The grace of God in His economy is His embodiment. God became flesh that He may enter into man and be mingled with man as one; this is Emmanuel. He is the God-man; He is God yet man, and man yet God. God and man became one in Him. This Emmanuel, the incarnated God, is grace for man’s enjoyment (John 1:1, 14). Here we have One who was God becoming man, who was called Emmanuel and who was also called Jesus. He is grace. I hope that we all can see this revelation and vision. What is grace? Grace is the embodied God. First, God as the Father was embodied in the Son, and then the Son was realized as the life-giving Spirit. This Spirit enters into us as grace for our enjoyment.
We must see what grace is. Grace is the embodiment of God, who became a God-man with divinity and humanity, passed through human living, died, resurrected, and entered into ascension. Now He has become the life-giving Spirit and is dwelling in us today. Therefore, 2 Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit,” and then it says, “Grace be with you.” The Lord being with our spirit equals grace being with us. The Lord as grace is for us to receive and enjoy as our supply and experience.
This grace came through Jesus Christ; hence, it is the grace of Christ (John 1:17b; 2 Cor. 8:9a; 13:14a). In Greek, expressions such as the grace of Christ and the love of God are appositions. Grace and Christ, Christ and grace—the two are one. The grace of Christ does not mean that Christ is Christ and grace is grace; rather, it means that Christ is grace. Likewise, the love of God does not mean that outside of God there is something called love; rather, it means that God is love. This is the sense in 2 Corinthians 13:14, where the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are mentioned. God is love, Christ is grace, and the Holy Spirit is fellowship.
The first three stanzas of Hymns, #497 read as follows:
Grace in its highest definition is
God in the Son to be enjoyed by us;
It is not only something done or giv’n,
But God Himself, our portion glorious.
God is incarnate in the flesh that we
Him may receive, experience ourself;
This is the grace which we receive of God,
Which comes thru Christ and which is Christ Himself.
Paul the Apostle counted all as dung,
’Twas only God in Christ he counted grace;
’Tis by this grace—the Lord experienced—
That he surpassed the others in the race.
Grace to the apostle Paul was God in Christ. Can we also say that grace to us is God in Christ? I hope that we all can see that grace to us is God in Christ. All other things are not grace: neither wives nor husbands, neither sons nor daughters, neither properties nor bank accounts, neither education nor position. All these are not grace to us. Only God in Christ is grace to us. If we lose this Christ, we lose everything of grace. If we gain this Christ, He is everything of grace.
I hope that we all can see this matter. God has no intention to put us under the law; His intention is to put us in His grace. Today we are those who have received grace, which is the Triune God, which is the Father given to us in the Son, and which is the Son realized as the Spirit dwelling in our spirit. The Spirit dwelling in us is the practical grace. This is grace; we live this and we live by this. Apart from this, we can do nothing and we have nothing.