{"id":4432,"date":"2012-11-16T12:30:35","date_gmt":"2012-11-16T19:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/?p=4432"},"modified":"2024-03-26T12:35:31","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T19:35:31","slug":"in-jesus-grace-upon-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/2012\/11\/16\/in-jesus-grace-upon-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"In Jesus, Grace Upon Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Each month, we will be highlighting a particular theological topic here at the BLB blog. This month, we are highlighting the topic of\u00a0soteriology<\/strong>\u2014the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ.\u00a0The following is adapted from the Blue Letter Bible Institute’s<\/span><\/a> soteriology class.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”<\/span>
\nPaul, in Ephesians 1:2<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first thing that we notice almost consistently throughout Paul\u2019s Epistles is that when he refers to either a greeting or a salutation that mentions the Lord, he almost always mentions another word: Grace<\/em>. Isn\u2019t that interesting?<\/p>\n

\u201cGrace to you and peace from God…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So let\u2019s call this God \u201cThe Person of Grace.\u201d It\u2019s used ten times in the New Testament and often at the end of the epistle. John uses it also in\u00a0Revelation 22:21, \u201cthe grace of our Lord.\u201d He also uses it in John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”<\/p>\n

I like what one person told me one time. He said, \u201cYou don\u2019t understand grace until you understand Jesus.\u201d At the time I thought it was a simplistic remark. Everybody can come up with those trite little sayings. But, in my life, I have come to know the truth of that statement. When you know the Lord, you know grace<\/em>. Actually, to try to understand the doctrine of grace apart from Jesus is an impossibility.\u00a0You can\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n

Jesus is all grace. He\u2019s what grace is all about.<\/p>\n

That is why\u00a0John 1:14-17 is so beautiful in this regard:<\/p>\n

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.\u00a0(John bore witness about him, and cried out, \u201cThis was he of whom I said, \u2018He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.\u2019\u201d)\u00a0For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He keeps piling it grace, and that\u2019s a great thing because He has daily loaded us with benefits. He is a gracious God. He blesses us all the time.<\/p>\n

Another way to look at it is that when the grace that He gave you for any particular event, circumstance, work, or whatever\u2026however He sustained you in whatever moment, that grace has behind it an inexhaustible supply. So you say, \u201cYeah, the Lord touched me with His grace in a wonderful way. He just gave me what I didn\u2019t really deserve.\u201d \u00a0He\u2019s got a gigantic, infinite, inexhaustible supply of grace behind it. There\u2019s more coming because of who He is.<\/p>\n

Do you know our God wants to give you grace more than you want to receive it?<\/h3>\n

Grace gives you what you don\u2019t deserve. He\u2019s constantly giving you what you don\u2019t deserve. And you don\u2019t even see it. And that grace upon grace, to me, carries the idea that God\u2019s inexhaustible supply is always there and whatever grace I just received isn\u2019t all there is.<\/p>\n

Match that with\u00a0Ephesians 2:7, \u201cso that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.\u201d We haven\u2019t yet begun to see the riches of his grace. I saw it when I got saved and the longer I study it, the more it thrills my heart. But I haven\u2019t begun, neither have you, to see the riches of the grace of our Lord. He\u2019s going to keep showing it to you all the way through eternity. Imagine knowing a God like that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each month, we will be highlighting a particular theological topic here at the BLB blog. This month, we are highlighting the topic of\u00a0soteriology\u2014the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ.\u00a0The following is adapted from the Blue Letter Bible Institute’s soteriology class. “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":4433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-misc","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9157,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions\/9157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}