 21:1-5)”
Language constructs the world we live in so as to convert the other into the same. Meaning is a perpetual return to self in that meaning is constructed for the self. Our judgments of the world are judgments of the world the self constructs through language. Paul writes: “Therefore you have no excuses, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself (Romans 2:1).” This is the fallen world the world the mind constructs as a world of one apart from the reality of the Kingdom. To accept the internal gift of grace and nothing more is to live as an alien in a foreign land. A land given to us by the mind for the perpetuation of the fallen state of humanity: the illusion that the knowledge of God has been given to us through language, a deception as old as the serpent himself. Yet Christ makes all things new. And with grace we are promised the kingdom of God, which was inaugurated not in death but in life! In grace Christ is offering “eyes to see and ears to hear.” God dwells with us and through grace pierces the constructs of the same into the reality of the other, into the reality of the kingdom. No longer as I gaze upon world do I return to self but am transformed by the other, which is always a transcendence of the self. The externality of grace is kingdom vision: to see the other as a face and as such be filled with compassion and love. Jesus, as the first fruits of the kingdom, lived in radical relational to the other, perceiving that which was other than himself and therefore in relation to himself. Where the religious leaders looked and saw only the law, or the denial of the law, Christ saw the face of a person and was moved to compassion, to love. There is a new heaven and a new earth, one where God dwells among mortals, in the here and now and I pray that Christ may come and give us eyes to see and ears to hear.
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ReplyDeleteConsider Wesley's understanding of grace that exists prior to and without reference to anything humans may have done. As humans are corrupted by the effects of sin, grace (or what Wesley actually calls "prevenient grace") allows persons to engage their God-given free will to choose the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ or to reject that salvific offer.
ReplyDeleteI mention Wesley's definitiion because i've always liked the understanding of grace as being somewhat synonomous with choice. What is available to all, for their own "salvation", is choice. The power of human agency to be different. It should be noted that this is far from Wesley's actual theological understanding of grace. But nonetheless, as i'm sure you have come to understand my positions on such matters, this grace/choice dynamic is a powerful fit into my understanding of God as the collective, and "salvation" as a human aspiration (choosing our own destiny). This in juxtaposition to the "choice" of reaching out for God to impart an unwarranted gift.
As you said, "The externality of grace is kingdom vision: to see the other as a face and as such be filled with compassion and love." It reminded me of the story about a rich young man who came running up to Jesus with the urgent question, "what shall i do that I may inherit human life?" The bible says that Jesus "beheld, loved, and said." The sermon my father used to preach on this passage centered around the beholding and the loving that took place before anything was said. This is merely to add illustration to the point i believe you were making with reference to the other. The notion that for any meaningful dialogue to occur, one must first behold the other and love the other, before language can be effective. Love allows true dialogue.
I agree that grace is chosen but in the choosing I am concerned with that choice once chosen setting apart the chooser from those that have not chosen or have no choice in choosing since the language the choice has been presented in is indecipherable to said potential chooser. In beholding the other, as you noted in the story about the rich young man, it is through grace alone that we see them as an other and not another potential chooser of grace.
ReplyDeleteI agree. What i was attempting to suggest was that grace is not to be chosen, it is choice. Grace available to all. Choice available to all. Grace is not something to be accepted, but actualized.
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