According to 1 Peter 2:19-20, if you suffer unrighteous persecution as a believer or if you endure suffering while you are doing good, what you do is grace with God. With God means before God, in the eyes of God. Note 1 of 1 Peter 2:19 says, “Grace here refers to the motivation of the divine life within us and its expression in our living, which becomes in our behavior gracious and acceptable in the eyes of both man and God (v. 20).” When we suffer persecution while we are doing good, this is grace with God, because this is something motivated by the divine life within us and expressed in our living. Such a condition is gracious and acceptable before God and man. It is sweet and beautiful in the eyes of God because it is grace.
First Peter 5:5 says, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” We must learn to be humble and not proud. If we are proud, God rejects us. If we are humble, God will give us grace. This grace is not a new car or any material thing, but God Himself. If we are humble, God will give Himself as grace to us. If we are proud, He will resist us. Grace is free. Anything that is given at a cost is not grace.
Second Peter 3:18 says that we need to grow in grace. Grace is God Himself with divinity processed through incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. All these elements of grace are within us to be one with us. Grace is God Himself as our life to be one with us, to save us, to make His home in us, and to be formed in us. We need to grow in such a grace for His glory today and unto the day of eternity. Second Peter 3:18 is the concluding word of the apostle Peter’s writings, indicating that whatever he has written is of, in, by, and through the grace of God. This finishes the gleaning of the field of God’s grace in Peter’s writings.
Now we come to the gleanings in John’s writings. In the Gospel of John there is one verse which is very critical. That is John 1:16: “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” In God’s New Testament economy, we receive grace upon grace. When I was young, I heard someone say that the grace of God upon us is like the waves of the ocean. Grace upon grace is like wave upon wave. Gradually, however, I realized that grace upon grace is the fullness of the riches of grace.
We need to see the difference between the riches and the fullness. The fullness is the overflowing, the expression, of the riches. If a cup contains much water, it has the riches of water. But these riches cannot be seen until the cup is overflowing with water. The overflowing is the fullness of the riches. God’s grace is not only rich but rich to overflowing. That is the fullness, the expression of the riches. Grace came with Christ, and this grace is not only rich but also overflows.
We may be rich and yet not have the fullness. The grace in the New Testament began with the incarnation of Christ, and that grace has the fullness. It is rich to the extent that it overflows. The grace which we the believers have received in the New Testament is rich unto its fullness, which is the expression of the overflowing riches which we have received in Christ through the Spirit for the accomplishment of God the Father’s New Testament economy, which is His eternal economy. God’s eternal economy is accomplished according to His New Testament economy by grace.