A Lutheran visits Methodist services (Part 1)

This summer, again, I am visiting other churches when I can. The particular Methodist church that I visited has an 8:30 service that allowed me to attend there and still make my regular service at my home church. My visit was in June, though this write-up is being posted later. I happened to visit during a time after the previous regular pastor had left but before the new one had arrived. That is to say: the church had a substitute pastor, so I don't know if this was a typical service.

The sanctuary

The worship space was reassuringly Christian, with crosses displayed and seasonal dressings on the pulpit. The sanctuary also gave some thought to beauty with its stained glass windows. The projection screens did detract from the otherwise beautiful and timeless interior, in a way.

Liturgy and worship; Methodist particulars?

My previous notes on worship services have had a separate heading for worship and for things particular to a denomination. With the guest preacher at this service, I'm not sure it would be right to assume any Methodist particulars from attending this service, so I'm grouping it all together here. (Though I'm fairly sure the sermon's reference to the brave circuit riders of the frontier days was a Methodist particular, as each denomination had their own approach to getting through the frontier days.)

The service was not one that I would recognize as the standard liturgy. The worship service began with greeting and passing the peace, so it was familiar that far. There was no confession, no assurance of God's forgiveness at the start of the service (or anywhere in the service, for that matter). The congregation confessed the Apostles' Creed, but without acknowledging it as the Apostles' Creed; it was titled "Affirmation of Faith".

There was one Scripture reading (as opposed to the three-readings-plus-a-Psalm that I'm used to) and it was drawn from the Old Testament. That is to say, it was a worship service in which the words of the gospel were not read at all. Neither was there any reading from the New Testament, where I'm accustomed to two New Testament readings. Jesus was worked into the sermon briefly though not in a major way, and Jesus was also in some of the hymns and the "Affirmation of Faith".

There was no communion; I'm not sure how often Methodists celebrate the Lord's Supper. The offering was noted as "Tithes and Offerings" as if the Old Testament command to tithe were considered to be applicable. 

In my mind, I couldn't reconcile the fact that there were liturgical colors on the pulpit with the fact that the Scripture reading showed no sign of following a liturgical reading calendar. Considering that there was a guest preacher, I left that as a question for some other day.

The hymns / songs

During the service, the plainest reassurances of God's love were in one of the earlier hymns. In general, the hymns were singable and had decent tunes. The Doxology was sung in the middle of the service: not where I would expect it, though still welcome. The closing hymn was the biggest surprise. It is a song that I strongly doubt would ever be included in a Lutheran hymnal. (I checked a couple of Lutheran hymnals and it is definitely not included in those.) It was literally the end of the service, and the closing hymn had the closing words

A Charge to Keep I Have
"Assured, if I my trust betray,
I shall for ever die."

The tune wasn't bad, but the content and the timing -- having eternal condemnation as the last thing in the song or the service --  just wouldn't be done. It's a longstanding Lutheran standard that, when condemnation is mentioned, it is not the final word. The final word is hope in Jesus and trust in God's goodness, as is typical of the majority of books of the New Testament. So it was interesting to see a hymn that closed with such words, and to see it placed so that the entire service closed with such words. It did follow the same pattern as the other differences I've seen about whether grace is considered as important to Methodists as it is to Lutherans.

The Sermon

The sermon was about acting in faith and hope for the future; the text was Joshua crossing the Jordan. The sermon was mainly about not giving up, about moving forward to a new future. The sermon was largely geared toward their current situation of being between pastors. The preacher did manage to include assurances of God's presence wherever we go, though the main point was about not giving up or being complacent with standing still and settling.

I found the sermon unusual this way -- and it may have been the guest preacher or the occasion of being between pastors: There was more ... I'd have to call it self-congratulation ... than I can recall hearing in another Christian service before. The preacher assured the congregation time and again that their church was known in the community as one that prayed. And, again, the preacher assured the congregation that their church was known in the community as "the church that cares". (I've never heard that this particular congregation has any particular reputation; my own either for that matter. So I chalked up those comments as mostly cheerleading, more about building a positive self-image or encouraging them through the transition than anything else.) I didn't know what the congregation might have gone through during the transition, or whether this was something just for the awkward in-between times.

