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No.2
Grace that Superabounds.
p. 240
At first thought one might say when dealing with such solemn truth as that which
pertains to sin and salvation, no flights of fancy can be tolerated, nothing but the plainest
of statements can be permissible. Yet experience will prove otherwise.
The very immensity of the subject, either of human guilt or of Divine grace, makes
such demands upon the resources and powers of language that one has to adopt the words
of Scripture and confess:
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,"
and the only recourse is to figurative language, and figurative language in its very
essence is an exaggeration allowed and acknowledged owing to the paucity of every day
speech to express adequately all that the hearts feels.
This series aims primarily at ministering comfort to the believer in these troublous
times. That presupposes that he is redeemed and that he knows it. It will, however, be
wise if we look "to the hole of the pit whence we are digged" and open this series with a
meditation upon
SUPERABOUDING REDEEMING GRACE.
There are two passages to which we must turn for light upon this blessed theme,
Rom. 5: and Eph. 1: Grace is revealed in the opening section of Romans (1: - 5: 11) as
the only "cause":
"Being justified freely (without a cause) by (because of) His grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (3: 24).
The plan of salvation was thus ordained: "Therefore it is of faith that it might be by
grace" (4: 16) and into this grace we have both access and standing (5: 2).
The argument of the apostle up to this point has revolved around human
responsibility, he has been concerned with "sins" rather than "sin". He has had Moses in
view rather than Adam, individual and personal transgressions rather than the ruin of the
creature as such, what a man has DONE rather than what he IS.
With the twelfth verse of Rom. 5: however a change appears. Moses recedes, Adam
comes forward, "sins" give place to "sin" and here we meet with "superabounding
grace". Judgment came upon all men by reason of one act of sin, but the free gift of
salvation takes into account not only that one federal act of our racial head, but of the
"many offences" that have sprung from it ever since (5: 16).
"Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (5: 20).