Graham A. Cole
The God of biblical revelation is no impersonal absolute. The living God is the God of love and grace. But what do such terms mean? We are most familiar with turning to a dictionary and getting equivalent words. It is the genius of Scripture, however, that big terms such as “love” and “grace” are embodied in stories as well as in direct affirmations. In particular it is Jesus Christ and his story that provides the lens through which to view what the big biblical ideas are about. The Scriptures aren’t interested in mere abstractions. So the biblical concepts of love and grace may be present in the text even if the actual words aren’t.
Love
What does divine love look like? Moses found out on Mount Sinai when God appeared and declared his name and nature. In the ancient Near East, to declare one’s “name” was to state who one really was. This is the God who is “abounding in love” (Exod 34:6). Israel had just experienced that love when God had set them free from Pharaoh’s grip. This is love that chooses, keeps promises, rescues, and covenants (Deut 7:7–9). God’s love for his people called for an answering love on Israel’s part. God commanded Israel, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut 6:5). In context that was a call to loyalty to God and a call away from loyalty to idols. Israel over and over again failed the loyalty test. In the face of this, the depths of God’s love are seen in the prophet Hosea. He is to love a faithless woman and in so doing mirror the love God has for his faithless people: “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods” (Hos 3:1). We can see in Hosea how the divine love pursues the unlovely. Divine love is other-person-centered. Unsurprisingly, then, this same God calls his people to love their neighbors (Lev 19:18).
This love is manifested in action, as the story of Jesus exemplifies. Jesus embodies the divine love in his coming and his cross. As John 3:16 famously affirms, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” Paul elaborates, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). John adds to this testimony: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). As in the OT, in the NT practical consequences follow. Jesus exhibits a new paradigm for loving others (John 13:1–17). This love serves. This love shows hospitality. This love washes the feet of others. We are to love like that. Love is the new commandment (John 13:34). It is new because it is informed by the story of Christ.
This newness carries over into the Christian household: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). This love is self-sacrificial. For Paul such love constitutes “the most excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31). The Corinthian church, with all its problems, needed to hear that. Even gifts given by the Spirit to the church are futile without love (1 Cor 13:1–2). Not even amazing faith profits without love (1 Cor 13:2). Martyrdom or spectacular generosity is in vain without love (1 Cor 13:3). Love is patient, kind, does not envy or boast, is not proud or rude or self-seeking (1 Cor 13:4–5). It is not easily angered, does not keep a record of wrongdoing, and does not delight in evil (1 Cor 13:5–6). Positively, it rejoices in the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (1 Cor 13:6–7). This kind of love never fails (1 Cor 13:8). This love is not manufactured by us; it is a fruit of the Spirit of Christ living within us (Gal 5:22). These virtues are the characteristics of Christ himself.
As in the OT, the NT presents no mere duty-ethic. This love is an answering love to the divine love as experienced in Christ: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This love cannot possibly claim to love God while hating other believers (1 John 4:20). Some things—like knowledge and prophecy—fade away (1 Cor 13:8). But love remains (1 Cor 13:13). It never fades.
Grace
What does grace look like? Divine grace is the undeserved favor of a superior bestowed on an inferior. The Israelites experienced God’s grace when he delivered them from Egyptian oppression. God proclaims to Moses on Mount Sinai, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God” (Exod 34:6). In its form, the covenant that God enters into with Israel on Mount Sinai (the Mosaic covenant) is very much like a particular kind of ancient Near Eastern treaty (a suzerainty treaty). This form of treaty occurs when a superior (a suzerain) enters into a relationship with an inferior (a vassal). Significantly in Israel’s case, the covenant is established after the magnificent act of grace that saved Israel from Pharaoh. An ancient form of relationship is given stunningly new content. The exodus event also shows that when God acts graciously, it means salvation for some (Israel) but very often judgment for others (Egypt and its gods, as in Exod 12:12–13). In Israel, to be blessed by God is to experience his grace as in the Aaronic blessing: “The LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you” (Num 6:25). Many of the prayers in the book of Psalms acknowledge that divine grace is a favor to be sought rather than a right to be expected: “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted” (Ps 25:16).
God’s grace is dramatically on display in the story of Jonah and Nineveh. God called the prophet to proclaim judgment on Nineveh, Israel’s hated foe. But Jonah fled. He fled, not because he was afraid for himself, but because he knew the divine character as revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. He was well aware that the living God is a gracious God. He feared that if the Ninevites repented, God would not judge them, and that’s indeed what happened. He laments, “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God” (Jonah 4:2). God did what Jonah had feared. He showed grace. In fact the message of warning became the divine vehicle through which a loving God brought about a change of heart on the part of the Ninevites (cf. Jer 18:7–8). Ironically, Jonah is thankful when he receives divine grace (Jonah 2:2–9) but not when the Ninevites do. There is a temptation to look for grace for ourselves but only judgment for others.
In Jesus the divine grace comes into view in the most personal of ways, as John points out in his prologue (John 1:17). Paul encapsulates that grace when he encourages the Corinthians to give generously to help the Jerusalem Christians: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). By coming among humankind and dying on the cross, Jesus Christ did what he was not obliged to do, and he did so not for his own sake but for ours, undeserving though we are.
Indeed, Paul summarizes the gospel in terms of grace. He reminds the Ephesian elders that in his three-year ministry among them he testified “to the good news of God’s grace,” and he commits them “to God and to the word of his grace” (Acts 20:24, 32). The canon of Scripture closes on the note of expectation and grace: “Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people” (Rev 22:20–21). The nature of this undeserved favor removes any grounds for our boasting before God about our meritorious works. As Paul tells the Ephesians, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph 2:8–9). This divine grace is gloriously rich and found in Christ (Eph 1:6–8). Paul tells the Roman Christians a similar truth as he contrasts Adam and Christ. Adam’s sin brought death and condemnation, but the gift of justification (the great acquittal before the divine court) comes “by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ” and “overflow[s] to the many” (Rom 5:15).
Likewise, Peter tells the Jerusalem council that whether a person is a Jew or a Gentile (non-Jew), the way of salvation is the same: “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we [Jews] are saved, just as they [Gentiles] are” (Acts 15:11).
Even though the accent on grace in Scripture focuses repeatedly on God or Christ as the gracious one, those who have received such grace must be gracious themselves. This graciousness must show itself especially in Christian generosity (2 Cor 8:9) and speech: “Let your conversation be always full of grace” (Col 4:6). Unsurprisingly, such gracious speech characterized Jesus himself (Luke 4:22).
Love and Grace Distinguished
Grace and love occur together in the Bible. We deserve neither God’s love nor his grace. They both express God’s goodness, as Moses learned on Mount Sinai (Exod 33:18—34:7). Paul tells Titus, “The grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people” (Titus 2:11), and then Paul writes, “When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us” (Titus 3:4–5).
Yet love and grace must be distinguished. Paul’s benediction on the Corinthians illustrates this distinction: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:14). (Often when Paul writes of God, he has God the Father in view, as in this benediction. Another example is Eph 1:3.) The love of God the Father is seen in the provision of Christ that we might become God’s friends: reconciled through Christ’s death on the cross and no longer estranged (2 Cor 5:14–21). The grace of Christ is revealed in his giving up his riches by becoming a man and dying so that we might become rich (2 Cor 8:9). Church leader Irenaeus (Against Heresies) rightly said in the second century, “[Jesus] became what we are that we might become what he is.” Such is grace. Such is love.