The sermon included the sadly obligatory "distancing ourselves from the others" (disparaging others) comments that you hear in so many churches, my own included. This particular church congratulated itself on being a congregation where everyone is welcome, "unlike some churches where that wouldn't be true, where they don't accept people who aren't like them" (met with nods and murmurs from the pews). Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to ask the preacher what exactly was the subtitled translation there; the reception line after the service was quick-moving so there was no chance to ask. In liberal Lutheran churches a phrase like that would have been in reference to the debates over homosexuality and a disparagement that conservative churches would ask abstinence of a homosexual, but I'm not sure if that's the translation in those particular Methodist circles.

The prayers

The congregation prayed twice during the service, briefly. Rather than mentioning specific people and circumstances during their prayers, those were found in the prayers section of the bulletin. There were no details on what the individual prayer concerns might be. They did pray the Lord's Prayer during the service. 

The leadership

The leaders were dressed in street clothes, without a stole or robes. While the preacher didn't wear a robe, the acolyte did; I wondered why the difference. (I can't imagine the dress code matters much, I mention it more from curiosity.) The only thing that I didn't expect was that they had an official song leader for the songs during the service. A woman with a clear and easy-to-follow voice stood in the front by a mic and led the songs. All in all, there was nothing too unexpected in the leadership. I would likely get a clearer idea of their leadership if I visit again after their new minister is installed.

The congregation

The people seemed a little standoffish, though I don't know whether it was because of my having hit the earliest service, and I didn't see any coffee pots around. (That's a sure sign it wasn't a Lutheran service: no coffee pot that I could see.)

And back at my home service

I was very glad to hear my pastor skip the common reference in the sermon to how different we are from other groups (read between the lines: better). I really wasn't up for that twice in a day. Though it may have been because the sermon text was on Paul's warnings about biting and devouring each other with evil talk.

Paul's warning is really on-target for me in particular as I try a delicate task of visiting different services, and hoping to give a fair hearing to each. There is no way that a single visit to a church can do it justice, and our differences cause me to spend much of the service getting adjusted to what the current congregation is doing, rather than being able to see it for itself. I'll admit plainly that my visit to the church without any New Testament readings, a sermon that was 90+% exhortation, together with that particular closing hymn left me fighting a strongly unfavorable impression. But it was a guest preacher, I keep reminding myself. I have seen some guest preachers at my own church that were far more questionable than that. It would definitely be unfair of me to draw too many conclusions from this one service, and I'd like to visit the same church again sometime. (Which is the topic of the next post ...)

When the prodigal's older brother teaches religion

Once Jesus told a story of a man who broke off his relationship with his father, demanded his inheritance and left home. Much later, after learning some humility, he returned. He returned because things were hard -- and because every hardship reminded him that things did not have to be that way. Compared to his current situation, he knew that his father took better care of his hired men than that. He had a basic trust in his father's goodness that set his feet on the path home. But he still underestimated his father; he planned to ask for a place as a hired hand. He didn't really understand the depth of the love the father held for the one he brought into the world.

Neither did the older brother. When Jesus originally told the story, the older brother represented the religious people, the ones who thought less of grace -- specifically, forgiveness and redemption. It may be because they thought they were already doing the right thing. Did they think that grace was a bad idea meant for bad people, and would undercut their hard-won goodness? Or it may be because they thought it was all about doing the right thing. The older brother always did the right thing, didn't he? While the younger son thought he came home offering to be a hired worker, the older son spoke as though he had spent his long years as a slave. Jesus tells us that the older brother said just that to his father: that he had slaved for him. Just like the younger son, he insulted his father's love and denied the bond they shared. Even though he was "good" (obedient) because he stayed at home and did what his father asked, he did not get to know his own father. The older son did not understand the father's love any more than the younger.

