CRYSTALLIZATION-STUDY OF THE GOSPEL OF GOD
in the Epistle to the Romans

Message Nineteen

The Grace of God
(1)

OUTLINE

1. Among the eight writers who participated in the unveiling of the divine revelation in the New Testament concerning the grace of God, three are particular, that is, John, Paul, and Peter.
2. In John’s writings:
   1. In the unveiling of God the Father being life in the Son as the Spirit to the believers, John begins his writings with the grace which came with Christ in His incarnation (John 1:14-17) and ends with the grace as the consummation not only of his writings but also of the entire Scriptures (Rev. 22:21).
   2. This indicates that in the accomplishment of His eternal economy, God commences it in His incarnation by coming to be a man as the grace to the believers. Hence, grace is the Triune God in His incarnation to be dispensed to the believers by the Father as the source, by the Son as the element, and by the Spirit as the application (2 Cor. 13:14). So, in this dispensing of God, the grace is called the grace of God (1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 1:12; 8:1; 9:14), the grace of Christ (2 Cor. 8:9; 12:9; 13:14), and the grace of which the Spirit is (Heb. 10:29).
3. In Peter’s writings, the grace of God is presented as:
   1. The grace that multiplies in the believers’ daily life in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus their Lord—1 Pet. 1:2; 2 Pet. 1:2.
   2. The grace of life that is the inheritance of all the believers, whether strong or weak—1 Pet. 3:7.
   3. The varied grace of God that indicates the riches of the grace of God in its varieties ministered by the saints one to another—4:10.
   4. The all grace by which God, who has called the believers into His eternal glory, perfects, establishes, strengthens, and grounds them through their sufferings—5:10.
   5. The true grace of God that is the all grace of God in verse 10, into which the believers should enter and in which they should stand—5:12.
4. In his writings, Paul unveils to us that the grace of God is:
   1. The grace for the enablement of the apostles— Rom. 1:5.
   2. The grace for the believers’ living—Rom. 1:7 and in the beginning of all his other Epistles except Hebrews.
   3. The grace by which we are justified freely through the redemption in Christ Jesus—3:24.
   4. The grace versus wages in God’s accounting for His justification of the believers—4:4.
   5. The grace for the believers to inherit the promise of God, going along with faith—4:16.
   6. The grace into which the believers have entered and in which they stand—5:2.
   7. The abounding grace of God in which is the free gift of Christ—5:15, 20; 6:1.
   8. The grace that enables the believers to reign (as a king) in life—5:17.
   9. The grace that may reign through righteousness unto eternal life—5:21.
   10. The grace that constitutes the dispensation of the New Testament, which is separated from the dispensation of the law of the Old Testament, and under which the believers are to overcome sin’s lording it over them—6:14-15.
   11. The grace by which God selected His people and which is versus works—11:5-6.
   12. The grace by which the apostles carried out their ministry—12:3; 15:15.
   13. The grace according to which the gifts are distributed to the believers; hence, grace is the basis of the gifts—12:6; cf. Eph. 4:7.
   14. The grace which is the enjoyment of God by the believers, under whose feet God will crush Satan— 16:20.

Before going over the outline of this message, I would like to speak an opening word to help us understand the intrinsic significance of the grace of God.

A number of Christians think that grace is God’s blessing. When a grandfather considers his grandson, he may say, “Oh, what a grace!” Another person may say, “Today in our business, we have become somewhat rich. Oh, what a grace!” There is a hymn which says, “Count your blessings, name them one by one; / Count your blessings, see what God hath done” (Hymns, #707). Some Chinese translators of this hymn translated blessing into “grace.” This is a wrong translation. For years I tried to gain the proper understanding of the grace of God. One day the Lord showed me that grace is the processed and consummated Triune God Himself. Grace is God processed and consummated for us that we may enjoy Him. From the day that I saw this, the light and revelation concerning grace has been continually increasing.

In God’s New Testament economy, grace is the top revelation. John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, not full of blessing, but full of grace and reality. Verse 17 says that the law was given through Moses, but grace came. The word came indicates that grace is personified. Grace came through Jesus Christ. God’s incarnation, which was the coming of grace, is the biggest revelation concerning God’s economy. John 1 tells us that God’s incarnation was His coming. Verse 14 says He was incarnated, becoming flesh. Then verse 17 says that grace came through Him. Grace is the processed and consummated Triune God.

