Finding Grace - A Case Against Irresistible Grace

[Al Touthentop]

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:8)​

What is Grace? It is often taught to be a magical power that is bestowed on us by God; the very source of regeneration itself. There are some who preach that God’s grace is reserved only for certain people. Some of these same preachers slice up grace into different categories including one labeled, ‘actual grace’ which one receives as an infusion from God, like a medical treatment, whereby men are afterward capable of acting in cooperation with God’s will; where before they had no capability to even choose obedience to God.

If you dive into some of the dry theological writings on this, you might start to get a headache trying to figure out the difference between ‘operational grace,’ ‘actual grace,’ and any of the other categories of God’s grace which according to these authors exist, yet are never once mentioned by God in the Bible.

What is Grace according to the Bible? And who gets grace? Is it just a few people? Or is it everyone?

The word grace in Greek χαρισ (charis) - means favor or blessing. Our English word charisma comes from that word and we use it to speak of the kind of people who are attractive in some way. Not necessarily in the sense of beauty but in a sort of magnetism they possess. A person with charisma is said to draw people to them. Usually by means of their personality and sometimes their beauty. Hitler was not a handsome man but he was known to be very charismatic. We also translate grace as mercy.

The Hebrew word translated grace חן (hhen), has a very interesting background that is too long to detail here. Basically, it means to provide protection but has many other definitions besides security. Where it is found in the Old Testament it is translated as ‘grace’, ‘mercy’, ‘gracious,’ ‘precious’ and ‘favor.’

God’s grace, his favor, his protection, his mercy, is often preached as if it were something other than charisma, something that draws us to him, and more like a charm or spell; supernatural in its essence. And before a person can receive this magic spell, he has to be one of the elect. If he isn’t one of the elect, he’s barred from every category of God’s grace.

But what does the Bible teach about it? Is man capable of choosing God without supernatural, magic, or ‘actual’ grace?

The short answer is no, but not because of what we are often led to believe.

God’s grace existed from the very beginning. Adam and Eve were given grace. They fell because they coveted what God told them they couldn’t have, fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Even though they had grace - their very lives and their sustenance - they decided it wasn’t enough. They sinned. They disobeyed God’s command. That’s what sin is, another word that is often misrepresented.

God gives every man grace and always has. Your very life is proof of God’s grace. But he also gave us minds and wills which allow us to reason and choose. God favored us with those qualities and then he made it clear that he provides salvation to those who choose him.

Though it is often taught that Adam passed on his sin “nature” to successive generations, the Bible doesn’t teach this. It is man’s doctrine, wholly unsupported by scripture which tries to convince us that Adam passed along a virus-like quality that infects us all and prevents us from choosing to obey God’s will.

But what does the Bible really tell us?

When Cain and Able were of a certain age, each brought God an offering from the fruits of their labors. God respected Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. This made Cain angry and prior to Abel’s murder, God said to him, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you but you should rule over it.” (Genesis 4:7)

God tells Cain, who has not offered up what God had prescribed as acceptable, that he has the ability to rule over sin’s desire for him. Note that he didn’t describe Cain’s offering as sin. Cain, who was Adam’s seed, can, according to God’s decree, become accepted by doing well. Now Cain already had the grace of God upon him but his covetousness ended up getting the best of him. He failed to rule over the sin God told him he should control. Not only is the concept of original sin totally rejected in this account, but also is the idea that a man cannot obey God without a supply of supernatural grace. God himself let Cain know that he had power to rule over sin. He had his own will that could be conformed to God’s if only he ruled over it.

A few chapters later, we read of Noah. By this time, he whole world has fallen into sin, except for one man.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:8)

Having read this passage many times, it was only recently that I noticed the significance of the grammar used. The actor in this passage is not God, but Noah. It was Noah who found grace in God’s eyes. Noah was in God’s sight, as was everyone. God’s sight was not limited to Noah, he saw the sin of men and found it deplorable. But neither was God’s grace limited to Noah. All men had received grace, but it was only Noah who discovered that grace and allowed it to influence his decisions. God noticed this, and then gave Noah some commands, which he obeyed.

So Noah saw God’s grace, and it was afterward we are told what God witnessed. What did God see, and when did he see it?

“Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did. Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.’” (Genesis 6:22,7:1)

It should be obvious that Noah, who found the grace of God through his own observation and reason, had both the motive and the will to obey God’s commands. And just like we read of Abraham, God counted him righteous as a result of his obedience.

God’s grace was extended to all mankind but it was only one man at this point in time who recognized it and who considered it reasonable to serve God in response. The grace he found wasn’t magic dust or a supernatural motivation, it was the blessings he had received and credited to God.

What about the Gospel? The gospel is God’s grace also. But it isn’t the only grace. God provides many blessings to both the righteous and unrighteous. The point of giving mankind grace is that they might, like Noah, find this grace and act accordingly.

John calls the gospel grace, surpassing the grace God already gave the world, both sinner and saved.

