Rev.
Martyn McGeown
* Rev. McGeown is the
missionary-pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern
Ireland (www.cprc.co.uk) and is stationed in Limerick, Republic of Ireland
(www.limerickreformed.com). He has written four books: Called to
Watch for Christ’s Return: An exposition of Matthew 24-25 (2016), Grace
and Assurance: The Message of the Canons of Dordt (2018), Micah:
Proclaiming the Incomparable God (2018), and Born For Our Salvation:
The Nativity and Childhood of Jesus Christ (2019).
Grace signifies three things
in Scripture. If we understand what grace is, we will see that God’s
grace could not possibly be bestowed on the reprobate, that is, it could not be
common. Let us turn to what the Scriptures teach.
First, God’s grace is an attribute of God,
one of His glorious perfections. I Peter 5:10 calls Him “the God of all grace.”
Similarly, we read that there are treasured up in the Triune God “exceeding
riches of his grace” (Eph. 2:7). About Jesus, we read that, as the only
begotten of the Father, He is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). This means
that the source of all grace is God Himself and that all grace mediated to the
creature comes through Christ alone. Is “common grace,” then, also
mediated through Christ? How could that be, since the reprobate are not “in
Christ”? Grace has the root idea of beauty, charm or pleasantness. When we
speak of God’s grace, therefore, we mean that He is—utterly independent of the
creature, to whom He may or may not show grace according to His good
pleasure—the sum of all perfections, the God of beauty, charm and pleasantness.
The believer delights in this, desiring to “dwell in the house of the Lord all
the days of [his] life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and
to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4). God’s beauty is His grace.
Second, grace is favour. Although it comes
to us as so-called “undeserved favour,” grace itself is
simply favour. We know this because God favoured Jesus Christ, about
whom we cannot say that He received God’s undeserved favour.
“Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke
2:52). Moreover, we must not confuse the word “favour” with the word
“favourite,” as if God could only favour some, because having “favourites”
supposedly means that He must exclude others from His favour. A teacher might
favour everyone in the class, without showing favouritism or having favourites.
The teacher’s favour on some or all of the students is his attitude
toward them. God’s favour is free. Therefore, He may favour all, many, some,
few or even none, according to His good pleasure. If God had favour on none,
but cast all sinners into hell, He would still be the gracious God of all
grace. However, in that case, He would not have made His grace known.
That grace of God has “appeared” (Titus 2:11). God’s grace or favour, then, is
the beautiful, pleasant attitude of favour that God has for His people
who are creatures and sinners. When the Psalmist prays, “And let the beauty of
the Lord our God be upon us” (Ps. 90:17), he has God’s grace in mind. Let God’s
favour rest upon us! Does God’s favour rest on the reprobate? Certainly not,
for the Bible teaches that God’s wrath abides on them (John
3:36).
Third, grace is a power by which God works in
His people to conform them to the image of Jesus Christ. This third aspect is
not the focus in the “common grace” debate, so we can be more brief. Grace is
the power by which we live as Christians. Paul writes, “But by the grace of God
I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I
laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God
which was with me” (I Cor. 15:10). God’s grace laboured in Paul—it
was a power active in him. That same grace works in us, enabling us to live as
Christians, to fulfil the calling God has given to us and to endure the trials
that He has placed upon us. Elsewhere, Paul writes that God’s grace teaches us
and enables us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, that we should live soberly,
righteously and godly in this present world (Titus 2:12). Does “common grace”
do that? Do the reprobate live in a godly manner by the power of God’s (common)
grace? Only a fool would suggest it! Without God’s grace we can do nothing.
That is why we pray for grace, for “God will give His grace and Holy Spirit to
those only who with sincere desires continually ask them of Him, and are
thankful for them” (Heidelberg Catechism, A. 116). When God assures
Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee” (II Cor. 12:9), He does not
mean, “It is enough for thee that I am the sum of all perfections or it is
enough for thee that I am favourable to thee” but “the power of My grace, which
works in thee, is sufficient for thee to serve Me, even if I do not remove the
thorn from thy flesh.”
God’s grace is particular—that is, not all
men are recipients of it. “Common grace,” which some say is “extended to
everyone,” does not exist.
In addition, God’s grace is one and it is
rooted in election and the cross—the source of grace according to sacred
Scripture.
The first time the word “grace” is used in
Scripture is Genesis 6:8, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the
Lord.” While God’s wrath was directed against the whole of mankind and while He
determined to destroy them, God favoured Noah and his family. There is in
Genesis 6 no hint of common grace. The “but,” in verse 8, contrasts sharply
God’s attitude toward Noah with His attitude toward the wicked antediluvians.
When God caused His sun to rise upon the antediluvian world and when those
wicked people “were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage”
(Matt. 24:38), they did so without God’s favour upon them.
God’s elect eat, drink and enjoy His sunshine and rain with His blessing
upon them; but the reprobate wicked eat, drink and use God’s creation under His
wrath and with His curse upon them. Proverbs 3:33 teaches,
“The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he
blesseth the habitation of the just.” God does not curse those upon whom He is
gracious; and God does not bless those whom He curses. Blessing and cursing are
mutually exclusive: “For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and
they that be cursed of him shall be cut off” (Ps. 37:22). On the Last Day,
Christ will declare that His elect sheep are “blessed”—both in time and into
eternity—while the reprobate goats are “cursed”—both in time and into eternity (Matt.
25:34, 41, 46).
Something that all advocates of common grace miss
is that God’s grace is not in things but in His disposition behind
the things that He gives (Eccles. 9:1-2). God’s providence is
universal, not particular. God upholds and governs even the wicked by His hand.
God supplies even the wicked with the good gifts of this creation. Often, the
reprobate wicked enjoy more of God’s creation and for a longer time than do His
often-beleaguered children. But those good things are not in themselves grace.
God can give rain, sunshine, food and clothing graciously or in His
wrath (Num. 11:33). If God has a benevolent disposition of good will
toward a creature, in which He desires to bless that creature, we call that
good will “grace.” But God might also have a disposition of wrath against a
creature, in which He desires to curse that creature. Never can we call such a
disposition “grace.”
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For more on Scriptures’ definition of ‘grace,’ see
the following:
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