There is a kind of earnest religious rule-follower who is just as much a stranger to the love of God as someone wasting his life in riotous living. The man of hard-working piety is at risk of not knowing what he is missing, because technically he never left. Grace is the gift that the older child should have enjoyed by staying at home. As often as he strives for obedience to God, does he enjoy fellowship with his Father? Does he think that grace is for losers instead of being the ultimate prize?

Paradise to the ends of the earth

God's grace and goodwill towards the earth were established in the act of creation. If the path he has laid out for us is to follow him and to be like God, then what do we make of paradise?

And God blessed them, and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it: have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.
And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant that bears seed upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit, for food.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to every thing that creeps upon the earth, having the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food" and it was so. (Genesis 1:28-30)

God set up humanity to understand other creatures and care for them. We call the animals by name, just as the Lord calls us by name. (As per the quote above, the book of Genesis says that in paradise, humans may have "ruled over" the animals but were not to eat them.)

Seen in this way, Eden is a template for how we should fill the earth and subdue it. God's establishment of paradise is an action that he calls us to continue, where he intends for us to walk in his footsteps. Later models of "subduing" things were corrupted by sin. But the right kind of rule makes things flourish and prosper, being better than before. The right way to "fill the earth and subdue it" would turn the whole earth into a paradise, keeping to the pattern that God showed.

Grace and a less selfish view of the law

I have heard many people talk about the role of the moral law in a Christian's life. Almost all of these talks have followed one or the other of these patterns:

I have heard this among groups that emphasize God's forgiveness:

The law condemns us. At best, it humbles us and leads us to repentance. But if we do not repent -- if we do not receive grace -- we should recall that the law is set to condemn us entirely for even the smallest of sins. In the law, we see the opposite of God's grace: we see his righteousness insurmountably above us and his wrath turned firmly against us.

This next I have heard among groups that emphasize man's obedience:

The law shows God's legitimate expectations of us; our faithfulness is not optional. We are to live up to God's standards, pursue our sanctification, reach towards our own perfection, and remain free from sin. A Christian may remain free not only of outward sins, but even of sins of the heart. By works done in God's grace, the faithful may fully satisfy the divine law. God's grace is something with which we cooperate in working out our salvation.

In both of those cases, the general outline may not be anybody's idea of a complete view of the law, but instead the part that seems most useful to the speaker's purpose at the time. The church I attend generally acknowledges three uses of the law: 

1. To restrain our sin and our evil impulses;
2. To show us our sin, bring us to humility, and lead us to repentance;
3. To instruct us in righteousness and give us a rule by which to live our lives.

In practice, the church I attend focuses on "the second use" of the law, that is, humility and repentance. Some other churches tend to focus on "the third use" of the law, that is, holy living. (I think that "the first use", restraining sin, has been neglected all around to our own harm. People seem to suppose that our insistence on repentance or holy living will replace the need to restrain evil. The theory sounds plausible but that hasn't been working out too well for us in practice.)

When we look at the law and how it restrains our sin, we do not see the love of God there. "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" does not sound like the love of God to us, so we think of it separately from the love of God. We think of it as a merit or a duty or a call to holiness.

"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" does not sound like the love of God to us -- but it is towards our neighbor. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" is again not so gracious towards us -- but our neighbor should be smiling by now. Imagine if you were certain that everyone you knew would not steal, or try to deceive you or your loved ones, or murder, or scheme after your spouse (or your family members' spouses), or even badmouth you behind your back. Is there anyone who has not endured heartache on those accounts, either for themselves or for a loved one?

We look at the law and don't see the love of God because we are so self-centered. If God's grace towards the world is supposed to be about us and what we receive, then the law has nothing to do with it. But what if the law is about something else? What if it not meant to ensure that God is gracious towards us, but that we are gracious towards others? What if it's not about us, but about our family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors? What if the law is about not lying to our neighbor, and not telling tales about our coworker, and not taking his stuff, or sneaking around with her husband or his wife? What if it's about not holding it against them that they have the newer car or clothes? What if the law is the next expansion of God's love -- not about God being gracious to us, but about us passing it on to our neighbors? What if it isn't about us earning or achieving or meriting anything, but about how God was gracious to us first? What if the law was never to make us better than our neighbors, but better for our neighbors? Just as our righteousness is "from faith to faith" (from God's faithfulness to our faith/faithfulness), it is also from grace to grace: from God's graciousness to our own. And the law calls us to be just as steadfastly gracious as God himself.