“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:16,17)

What came through Jesus Christ? Grace. And not just the grace of the Gospel. John opens his gospel account explaining that not one thing was made without Jesus. So all of creation is itself the result of God’s grace. Then he supplied grace on top of grace.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

Paul explains that it is the failure to recognize God’s grace which causes him to fall into sin.

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.” (Romans 1:20-23)

Their lack of recognition, their inability to find God’s grace in the obvious blessings they were given, caused them to became futile in their thoughts. Note that it doesn’t say that it was some inborn nature that caused them problems. It was their unwillingness to appreciate God for the grace he already had given them.

Paul was talking to a mixed audience (Jews and Gentiles) in his letter to the Romans. To the Gentiles he preached the same sentiment.

“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; “ (Acts 17:26,27)

What does Paul tell us should cause man to seek God? The blessing of his creation. The grace he bestowed upon us at the foundation of the world, even before the gospel was delivered. Every man was and is given this grace and God intended man to discover it for himself; to realize that it is evidence of God’s nearness to us.

What does God’s grace do besides bless us? It draws us to him. Or it’s supposed to anyway. If you think that it is some sort of supernatural power, then your responsibility in this process is nil. Sit back, do nothing and allow God to draw you to him through magic grace dust.

Problem is, as we see from Noah’s explicit example, it is we who are to find this grace and respond to it. It is not God’s responsibility to cause us to act, having already given us grace. Our responsibility is to find or discover grace and then act upon it. The grace God has given should be sufficient for that purpose. The person who claims it isn’t enough has already fallen into sin by his covetousness..

 

[1213]

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:8)​

What is Grace?

I have understood from Bible description that it means mercy (compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm).

 

[Soyeong]

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:8)​

What is Grace? It is often taught to be a magical power that is bestowed on us by God; the very source of regeneration itself. There are some who preach that God’s grace is reserved only for certain people. Some of these same preachers slice up grace into different categories including one labeled, ‘actual grace’ which one receives as an infusion from God, like a medical treatment, whereby men are afterward capable of acting in cooperation with God’s will; where before they had no capability to even choose obedience to God.

If you dive into some of the dry theological writings on this, you might start to get a headache trying to figure out the difference between ‘operational grace,’ ‘actual grace,’ and any of the other categories of God’s grace which according to these authors exist, yet are never once mentioned by God in the Bible.

What is Grace according to the Bible? And who gets grace? Is it just a few people? Or is it everyone?

The word grace in Greek χαρισ (charis) - means favor or blessing. Our English word charisma comes from that word and we use it to speak of the kind of people who are attractive in some way. Not necessarily in the sense of beauty but in a sort of magnetism they possess. A person with charisma is said to draw people to them. Usually by means of their personality and sometimes their beauty. Hitler was not a handsome man but he was known to be very charismatic. We also translate grace as mercy.

The Hebrew word translated grace חן (hhen), has a very interesting background that is too long to detail here. Basically, it means to provide protection but has many other definitions besides security. Where it is found in the Old Testament it is translated as ‘grace’, ‘mercy’, ‘gracious,’ ‘precious’ and ‘favor.’

God’s grace, his favor, his protection, his mercy, is often preached as if it were something other than charisma, something that draws us to him, and more like a charm or spell; supernatural in its essence. And before a person can receive this magic spell, he has to be one of the elect. If he isn’t one of the elect, he’s barred from every category of God’s grace.

But what does the Bible teach about it? Is man capable of choosing God without supernatural, magic, or ‘actual’ grace?

The short answer is no, but not because of what we are often led to believe.

God’s grace existed from the very beginning. Adam and Eve were given grace. They fell because they coveted what God told them they couldn’t have, fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Even though they had grace - their very lives and their sustenance - they decided it wasn’t enough. They sinned. They disobeyed God’s command. That’s what sin is, another word that is often misrepresented.

God gives every man grace and always has. Your very life is proof of God’s grace. But he also gave us minds and wills which allow us to reason and choose. God favored us with those qualities and then he made it clear that he provides salvation to those who choose him.

Though it is often taught that Adam passed on his sin “nature” to successive generations, the Bible doesn’t teach this. It is man’s doctrine, wholly unsupported by scripture which tries to convince us that Adam passed along a virus-like quality that infects us all and prevents us from choosing to obey God’s will.

But what does the Bible really tell us?

When Cain and Able were of a certain age, each brought God an offering from the fruits of their labors. God respected Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. This made Cain angry and prior to Abel’s murder, God said to him, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you but you should rule over it.” (Genesis 4:7)

God tells Cain, who has not offered up what God had prescribed as acceptable, that he has the ability to rule over sin’s desire for him. Note that he didn’t describe Cain’s offering as sin. Cain, who was Adam’s seed, can, according to God’s decree, become accepted by doing well. Now Cain already had the grace of God upon him but his covetousness ended up getting the best of him. He failed to rule over the sin God told him he should control. Not only is the concept of original sin totally rejected in this account, but also is the idea that a man cannot obey God without a supply of supernatural grace. God himself let Cain know that he had power to rule over sin. He had his own will that could be conformed to God’s if only he ruled over it.

