1 Pet. 5:12- Through Silvanus, our faithful brother (for so I regard him), I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!
As a conclusion of the first epistle, Apostle Peter says here that “I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!” So from this epistle we can understand and be convinced what true grace is. This makes it clear, that even at Peter’s time itself, a teaching of false grace was spreading in Christendom. Other Apostles like Paul and Jude also confirms this. If we look around the present Christendom, we can see that the teaching of false grace is spreading very fast because it is very comfortable for the flesh and does not require any repentance.
After exhorting and testifying the true grace, the Holy Spirit commands us to stand firm in it. This is a warning for us because there is every chance that we may get deceived (slip in faith) by false grace. So we must take this warning seriously to understand and experience the true grace because we all have a comfort seeking flesh.
Grace is purely the privilege under The New Covenant through faith in Jesus Christ and the walk in obedience to Holy Spirit. There was no grace before Jesus Christ. See what Apostle John wrote in John 1:17 “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (NKJV). Also John confirms they saw Jesus with full of Grace and thus saw the father (John1:14). Jesus and John confirm in the same Gospel that no one can see the Father without Jesus. In John 1:16 Holy Spirit assures us that “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace”.
The first promise in the New Testament is that (Mathew 1:21) Jesus will save His people from their sin. In the first epistle of the Bible, Holy Spirit is confirming to us that if we are under grace sin shall not be master over us (Rom. 6:14). Apostle James says in his epistle that God gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). Pride is the root of all sin and God opposes the proud (James 4:6).
So from all these verses we can understand very well that if we are experiencing true grace the primary mark will be that “sin shall not be master over us (have victory over sin)” and that we will be humble and that Jesus will be the real Lord of our life. We will be completely living for God. Apostle John and others saw the Father and His glory through Jesus, who was full of grace. So if anyone is experiencing the full grace then others around him will see God through him.
God gave the law to show the weakness of our flesh in trying to be righteous by obeying the law. The Law proved very clearly that no one can be righteous in front of God by their own life. Romans 8:3-4 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Many believers think that Jesus came to abolish the law but Jesus himself said in Mathew 5:17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” So Jesus fulfilled the law completely and perfectly in His earthly life and established the New Covenant by abolishing the Old Covenant through His blood (Heb. 8:7-13, 10:14-18). So when any one experiences true grace, righteousness of law is fulfilled in his life (Rom 8:3-4).
When Apostle Paul prayed to God to remove the thorn from his flesh (2 Cor. 12:7-8) God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” (2Cor. 12:9). So grace is the power of God available for every believer when he is weak to fulfil God’s purpose for his life. God’s power will work for him. So by grace a believer can overcome temptation (Heb. 4:15-16, Rom. 6:14, Mathew 1:21, 1 Pet. 5:5, James 4:6) and have a life full of the righteousness of God (Rom 8:3-4, 2Cor 5:21). A believer has to come to God with faith and humility to experience this life.
A life of a believer is completely by the grace of God. God gives His grace to a spiritually dead person to show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards him in Christ Jesus in the ages to come (Eph. 2:7).
For a born again believer, God saved him by grace though faith (Eph. 2:5,8) in the past. Now God is keeping him by Grace. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Cor. 15:10). So now, the grace of God is working for him to make him in the way God wants. Also God is keeping all grace in Christ Jesus for him so that he can be strong enough to fulfil God’s purpose for him. You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.( 2Tim. 2:1)
Paul explains very clearly what the true grace of God is doing in the life of a believer in Titus 2: 11-15 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. 15 These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
May God help all of us to experience the true grace of God in our life so that we will be able to fulfill God’s purpose for us.
If God willing we will continue to think about this subject next week.