When we call on the the law to lead us to repent, or to restrain us from the wrong path, we may be diligent, or grudging. When the law instructs us in righteousness, we may be dutiful. But when the law instructs us how to spread the grace of God and show it to those around us, we may take up the task more willingly. Our love to each other is the point of the law; that is the reason that love fulfills it.

Grace and the Trinity

The current series on grace has three main posts still planned: this entry plus two others. There is also some additional material that may not fit cleanly into one of those posts and may be posted separately. The remaining posts are all interrelated; as this piece seems more of a foundation to the following two, it will be posted first. 

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God in Three Persons, or Father, Son, and Spirit?

I'll start by briefly mentioning some thoughts I've written before -- some time ago -- about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It does actually matter whether we think of "God in three persons", or whether we think of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Bible does not know the language of "three persons in one godhead"; it speaks about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When the Bible speaks of "God" it generally means the Father. Speaking of the Father, Jesus says that people call him God (John 8:54). The Father is the "first person" not by accident but because He alone is without origin, unbegotten, self-existing; in Him the Son and Spirit have their source. If the Father alone is self-existing, how and why do we see God as more than the Father alone?

The Word of God is sent out by grace

So what is the true nature of Christ? The Bible does not speak of the "second person of the Trinity"; it speaks of the Word of God becoming flesh and living among us. I take this to mean that the Word of God is the true nature of the divine in Christ. The earliest church does not proclaim the "second person"; it speaks of the Word of God who becomes flesh and dwells among us in Christ. If God did not care to establish a relationship with the world, then the Word of God would have stayed hidden within God; the Word would not have been sent into the world. If God desired that we should relate to him only as servants -- to do as we are told, and look no further than that -- then all his words to us would be commands. The Word of God is not all commands; that teaches us that God did not intend us to be only servants.

The Word of God was sent forth into the world through various messengers and different types of message, each with its own kind of grace (more on that in an upcoming post). First, the Scriptures tell that the Word of God was the means of creation -- in which grace was established as the foundation of God's relationship with the world. In time, God's word called forth a people to live under his blessing and protection, to work for his purposes in this world. Under that covenant, the law called for God's people to be known for their integrity and goodness. In other times through his word, God showed us the beauty of holiness, held out visions of paradise, and promised the coming Messiah in the kingdom of God. God's word reveals his decision to be our leader, our teacher, our protector, our guide through the wilderness, and our hope.

Moving forward, the Word of God became flesh and lived among as Jesus. Here we see the fulfillment of God's decision to join with us, to be "God with us". In Christ, in living with us, God establishes his love for us, and establishes our forgiveness. Where grace had always been our human hope, that hope was given solid ground in Christ: grace was set as a covenant. The covenant was no afterthought, and the incarnation was no afterthought. The act of love, the purpose of grace, is part of the essential nature of Christ, the living Word of God.


The Spirit of God is sent in grace

Then what is the true nature of the Spirit? Again, the Bible speaks of the Spirit of God in the same way that it speaks of the spirit of a man knowing his thoughts within him. I take this to mean that the Spirit of God is the true nature of the Holy Spirit. When we think rightly of the Holy Spirit, we remember that the Spirit is essentially, genuinely, the Spirit of God who knows God's thoughts within him.

The Spirit of God is poured out on the world and lives in us.* This living in us is an act of goodwill towards us -- that is to say, an act of grace. In it, God increases his fellowship with us, which is a remarkable gift. The ancient Temple at Jerusalem was inlaid with gold, with cedars of Lebanon, adorned with fine embroidery and images of heavenly beings -- it was a beautiful, pure, and holy place, and was blessed with the presence of God. Now we are called to be his living temple. (Are we supposed to build our hearts inlaid with love like gold, and righteousness like the cedars of Lebanon? Or as the Psalmist says, "Your Law to me is better than gold.") If God living in a city was a blessing and honor to the city, if God living in a nation was a blessing and honor to the nation, then consider God's presence living in us, and in all his people. If the Spirit of God is that inner part that knows God's thoughts within him, then how does that Spirit come to us? The Spirit of God only comes to us because God chooses to pour out his Spirit on his people. Grace is the essential answer of how the Spirit of God comes to be within us, rather than only within God.

