Foundations for a Christian Worldview: God (6)

“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 7.6-8

Why?
One of the most pressing questions any worldview must consider is, “Why is there anything rather than nothing?” Put another way, “What reason can we proffer to explain the existence of the cosmos and everything in it?”

A second and more personal turn to that question also arises: “Why me?” To the ancient people of Israel, freshly delivered from the bondage of Egypt and poised to claim the land of promise for themselves, the question might have taken the form, “Why us?”

The answer to all these questions is the same: The Three-in-One, eternal, holy, and sovereign God is gracious. Moved by nothing more than His own love, God made the world to share in His goodness and refract His glory. By grace alone, God made human beings, and gave them dominion over all creation, to serve, cultivate, develop, and guard it for good (Gen. 2.15). And out of His unfathomable and mysterious grace, God chose Israel to be His holy people, and to bear witness to His wisdom, understanding, justice, and love to the rest of the world.

The world exists, people exist and have a purpose in the world, and a chosen people knows, loves, and serves the sovereign God Who redeems them, because of the grace of God.

What is grace?

The idea of grace is not well understood, even by many who have come to realize its saving power. Its importance in the divine program emerges, like everything else in the Christian worldview, in the Law of God. Moses tells us that “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Gen. 6.8). Moses understood himself to have found grace in the sight of the LORD (Ex. 33.13), as had the people he led out of Egypt (Ex. 33.16). On the basis of that grace, Moses pled with God to maintain His Presence with him and the people of Israel, that they might realize their calling as a holy people (Ex. 33.16). God is gracious (Ex. 22.7), and He informed Moses that the exercise of His grace was entirely a matter of His own prerogative, that He shows it to whom He will and withholds it from whom He will (Ex. 33.19). That the people of Israel might always remember that God is gracious, He gave a special blessing to pronounce over the people, as part of their worship of Him (Num. 6.24-26):

“The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”

Moses’ calling and Israel’s redemption were the result of God’s grace. But what is grace?

Grace has two components. First, grace is a disposition in God to extend His favor and goodness to the things He has made. Second, grace is the peculiar power of God which brings His goodness to bear on things. What God looks upon with favor, He then acts toward for good. 

We must say just a bit more: God’s grace can be distinguished as applying, in one sense, to everything He has made – all creation and all people. We may think of this as God’s common grace, in that He looks favorably upon and extends His goodness to all creatures in common.

But God’s grace reaches to certain people in a saving way, as with the people of Israel. These are people whom, in the sovereign determination of God, He is disposed toward and actually saves for Himself to be a holy people. We refer to this manifestation of God’s grace as His saving grace. 

The grace of God is the love with which He looks upon and acts toward His creation, and especially toward His people.

God’s grace to Israel
God did not need the world, but He made it. He made it and it was very good to Him; therefore, it must have reflected Him. The world thus knows a measure of the pleasure and fulfillment that exist in the Three-in-One God. Out of His love for all He has made, God the Creator and Sovereign extends to helpless creatures the experience of His goodness – the experience of Himself. God’s common grace is at work in the world still.

Out of His redeeming love, God called a man to be the father of many nations (Gen. 12.1-3). In love God entered into a covenant with this man and his seed, and in love He took it upon Himself to fulfill that covenant in all that it requires (Gen. 15; cf. Rom. 4.13-18). From that one man, a people descended on whom God set His love unto their redemption. In love He sustained them through the wilderness, and spread before them a good land to be the temporal staging-ground for the next stage of covenant blessing. 

In love God gave His Law to this people so that they, like creation before the fall, might enter into His goodness and love, and live in holiness and love toward Him and their neighbors.

The God of the Law of God is a God of love; the worldview promulgated in that Law is, first, unto holiness, and, at the same time, unto love – for God, as of first importance, and for our neighbors as ourselves. 

We do not truly understand the worldview of God’s Law if we do not embrace and experience it as a worldview expressive of God Himself – a worldview of love. For the God of the Law is a gracious God.

Questions for reflection
1. How would you explain the concept of grace to an unbelieving friend?

2. What do we mean by the term, common grace? Give some examples. 

3. Why must we begin with the Law of God if we want to understand His grace and love?

Next steps – Preparation: Spend some time meditating on all the ways God reaches you with His grace each day. Offer Him praise and thanks for each one.

T. M. Moore

The Christian worldview focuses on Jesus. Do you know Him? Our book, To Know Him, can help you answer that question confidently, and equip you to tell others about Jesus as well. Order your copy by clicking here. For a handy compendium of the laws, statutes, and precepts contained in the Law of God, grouped according to the Ten Commandments, order our book, The Law of God, by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.