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Dimensions of God's Grace

There are revealed in scripture three "dimensions of God's Grace."  God's grace can be defined as, "Any action of God on a person's behalf." In general terms, the depth of a person's relationship with God provides the boundaries of the impact of God's acts of grace.  The greater the depth of relationship, the greater the possible impact of God's acts of grace.  When a person has limited awareness and/or relationship with God the impact of God's act for a person is reduced.  If a person has a very deep and fully committed relationship with God then the impact of God's act for a person has its full effect.  Therefore the three dimensions of God's Grace refer to the three general levels of a person's relationship with God. 


(However, remember this is about relationship between God the creator and God's created beings that is dynamic not static.

We speak of levels and boundaries as a general description not as unchanging legalistic universal law.

These dimensions and levels are for our limited mental grasping of our interaction with our Creator and Sovereign Lord.

They do not dictate and confine our relationship with God but they help to describe and inform our understanding of our relationship.)


Before any person is born there are revealed in scripture two basic events that give the context

for a person's initial relationship with God they are born into and thereby, the First Dimension of God's Grace.


1. Creation: Original Righteousness (full presence and full relationship with God)

This is the state all humans were created in and for.  It is the state or relationship with God

that Adam and Eve initially had with God.  This is God's intention in and desire for creation.


2. The Fall: Original Sin (limited presence and broken relationship with God)

This is the result of Adam and Eve's sin.  The consequence is the loss of full relationship with the Creator God and a fall from the Image of God within them.  It impacts all of humanity and all of creation because of Adam and Eve's God given stewardship over creation.  All future prodigy of Adam and Eve are born into the consequential fall from God's full presence.


I. First Dimension of God's Grace: Prevenient Grace / Common Grace

This is the state all people are born into.  It is sometimes referred to as the state of original sin.

A person has only a general relationship with God.  There is no personal relationship.


A. First Work of God's Grace: Conversion / Born Again / Accepting Christ

This is God's first relationship changing Work of Grace in a person to save them from the result of sin in their life - death;

and transform them to begin a relationship of love with God so that they can live in

God's Second Dimension of Grace - Justification.


II. Second Dimension of God's Grace: Justification / Believer / Initial Salvation

This is the state a believer in Jesus Christ lives in following their experience of God's first work of grace.  The believer now lives a new life in Christ out of the state they were born into - Original Sin.  God begins within the believer the renewal of God's image that all people were created in and for.  In this state Christ's righteousness has been imputed in the believer and God begins imparting, through God's transforming grace, the likeness of Christ.  The personal relationship of love with God and for other people deepens and grows.


B. Second Work of God's Grace: Entire Sanctification

This is the second transforming Work of God in a believer, completing the effects of the redemption of Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit.  This Work of God brings a believer into the fullness of God (full relationship with God as they were created to live in).  It is given by God after a believer willfully surrenders all areas of their life to the control and direction of the Holy Spirit.  It often occurs after God makes clear one specific area of surrender the believer needs to give God full control in.



III. Third Dimension of God's Grace: Full Salvation / Holy Maturity / Perfect Love

This is the state a believer in Jesus Christ lives in following their experience of God's second work of grace.  The believer now fully gives over resistance to God's grace and being filled with the Holy Spirit.  They become radically dependent on Christ and are restored to the full image of God that they were created in.  God continues to deepen this restoration through imparting more and more the likeness of Christ.  A fully sanctified believer, living in holy maturity, lives in a complete love relationship with God which shows itself through the sanctified believer loving others with God's love for them.  A holy mature believer lives in God's victory over the power of sin.  Their singleness of intention is to do the will of God, even though there may be times they mistakenly act in sin.  They still have the capacity to sin but they don't have the same inclination to sin as in the fallen state they were born in.

Creation:

Original Righteousness

(full presence & relationship with God)

Humanity, through Adam and Eve, is created in the image of God.  There is a full relationship with the Creator God where humanity chooses to live under God's authority and will in complete obedience.


Genesis 1:26-28

     Then God said, "Let us make (humankind) in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish... and the birds..., over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

     So God created (humankind) in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

     God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish... and the birds... and over every living creature that moves on the ground."


Humanity created in the Image of God means:

1) Humanity is created as a personal being.