What does that mean?

The very nature of the God -- Father, Son, and Spirit -- reaches into the world until it is accomplished that he lives in us, until we have hope in him, and we have fellowship with him and with each other. If "Trinity" is how our minds see and understand God, then our understanding of God is structured by his workings in the world to accomplish the beginnings of restoration here and now in our lives.

It may be that this is how and why, if the Father alone is self-existing, we see God as more than the Father alone. Trinity is inherently a matter of grace: the Word and the Spirit reach out into the world and communicate God's attributes and God's own spirit to us, by their constitution -- by God's decision from the foundation of the world to be the God who loves us, to be God with us.

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And the footnote referenced above, which would have disrupted the flow of thought earlier

* The Holy Spirit lives particularly where the message of Christ -- the message of God's grace -- has been trusted, as Paul challenges his readers in Galatia to remember: "... before your eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. Tell me just one thing: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?" (Galatians 3:1-2)

A word about "faith", and about Christ

Here I want to look closely at one word in the New Testament: "faith". That word is important to Christians, and to Christian life and thinking. As we look at "faith", I'd like to look at one passage in particular that says something striking about faith -- or nothing at all, depending on the translation.


The New Testament has come down to us in Greek, even if some works may have been written in other languages originally. It is from the Greek that we translate into the languages that we use ourselves. The main Greek word for "faith" is πίστις (or Strong's G4102, for searching with that method). It is used 244 times in the New Testament, and in the AV (King James) it was translated almost always as "faith". Of those 244 uses, it was translated 239 times as "faith", 3 times as forms of "belief" or "believe", once as "fidelity", and once -- only once -- as "assurance". It is a word which was almost always taken to mean "faith" as used back in the day when that translation was made. In some modern translations we also see other words like "trust" used to translate that some word. "Trust" is particularly apt in many cases. Still, it is the once  -- only once -- that the AV translates it as "assurance" rather than "faith" that I want to look at more closely:

He (God) has given ______ to all by raising him (Christ) from the dead. (Acts 17: 31)

What exactly has God given to everyone by raising Christ from the dead? The translators of the King James here decided against the normal translation of "faith", instead turning towards "assurance" (AV). The old NIV went with "proof of this", which is not at all how they typically translated that Greek word. These special and unusual translations of the word are probably because the translator was firmly convinced that the sentence "God has given faith to all by raising Christ from the dead" makes no sense. Of course the words make sense; but who thinks Paul could have really meant that? Let's look a little more at translations of that word, and that it does have more than one meaning as we would see it in English, before we get back to this question.

Paul, the righteousness of God, and faith: Romans

Many people know more than one language, and know that translations can be tricky. For any word in one language, there can be several different words with different shades of meaning in another language. This creates a pair of problems: not only which word to choose, but also how to show that there was not such a huge difference between the concepts for the original writer.

With that in mind, let's look at "faith" and we'll start with a less controversial sentence, I hope: Paul's topic sentence in writing to the Romans:

For the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." (Romans 1:17)

The AV sticks with "from faith to faith" even though that's hard to understand in English. The NIV drops "from faith to faith" entirely and tries to find the meaning, saying "by faith from first to last".  But the more I read Romans and follow the train of thought and the line of argument, the more I think "from first to last" is not what Paul meant. Let's watch Paul develop his train of thought, then, and come back to "from faith to faith". The whole book of Romans is worth re-reading but I will hardly quote the whole thing here. I'll quote from the parts that are most directly developing the topic of faith, and hope that the reader reads along for more than is directly quoted here.

1.  Here Paul contrasts human lack of faith with God's faithfulness.

What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? May it not be! Let God be true, and every man a liar. (Romans 3:3)

Paul contends that God is true: he is constant in his faithfulness, unchanged by our lack of faith.

