GRACE-PURPOSE

It is a rule in divinity, that grace takes not away nature; that is, grace comes not to take away a man’s affections, but to take them up.

William Fenner

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 130.

The spiritual life is lived between two polarities: our sin and God’s grace. The discovery of the former brings us to seek the latter; the work of the latter illuminates the depths of the former and causes us to seek yet more grace. …The heart-conviction of sin is the way grace prepares the heart for more grace.

Sinclair Ferguson

Theologian of the Spirit, Tabletalk, Oct. 2004, p. 18, Used by Permission.

Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.

John Piper

As a result of grace, we have been saved from sin’s penalty. One day we will be saved from sin’s presence. In the meantime we are being saved from sin’s power.

Alistair Begg

Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 39.

God's grace does not mean that God benignly accepts humans in all their fallenness, forgives them, and then leaves them in that fallenness. God is in the business not of whitewashing sins but of transforming sinners.

David Garland

1 Corinthians, Baker, 2003, p. 215.

Scripture speaks of both a holiness we already possess in Christ before God and a holiness in which we are to grow more and more. The first is the result of the work of Christ for us; the second is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in us. The first is perfect and complete and is ours the moment we trust Christ; the second is progressive and incomplete as long as we are in this life. The objective holiness we have in Christ and the subjective holiness produced by the Holy Spirit are both gifts of God’s grace and are both appropriated by faith.

Jerry Bridges

God’s grace is not given to make us feel better, but to glorify Him… Good feelings may come, or they may not, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not we honor God by the way we respond to our circumstances.

Jerry Bridges

This is the amazing story of God’s grace. God saves us by His grace and transforms us more and more into the likeness of His Son by His grace. In all our trials and afflictions, He sustains and strengthens us by His grace. He calls us by grace to perform our own unique function within the Body of Christ. Then, again by grace, He gives to each of us the spiritual gifts necessary to fulfill our calling. As we serve Him, He makes that service acceptable to Himself by grace, and then rewards us a hundredfold by grace.

Jerry Bridges

Indeed, the abject weakness of the human instrument serves to magnify and throw into relief the perfection of the divine power in a way that any suggestion of human adequacy could never do. The greater the servant’s weakness, the more conspicuous is the power of his Master’s all-sufficient grace.

Philip E. Hughes

The New International Commentary on the New Testament, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Eerdmans, www.eerdmans.com, 1962, p. 451.