Hope Fully On Grace

Justifying faith is a grace that "worketh not" but simply trusts, rests, and leans on Christ (Rom. 4:5). Sanctifying faith is a grace of which the very life is action: it "worketh by love," and, like a main-spring, moves the whole inward man (Gal. 5:6). J.C. Ryle

I changed my blog title a little while ago to better indicate a change of focus in my life and my journalings. What I love about the verse in 1 Peter is that it connects grace with action. This idea has always seemed suspect to me since I have always been taught that we are saved by grace and not by works. After reading J.C. Ryle and particularly his quote above, I have learned that this is a different kind of grace that is being talked about in 1 Peter. It is sanctifying grace as opposed to justifying grace. The setting of our hope fully on God's grace is connected to the part earlier in the sentence which gives a prefix for the way or the context in which we are to set our hope fully on grace. "Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded..."

For the longest time I have been confused and largely ignorant of the distinction that Ryle makes in the quote above. I would read in so many passages how works count for nothing but then read in other passages that faith without works is dead, that we must run the race with perseverance, and that we must put on the full armour of God. All these latter images indicate that a great amount of striving and effort is required in following Christ. Sadly, so many times I would cease from such strivings for fear that I was being puffed up with pride and attempting to earn my salvation. It is a valid concern, no doubt, and perhaps it is very simply placed as one of the very first subjects of our striving, that is, for a child of God to train his mind not to let his strivings spill over into his view of his own justification and righteousness before God. Such righteousness is already secured by Christ and such a reality must be trained and secured in the mind. Once secure, it gradually becomes more of a joy to strive and work hard to fight sin, knowing that it is God's grace that supplies and sustains through it all. We become more amazed and humbled by God's grace the harder and longer that we work by love.

J.C. Ryle, when talking about past believers, points out that, "The more grace they have had, the more they have been "clothed with humility" (1 Pet. 5:5). Both justifying grace and sanctifying grace are equally humbling. Sanctifying grace, even as it requires my own actions, would not be possible or sustained without God's grace. The verse ends by telling us to set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the "revelation of Christ." Surely as we set our hope fully on this grace and experience it as we strive daily, we will experience the revelation of Christ more and more. This is where the verse comes back to the cross. No grace would be possible without Christ's perfect life and death on the cross. Our gaze never shifts from our Savior "who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross" (Heb. 12:2) For the joy that is set before us, we will daily take up our crosses as well and be humbled as Christ, with all his overwhelming joy and peace, is revealed more and more in our lives.

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" Luke 9:23-25