2. Here Paul speaks of Abraham's example of faith, and we read Paul's introduction and concluding remarks about Abraham's example:

What does Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." (Romans 4:3)

Yet he (Abraham) did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. That is why "it was credited to him as righteousness". (Romans 4:20-22)

Paul argues that Abraham's faith consisted in trusting that God could keep his promises. Abraham thought that God was trustworthy and faithful. "Faith" is what you call that attitude towards someone when you consider them to be trustworthy and faithful.

3. Here Paul explains how Christ fits into the picture of the righteousness that is by faith:

But the righteousness that is by faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down) or 'Who will descend to the deep?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you: it is in your mouth and in your heart", that is the word we are proclaiming. That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile -- the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:6-13)

Again we see Paul proclaiming God's faithfulness: that the one who trusts in God will not be put to shame, that he blesses all who call, that all who call on him will be saved. So God's faithfulness is the basis of our faith.

Paul has already mentioned Christ in the passage that we just read, about how Jesus is Lord, and how God raised him from the dead. Here he continues about how we come to faith:

Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

It is in Christ that we know God's faithfulness: his love for creation, his commitment to heal, his promise of resurrection, the justice to come at the last day, the mercy of forgiveness.

4. So back to Paul's topic sentence for the letter to the Romans:

For the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith ...

Based on how Paul develops his thoughts on "faith" throughout the letter, I expect Paul was using more than one sense of the word here. The same word means "faith" and "faithfulness". I think he was saying that God has proven himself to be faithful (trustworthy) towards us, and that God's trustworthiness is the basis for our trust in him. Once we grasp God's righteousness, once we understand God's faithfulness, that is what it means to have faith in him. And so our faith consists in our understanding of God's goodness, in our conviction that he has promised a good thing and will accomplish it as he said. And that faith is credited to us as righteousness. That is how there is something "revealed": The righteousness of God is revealed in his faithfulness, which gives us faith (from faith, to faith).

By raising Christ from the dead

So what should we say?

He (God) has given ______ to all by raising him (Christ) from the dead. (Acts 17: 31)

You can fill in the blank with "assurance" or "proof" if you like. But when we resist saying "faith" here, it is because in our language we do not think of "faith" in the way Paul did, where God's raising Christ from the dead was the full demonstration of God's trustworthiness and faithfulness toward the world, seen as proof enough for the world of how right it is to hope in God through Christ. It was seen as proof enough for the world of everything that the message of Christ entails: hope of the world to come, new life, resurrection from the dead, justice and mercy. Christ's resurrection is the ultimate mind-opening, heart-opening, hope-inspiring event of all time. It is our message, and it is the message that brings faith.

What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? May it not be! Let God be true, and every man a liar. (Romans 3:3)

Some people will say that faith is a gift of God (Eph 2:8, and assuming that the gift being referred to is faith).  But when we see a passage that says that same thing is given to all by a generally known event -- Jesus' resurrection, arguably the most momentous event in the world's history -- what will we say? Will we say that God has given faith to some but not others? Does God's act in establishing our faith consist in something more than putting proof (or assurance) right before our eyes? Granted that some do not have faith; but God is still faithful, and has still shown it to all.

That is how people come to faith: "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." Consider also that Jesus said that, when the Son of Man is lifted up (on the cross), he will draw all to himself (John 12:32). Because

God has given _______ to all by raising Christ from the dead.

When we hear that God gives us faith, and that God draws us, time and again we hear that it is through the message of Christ. I wonder very much: Is it right to look for any other giving and drawing, or is it all in the message of Christ? Regardless of how you translate that one word here, we can be sure that there is something unique that God has given to all in raising Christ from the dead. How exactly should we understand that unique thing that God has given to all in raising Christ? And why would Paul choose that word for it?

Grace from the foundation of the world

The usual disclaimer in posts which mention Genesis and creation: I offer these comments hoping they are helpful regardless of whether the reader views that as historic or symbolic, because either way it is food for thought.  

