Hi Everyone-
I hope you're having a lovely fall day. Something I found amazing in my research is that with two words, "grace" and "peace", Paul effectively sums up his take on Christianity, his gospel or theology so to speak. According to Paul, grace and peace comes from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. With that in mind, Gordon Fee writes, " In a sense this sums up the whole of Paul's theological outlook. The sum total of all God's activity toward his human creatures is found in the word 'grace' ... Nothing is deserved; nothing can be achieved. 'Tis mercy all, immense and free.' And the sum total of those benefits as they are experienced by the recipients of God's grace are found in the word 'peace,' meaning 'well-being, wholeness, welfare.' The one flows out of the other, and both together flow from 'God our Father ... and we're made effective in human history through our 'Lord Jesus Christ.'" That's just the summary though ...
First, Paul is highly Christ-centric. In other words, for him, everything revolves around Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. We see God most fully and clearly through Jesus. It is the free, undeserved gift (i.e. grace) of Jesus on the Cross from which we get peace with God, ourselves, and each other.
Before Jesus, the Israelites were the chosen people, God's people, which excluded quite a few others. However, through Jesus Jew and Gentile come together and are both made God's children. He captures this within "grace" and "peace" in that charis ("grace") is his spin on the common Greek greeting of that day (chairein), while eirene ("peace") is the Jewish greeting (they said shalom in Hebrew, eirene was the Greek translation). Grace (Gentile) and peace (Jew) together through God.
They also show his eschatology (a fancy word for the end times), which says in short that heaven starts now. Paul's greeting of grace and peace is also a prayer and a wish. He is saying the readers have grace and peace now, but he is praying for more in the future; a future that will one day be completely fulfilled in the resurrection.
Foundational to all this is grace as a free, undeserved gift. We declared war on God through choosing to sin, but Jesus died for us, forgave our sins anyway. We didn't deserve it, but He loves us so much He did it regardless. But, this grace doesn't just end with "saving" us, it transforms us. God's grace gets into our bones, and by changing who we are makes us live out grace to everyone around us. Again, heaven starts now.
So, I say ...
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
Lang
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I like Paul's work in his letter to the Ephesians. He calls believers to repudiate the behavior of those whose minds are blind to gospel truth, those whose wills are bent on evil rather than good.
ReplyDelete[Ephesians 4: [17] This then I say and testify in the Lord: That henceforward you walk not as also the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, [18] Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts. [19] Who despairing, have given themselves up to lasciviousness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto covetousness. [20] But you have not so learned Christ;
[21] If so be that you have heard him, and have been taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus: [22] To put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error. [23] And be renewed in the spirit of your mind: [24] And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.
He continues with instruction on how to live this new life:
[25] Wherefore putting away lying, speak; ye the truth every man with his neighbour; for we are members one of another.
[26] Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. [27] Give not place to the devil. [28] He that stole, let him now steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have something to give to him that suffereth need. [29] Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth; but that which is good, to the edification of faith, that it may administer grace to the hearers. [30] And grieve not the holy Spirit of God: whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.
I think that this is beautiful because it shows how God calls us to be part of His divine plan. We are called to be witnesses to the Truth and to help God bring grace to those that would hear us. Awesome!