     - Made as spirit, not just physical

     - Made in a love relationship with other personal

        beings.


2) Humanity is created as a moral being.

     - Ephesians 4:24 "... to put on the new self, created to be

        like God in true righteousness and holiness."

     - Created in true righteousness and holiness

The Fall:

Original Sin

(Relationship with God broken)

Humanity, through Adam and Eve's sin, loses their full relationship with the Creator God and the Image of God within them falls from its created state.  Because humanity had stewardship over the rest of God's creation, humanity's fall also causes the rest of creation to fall from its created state as well.  (Genesis 3:1-24)


Results:

1) Humanity experiences the loss of a close personal fellowship with God that is both physical (no longer being in the Garden of Eden) and spiritual (separated relationally from God)


2) Humanity's moral nature falls.  Humanity substitutes a person's own authority for God's rightful position of authority.  Moral choices are now based on a person's choice resulting in disobedience to God's authority.  Sin is the resulting actions of these self-centered choices and takes control over a person's choices in opposition to God's righteousness.


3) Physical effects result in physical death now experienced by all living creation along with pain, disease, and physical/natural catastrophes.


4) Original Sin becomes the condition and state into which all people are born.  No one can resist sin or repent of sin without God's grace.


Romans 3:9-11 (also Psalm 14:1-3)

... we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.  As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God."

1st Dimension of God's Grace:

Prevenient/Common Grace

(A Person's State at Birth)

This is the state (or relationship with God) that a person is conceived and born in.  A person has a general relationship with God but no personal relationship.  Those living away from God are impacted by God's acts of grace but the impact is limited because they are under the power of sin and their own self-centered choices. God reaches down to a person through prevenient grace before a person reaches up to God.


The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:1-3, "... you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world ....  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath."


1) God's acts of grace for humanity whose relationship with God is broken through Original Sin.


2) God's acts of grace through the Holy Spirit at work in all humanity between conception and conversion.


3) God's acts of grace in our lives to prepare us and encourage us to respond positively to the Good News of Christ.


A great illustration of the different dimensions of grace and specifically this first dimension of God's grace is given by Thomas Oden in his 4 volume work, John Wesley's Teachings:

"Preparatory (or prevenient) grace is the lowest gear in the drive train of grace that enables one to move from inertia so that one may gradually be brought up to speed. (2:137-138)

1st Work of God's Grace:

Conversion/Born Again/ Accepting Christ

This is God's first relationship changing Work of Grace in a person to save them from the result of sin in their life - death; and transform them to begin a relationship of love for God so that they can live in God's Second Dimension of Grace - Justification. 


Our human need for conversion is shown in the Apostle Paul's words, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."(Romans 3:23)  This glory of God was what all humanity had been created for before "The Fall."  Paul refers to humanity's serious need for salvation and new life because of the broken relationship that all people experienced with God from birth.  God's work of justification is show in the next verse (v.24) "all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."  This free gift is God's first relationship changing Work of Grace to give us salvation and a new life in Christ Jesus through accepting it by faith.  "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast."(Ephesians 2:8-9)


Conversion results from a person confessing their life of sin and choosing by faith to accept God's salvation through the atonement of Jesus on the cross.


Repentance is necessary for conversion to take place.  It is the enactment of a person's conversion demonstrating the return toward living under God's authority and reversing the effects of Original Sin.  Repentance is required.  "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent."(Acts 17:30)


God's forgiveness of human disobedience comes as a work of grace dependent on confession and repentance.  "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."(1 John 1:9)


Faith, confession, repentance are all necessary human conditions needed in order to receive God's Work of Justifying Grace and forgiveness.  "...know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.  So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified."(Galatians 2:15-16)

2nd Dimension of God's Grace:

Justification/Believer/

Initial Salvation


This is the state (relationship with God) one lives in after they have experienced God's first work of Justifying Grace.  A person lives in an active relationship with God rather than wholly on their own and for themselves.  By living in God's justifying grace through faith and belief in Jesus, a believer who has been saved from the effects of sin through having Christ's righteousness imputed to them, lives differently by the on-going presence of the Holy Spirit through having Christ's righteousness imparted in them.  