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Among Christians, it seems generally agreed that God loved the world at its creation, and has loved the world from its foundation. That's directly on topic when it comes to God's grace, so let's take a closer look.
 
Grace is established in the act of creation

God's goodwill towards creation was not an afterthought. In its natural state, the world is good. God intended creation to be good, and he created it to be good, and then he recognized it as good. Now anyone who makes or creates does that by bringing things out of themselves. As Jesus said on another occasion: The one who is good out of the treasures of his heart brings forth what is good. In the same way, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks -- or the mind imagines and speaks and creates. So creation's goodness is a natural outcome of God's goodness. God's goodwill towards creation comes from his own goodness: it was from the original treasures of his goodness that he created, which caused the natural goodness of what he has made. That is to say: God's grace towards the world is established in the act of creation.

Grace is the natural order of things

It follows that God's goodwill towards what he made -- grace -- is the natural order of things. "Grace" and "nature" are not meant to be separate. While "nature" speaks of the things and their natural workings, "grace" speaks of their natural relationship to their creator. From the original state of creation, it is a mistake to think that nature is lacking something unless grace is added to it, as if this adding was an uncertain outcome, as if grace was not part of the act and purpose of creation. Instead, nature is intended to exist in God's grace, and it was created in God's grace. In the same way, we should not think that human nature in the original state of creation is lacking something unless grace is added to it. Again, grace is the intended natural state, and the lack of grace is the unnatural state.

So the desire for grace permeates the world

In this imperfect world, the idea of creation can seem distant to us. Still, in every good thing, and so often in the natural world, we catch a glimpse of that undiluted goodness, that undiminished glory that reminds us of how things might be. Every good thing draws us and calls us back towards our original state of grace. Every good thing is, then, a preparation for grace.

Even the bad that we experience is a sharp reminder of what we wish we had, a call to return to what is good. Every loss, every fear, every worry, every hurt directs us to look back to what we lost, or forward to what we might regain. Every petty or hateful thought that runs through our minds, every unkind word or even cruel action, causes us shame for what we have become, and calls us to pray to God to create in us a clean heart. We live in a world where day by day things steadily increase this restlessness and desire. As Augustine once said, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in You." This restlessness, this longing for grace, is a constant part of our world, part of the human experience. Because of all this, there is a general tendency of things to turn our thoughts toward God. Life contains a steady stream of occurrences that prompt us to look for God.

And the promise of grace permeates our hopes

We do not think of paradise as lost beyond hope. We look forward to paradise as the intended future. From early times, religion has spoken not only of the breach between heaven and earth, but also of its restoration. There has been a promise of reconciliation between heaven and earth, God and man. To greater or lesser extent, this thought is found in every religion that I have yet reviewed. In each faith there is the promise of renewal or paradise or reunion with the infinite. Sometimes that promise also looks for some great future man of God or presence of God in the world. In the Jewish faith with its deep and nourishing visions of paradise, we find the promise of the coming kingdom of God linked to the hope of the Messiah who will bring restoration to the world.

Religion exists in part to keep human hope alive. These hopes take firmer shape wherever the promises of the prophets are read and studied. And now, for roughly 2000 years, we have celebrated how those early promises have made their actual beginnings in our world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, in his healing and in his teaching and most of all in his resurrection. What happens in Jesus is directly connect to both our primal thoughts of a world without corruption, and our persistent longing for a future where that world is realized. But what grounds do we have for thinking about this promise of grace as reality?

Paul once said that God has given faith* (or proof* or assurance*, if you'd rather) to all by raising Jesus from the dead. In his resurrection, we have God's open, on-the-record demonstration to the world of the reality of those promises, the reality of the hope to which we are called.

And it is our part to hold out the promise of hope and renewal to the world. Starting from Jesus' resurrection, we have the message he sent us to proclaim of repentance and forgiveness in his name. Everyone can know the reality of that hope. We have the honor of explaining God's love for the world, his faithfulness to what he has made, and the redemption that has begun in Jesus.

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* This is the topic of the next post, already written and posting immediately after this one, looking into the relationship between grace and faith.