A few chapters later, we read of Noah. By this time, he whole world has fallen into sin, except for one man.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:8)

Having read this passage many times, it was only recently that I noticed the significance of the grammar used. The actor in this passage is not God, but Noah. It was Noah who found grace in God’s eyes. Noah was in God’s sight, as was everyone. God’s sight was not limited to Noah, he saw the sin of men and found it deplorable. But neither was God’s grace limited to Noah. All men had received grace, but it was only Noah who discovered that grace and allowed it to influence his decisions. God noticed this, and then gave Noah some commands, which he obeyed.

So Noah saw God’s grace, and it was afterward we are told what God witnessed. What did God see, and when did he see it?

“Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did. Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.’” (Genesis 6:22,7:1)

It should be obvious that Noah, who found the grace of God through his own observation and reason, had both the motive and the will to obey God’s commands. And just like we read of Abraham, God counted him righteous as a result of his obedience.

God’s grace was extended to all mankind but it was only one man at this point in time who recognized it and who considered it reasonable to serve God in response. The grace he found wasn’t magic dust or a supernatural motivation, it was the blessings he had received and credited to God.

What about the Gospel? The gospel is God’s grace also. But it isn’t the only grace. God provides many blessings to both the righteous and unrighteous. The point of giving mankind grace is that they might, like Noah, find this grace and act accordingly.

John calls the gospel grace, surpassing the grace God already gave the world, both sinner and saved.

“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:16,17)

What came through Jesus Christ? Grace. And not just the grace of the Gospel. John opens his gospel account explaining that not one thing was made without Jesus. So all of creation is itself the result of God’s grace. Then he supplied grace on top of grace.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

Paul explains that it is the failure to recognize God’s grace which causes him to fall into sin.

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.” (Romans 1:20-23)

Their lack of recognition, their inability to find God’s grace in the obvious blessings they were given, caused them to became futile in their thoughts. Note that it doesn’t say that it was some inborn nature that caused them problems. It was their unwillingness to appreciate God for the grace he already had given them.

Paul was talking to a mixed audience (Jews and Gentiles) in his letter to the Romans. To the Gentiles he preached the same sentiment.

“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; “ (Acts 17:26,27)

What does Paul tell us should cause man to seek God? The blessing of his creation. The grace he bestowed upon us at the foundation of the world, even before the gospel was delivered. Every man was and is given this grace and God intended man to discover it for himself; to realize that it is evidence of God’s nearness to us.

What does God’s grace do besides bless us? It draws us to him. Or it’s supposed to anyway. If you think that it is some sort of supernatural power, then your responsibility in this process is nil. Sit back, do nothing and allow God to draw you to him through magic grace dust.

Problem is, as we see from Noah’s explicit example, it is we who are to find this grace and respond to it. It is not God’s responsibility to cause us to act, having already given us grace. Our responsibility is to find or discover grace and then act upon it. The grace God has given should be sufficient for that purpose. The person who claims it isn’t enough has already fallen into sin by his covetousness..

The existence of sin requires there to be a standard of what is and is not sin, that standard is God's law, and God is gracious to us by drawing us to him through teaching us to obey that standard. In Psalms 119:29, David wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law. In Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, which is essentially what God’s law was given to instruct how to do. In Romans 1:5, we have received grace in order to bring about the obedience of faith. Strong's defines grace as "the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life" and when God's will is reflected in our lives, it takes the form of obedience to His law (Psalms 40:8). So grace is the power of God to overcome lawlessness in our lives and it is by grace that God teaches us to obey His law.

In Genesis 4:7, God told Cain that sin was couching at the door, which implies that Cain already knew what sin is because God had been gracious to him by teaching him to obey that standard. He also most likely was instructed in regard to how to make offerings, it was a sin for him to hate his brother, and was treated in accordance with Deuteronomy 19's instructions for how to treat someone who accidentally commit manslaughter.

Likewise, in Genesis 6:8-9, it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of God and that he was a righteous man, which implies that he was taught by grace how to do what was righteous and that he was righteous because he obeyed those instructions through faith, especially because he was listed as an example of faith (Hebrews 11:7). Likewise, in Genesis 7:2, he was given instructions for what to do with clean and unclean animals without being told how to tell the difference and in 8:20, he knew to offer a clean animal, so again we can see evidence of him having being taught to obey that standard.

 

[Al Touthentop]

Likewise, in Genesis 6:8-9, it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of God and that he was a righteous man, which implies that he was taught by grace how to do what was righteous and that he was righteous because he obeyed those instructions through faith, especially because he was listed as an example of faith (Hebrews 11:7). Likewise, in Genesis 7:2, he was given instructions for what to do with clean and unclean animals without being told how to tell the difference and in 8:20, he knew to offer a clean animal, so again we can see evidence of him having being taught to obey that standard.

Well you are saying something I believe in a different way, but I agree with you. The teachings and the commands are themselves grace. Commands are "given." That's a gift. When a platoon leader gives his privates a command that will save their lives in battle, he has provided grace. He gave them life saving commands. That is grace by definition.