The Amazing Work of God's Grace

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Let me write this exposition of my favorite hymn known as "Amazing Grace". The song was written by Calvinist scholar, John Newton who said, "One of the most beautiful paradoxes in God's wisdom is sovereign grace. The same grace that is unmerited is also unstoppable.". He was once a slave trader but later became an Anglican clergyman. He could not describe the grace of God so fully and completely. The song itself really talks about the amazing grace of God. It was so undeserved, I don't deserve it, neither do you. Romans 3:19 declares that all people are therefore guilty before God. But then we have the grace of God that is so amazing that it really saved an undeserving sinner such as me and you.

What happens in God's amazing grace is the work of salvation. Did you know it only takes ONE SIN to damn a man to Hell? James 2:10-11 says that even if you just disobeyed one law, you are guilty of breaking the whole Law. That is, you are cut short of God's perfect standard. The perfect standard of God that is if you want to attain or keep your salvation (the Arminian heresy) is that you must live in in sinless perfect, something no man can truly attain. A man is condemned straight to Hell even for just stealing a piece of candy. All Adam and Eve had to do was to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and poof, they had become sinners. Romans 5:12 says it was by Adam's fault that the whole world fell into the mess.

When we think of Adam, we see the amazing grace of God. God could have just killed Adam and Eve directly for transgressing. He could have blasted Adam off for blaming Him. But when Adam and Eve both humbled themselves before Him, He provided them animal skins to cover their naked bodies which their fig leaves cannot cover. It was not their effort, it was His. Even better, Genesis 3:15 points out that He had promised the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ would one day be born of a virgin birth to crush the serpent's head. Satan was already doomed not because of man but because of God. He instead gave them a second chance and let His mercy work through the ages.

Titus 2:11-14 says that God's grace is a wonder worker that changes the life of the believer. A Christian does good works as a result of God's wonder work in the person (Philippians 2:13-14). That God working in the believer causes the Christian to inevitably work out (notice the words are "work out" and not "work on") one's salvation with fear and trembling. The grace of God teaches men to deny ungodliness, deny worldly lusts, to live soberly and righteously, and godly in this present world, making them a peculiar people zealous unto good works.

The work is amazing indeed when you think how the worst of sinners can be changed not by their own efforts but by God's grace. Think of Saul of Tarsus the murderer who only by God's grace became Paul the Apostle. Think of how sinful lifestyles were turned upside down because of God's grace. It was not the effort of man but the grace of God that causes Christians to be zealous unto good works and to please God. Therefore, any true convert can also be shown not only by the blossoming in good works in their lives but also, they only give God alone the glory for their good works that were produced as a result of salvation.