In the Old Testament grace was spoken of quite a few times, but in the Old Testament sense, which was low in standard and could not be compared with the grace mentioned in the New Testament in the sense of God’s New Testament economy.

In the sense of God’s New Testament economy, grace denotes the contents of the eternal economy of God for the producing of the Body of Christ which will consummate in the New Jerusalem. Hence, grace presented to us in the New Testament is much, much higher in standard than that in the Old Testament. This grace in the New Testament sense begins with the incarnation of God for the accomplishment of His eternal economy. In John 1:14 and 17, this New Testament grace came at the incarnation of God. Before the Lord’s incarnation, in the Old Testament, God had never come into man to be man’s life and nature, so in this sense there was not such a grace in the Old Testament time.

The New Testament unveils to us that grace is the Triune God coming into us as our life, as our everything, and as our enjoyment through His processes. After passing through the necessary processes, He was consummated.

When the Divine Trinity passed through the processes and was consummated, the Spirit was among the three. We should not think that it was only the Son of God who was incarnated. The complete God was incarnated. First Timothy 3:16 says that God was manifested in the flesh. God is the complete God, not just the Son, but the Son with the Father and the Spirit. According to our study of the Bible, the Spirit, through the necessary processes, was consummated as the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) coming into His believers to be their life, nature, and everything. Thus, grace is the biggest truth, the biggest revelation, in God’s New Testament economy. It is as great as God’s incarnation. When God was incarnated, He became grace to us. John 1:14 says that God was incarnated. Then verse 17 says that grace came through Him.

In order to enter into the intrinsic significance of grace, we need to see one point which is very crucial. According to the entire Bible, God does not want us to do anything for our salvation, to do something to please Him. Instead, God says that we must stop ourselves. The principle of the Sabbath is for us to stop ourselves, not do anything, and let God be everything to us and do everything for us. He is everything to us, does everything for us, and will do everything for us. God wants man to be saved, but man should not try to save himself. This is an offense and an insult to God. God would say, “Man, do you think you can work out your salvation by yourself? Don’t you know that in the whole universe only I, God, can work out a salvation? Not only so, I, God, can be your salvation. I don’t want you to do something. I want you to rest and let Me do something for you.” This is grace.

This understanding of grace corresponds with Hebrews 11:6, which says, “He who comes forward to God must believe that He is.” We have to believe that He is and we are not. He is the Savior; we are not. Christ, the embodiment of God, is our sanctification; we are not. This is why we must not touch the work of God’s salvation. In God’s salvation, we are not. We are nothing, but God is everything, and this everything is grace. God is everything to us, God does everything for us, and God will do everything for us for eternity. This is grace. Grace is God Himself as everything to us.

In these days we have seen the high peak of the divine revelation. This high peak is that God became a man that man might become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead. How can we become God in life and in nature? We are like turtles and God is like an eagle. Can a turtle make himself an eagle? In His old creation, God created man in His image, but this man did not have God’s life, nature, or intrinsic constitution. Man was a photo of God with God’s image outwardly but without His life and nature inwardly. Eventually, God was processed by becoming a man and then being consummated to be the life-giving Spirit. He as the life-giving Spirit came into us as life to enliven and regenerate us. Regeneration is God’s remaking, God’s re-creation. As the processed and consummated Triune God, He came into us to be our life.

The consummated Triune God is different from the original Triune God. From eternity to His incarnation, He remained as God only, without the human nature. He was merely God not man. He had not yet passed through human life, death, and resurrection. From His incarnation to His resurrection, it was only about thirty-three and a half years, but in this short period of time God accomplished many great things, making Himself absolutely different from what He was before His incarnation. Before His incarnation He was only the Triune God with the divine nature. But He became a man and put on the human nature. He passed through human living, an all-inclusive death to solve all the problems and redeem us, and an all-conquering resurrection. Through this thirty-three-and-a-half-year process and consummation, He is now compounded with human nature, human living, death, and resurrection. Now He has become such a God! On the one hand, He is God; on the other hand, He is man with the experiences of human life, a wonderful death, and an all-conquering resurrection. Now this processed and consummated God enters into us as grace to regenerate us, making us a new creation.