THE REVELATION OF GRACE

The Revelation of Grace

The nature of grace is that it keeps multiplying. It is grace that multiplies (2 Pet. 1:2). So we need to have more fellowship and a deeper apprehension of this grace unveiled to us in the New Testament. First we must understand what the nature of grace is.

John 1:16 is very clear concerning the nature of grace: “For out of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace,” or more literally the preposition means “grace in exchange for grace.” It is compounded grace. It is out of His fullness that we have all received this grace.

Grace is everything proceeding out of Christ

Grace proceeds from Christ. It is everything out of Him — everything that He is and everything that He has done. It includes everything that He has done in the past and everything that He is right now. Grace is what He is as our High Priest, what He is as the One indwelling our spirit, operating in us, energizing, inclining, doing that work inside of us to break down barriers, hardness,

resistance, everything that we cannot do. He is in us operating, doing an inner work to soften our heart, to incline it, causing the love to flow, writing Himself into our mind, into our heart, into the way we are.

Grace is He Himself operating and doing everything. It is not just in our initial salvation, but it is in everything after that. Grace is everything proceeding from Christ. “Out of His fullness we all have received.”

When we go to Romans, we see that we are in a continuous receiving. We are in the position of receiving. So every experience we pass through can be something unique in this universe. As one of our brothers testified, as a human being going through an experience of having his bike stolen, he could stop and receive out of His fullness. Praise the Lord that we could know something

beyond our natural reactions. But it is a matter of receiving. Everything is proceeding from Christ. And this Christ is not afar off. He is a life-giving Spirit in resurrection actually joined to a part of us. A part of you is joined to Christ. You are not just thinking about Him, but you have His very life, nature, impulses, reactions,

within you. So just that little inclination to stop and open to Him, that is the grace operating. That is Him. It comes in the form of an inclination. But when you take it out for a moment and analyze the inclination, it is God.

Philippians 2:13 indicates that it is God who is at work in you producing the willingness and the working for His good pleasure. So every little bit of rise and desire for God in us, even if it is a small amount, that is God. It is God Himself in His inner dynamic of resurrection life able to do something over our being and cause us even to feel it in us, and then we obey, we follow. We say “Amen.” This is grace. Everything is proceeding from Him.

Grace in its highest definition is Christ Himself and everything proceeding from Christ as He imparts His life and nature into us in a continuous way. And our part is to stay on the receiving end, to stay open. It is not to crank yourself up, but to recognize your inability to do it yourself. And that sense of weakness is His sneaky way of getting more fellowship. He wants fellowship. He

wants some touch and contact. He loves the fellowship. And the fact that we could open up in the midst of whatever we are passing through is His heart’s delight.

This is why Paul could testify, “When I am weak, then I am strong, because His power is actually being perfected in my weakness.” It is actually being perfected. His power can be perfected through weakness. That is Paul’s testimony. So, what a Christ. What an operating Christ. Grace is just everything proceeding from Him.

Bill Freeman notes - 12/13/96