Living in God's Second Dimension of Grace involves the believer spiritually growing and being progressively transformed through God's grace toward Full Sanctification.  It is the process of living more and more in the image of God.  A believer's personal nature is restored through their reconciliation with God.


Their relationship with God is now considered straight and justified like the justification that happens in word processing where all the text of a document is lined up straight with the left side, the right side, down the center, or with both sides.  Even though they are considered justified from their past sins, they progressively must allow the Holy Spirit more and more control to move toward experiencing the completed relationship with God they were created for.


A believer also lives as  a new person through having their moral nature changed.  The believer now must live not on their own power but through the gift of God's grace on the basis of faith and trust.

Philippians 3:9

"... be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith."


This new relationship with God is one of being united with our creator and living in peace with the God.

Romans 5:1-2

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand."


Continuing with the image of the gears of the train (from Thomas Oden's book - referred to in "Prevenient Grace", living in the second dimension of grace moves us from the first gear that  starts us moving toward God to living with God and building up speed to take us to living at full speed (third dimension of grace).




2nd Work of God's Grace:

Entire Sanctification

This is God's second relationship changing Work of Grace in a believer moving them from living in a justified relationship with God to living in a fully sanctified relationship with God.  Their love for God becomes complete or perfected so that they can live in God's third dimension of Sanctifying Grace.


This second transforming Work of God's Grace in a believer completes the effects of the redemption of Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit.  It brings a believer into the fullness of God (full relationship with God as they were created to live in).  It is given by God after a believer willfully surrenders their life to the control and direction of the Holy Spirit.  It often occurs after God makes clear one specific area of surrender the believer needs to give God full control in.  Additional areas the believer needs to yield to God full control over will continue to  be shown as the believer lives in the third dimension of Sanctifying Grace.


The Apostle Paul prays for the believers in Thessalonica that they may be sanctified completely by God in 1 Thessalonians 5:23.  "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely..." (ESV).  This is a prayer for believers to have God do a further work in them.  In Ephesians 3 Paul prays for believers to "be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:19 NIV).  Paul tells them they need to know (live in) the complete love of Christ.


Ephesians 3:16-19 NIV:

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inners being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."


Note that it is Christ who does the strengthening through the Holy Spirit within in the believer.  This is the work of God.  The purpose of this is for Christ to be shown to fully live within the believer through their faith in Christ lived out in their lives.  Paul states the believer is already established in the love for and of Christ but that they need something further.  They need to "grasp", which means recognize and see the worth of the love of Christ. This is described in terms of the dimensions of a box or rectangle - wide, long, high, deep.  It indicates the complete love of Christ.  They then need to "know" this love. The term, "know", has the connotation of putting into practice what one has mental awareness of.  "To know this love" means for one to live their life in and through this complete love of Christ.  The result of their being strengthened by Christ with the Holy Spirit's power is living "filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."  This strengthening by Christ is God's second work of Grace providing what is needed for a believer to live in God's third dimension of Grace (Holy Maturity).

3rd Dimension of God's Grace:

Holy Maturity/Full Salvation/ Christian Perfection/

Perfect Love

This is the state of relationship with God which God desires for all believers to live in.  It is the outcome of God's second work of grace in a person's life, entire sanctification.  A believer now lives in a full and complete love relationship with God through giving over resistance to God's grace and live filled with the Holy Spirit.  A believer still has the capacity to sin (knowingly choose against God's will) but they don't have the same inclination to sin as before.


Holy Maturity doesn't make one a superior Christian or give one immunity from life's problems.  A believer lives with a singleness of intention to do the will of God even when it calls for sacrifice.  Living in this complete love relationship with God means a believer is constantly dependent on God's grace and fully surrendered to the power of the Holy Spirit.  They will what God wills and are completely reliant on the Holy Spirit to direct them, strengthen them, protect them, and discern for them God's will.  They love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength.  They have the mind of Christ and live out the same attitude Christ lived with on earth, the attitude of a servant to God the Father.  They are only able to live perfect as God is perfect as they are totally dependent for thoughts, intentions, and actions from the Holy Spirit living within them.


They live in Holy Maturity and are able to live at the full speed they were created for only to the extent they are continuously fueled by the redemption of Christ and the power and direction of the Holy Spirit.