Eternal grace

What do you do when everything you’ve ever known or considered about grace suddenly flips itself on its head by a simple revelation? Consider the following:

2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Notice the phrase “…before the world began.” This means exactly what it says, no misinterpretation on the part of the translators. So, everything which comes before this phrase occurred before creation, before anything called earth, sky, sun, moon, stars, plants, mountains, oceans, fish, animals, and yes, humans ever manifested. So, what’s the big deal you’re possibly asking yourself. Look closely at just one of the things which were active during this period of development: His own purpose and (more specifically) grace.

Since the writings of Paul, we have been instructed that grace, and all its multi-faceted nature, has been given to mankind by Jesus Christ as a result of one thing, the fall of Adam. Everything which Christ Jesus accomplished in the finished works is wrapped up as a gift of God’s grace to us. Whatever our failings have been which have kept humanity from being able to be in the presence of the Father, Christ redeemed us by his grace. Notice the logic involved here: Something bad happened which caused separation and a remedy is brought forth to rectify the matter. Christ comes because man fell; or put another way, grace is only associated with doing something wrong.

Grace, the kind which comes from an eternal dimension, existed before there was ever a fall, or a wrong act committed; it existed before there was even a human to commit the act; it existed before there was even a planet for a human to be crafted from it who would then commit a wrong act upon it. Grace preceded every single transgression ever committed by mankind simply because it was fully working prior to the creation of all things.

Now don’t think that I’m trying to diminish the finished works of Christ’s grace because that is the farthest thing from what I’m considering. Since we’ve always associated grace with something bad transpiring, we’ve missed the simple fact that grace is there also when something is good.

In the second Genesis narrative (that is going to trip up a lot of you), God proclaims how the creation event is “good” during certain days. Because we’ve never considered the possibility of grace being there in these moments, we just assume that it had no role in God’s goodness. I know that seems like a rather odd thought since we’re always proclaimed that the grace of God has been a part of his goodness. Yet, this proclamation was founded on something bad. The truth is that grace is there in every condition; you can’t turn it on only when you need it simply because it’s always been on.

This leaves us then with a mystery. If grace has always been on, even before creation needed it, what makes the works of Jesus such a special indulgence of God’s grace? Yup, now we’re cooking with gas!