Page 13 - GRACE

GRACE, Exploring Its Riches

everal years ago I heard someone turn grace to an
acronym for God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. As
SI meditated on this description and searched
the Scriptures I came to the conclusion that this was very
apt and profound. Every recipient of the goodness or
grace of God enjoys divine benefits at the expense of
Jesus Christ.

Grace for All

The Grace of God which Jesus now makes freely
accessible to all human beings – of all ages, and in every
place – has always been available in God the Father. But
until Christ came, access to God’s grace was not available
to all. It was like the Old Testament’s holy of holies,
which in the days of the Tabernacle in the wilderness,
and later the Temple at Jerusalem, only the high priest
was permitted to go there; something he did only once a
year. He wouldn’t even do that without a purification
sacrifice for himself first, before he could approach the
mercy seat on behalf of the people.

Studying the Old Testament era, we observe that only a
few people had access to grace. Even at that, it seemed it
had to be sought out since it was not readily available to
all. We’ll discuss this further in a later chapter. For now,
this much we know that Jesus changed the pattern at His
coming after He died for our sins. From the moment
Jesus died on the cross man no longer needed to look for

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