Learning to See Jesus Christ in the Biblical Text

Posted by Pastor Pat on July 28, 2009

“Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another,

because love covers a multitude of sins.”    (1 Peter 4:8)

I have already stated several times how one of my presuppositions in reading the Bible is, “I do not read the Bible to determine how to live, but rather to discovery what He is like.”  Does your perspective matter?  I believe so.  When my life becomes disjointed and I am consumed by the mundane and distracted by the unimportant I have to step back and get my focus back on Christ (Heb. 12:1, 2).  It is only when I see the centrality of Jesus Christ that life in all of its little pieces makes any sense (Col. 1:17).  In Jesus Christ we have the perfect display and embodiment of grace.  Jesus Christ is the proper name for grace.

It is for this reason I will often use the two words as synonyms.

Often as I read my Bible I put the words, “Jesus Christ” and/or “grace” in the place of “love.”  For example in our text before us if we changed the words it would read as follows, “Above all, keep fervent in your grace for one another, because grace covers a multitude of sins.”

Think also of First Corinthians 13: 4-13.

Grace is patient, Grace is kind and is not jealous; Grace does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; He does not seek His own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  8 Grace never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.  9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.  12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.  13 But now faith, hope, Grace, abide these three; but the greatest of these is Grace.

Ephesians 4:32 tells us, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

The word “Forgiving” is from the same root as the word “grace.”

Think about it.  We are being exhorted to “grace each other, just as God in Christ also has graced you.”  If I am to grace others as I have been graced, it would dramatically change the way I deal with hurts, conflicts and relational idiosyncrasies (Matt. 18:21-35).   Part of our difficulty in living the grace life is that we do not understand just how deeply God has graced us.  We treat people the same way we think God is treating us.  We need to change our perspective.  How much has God graced you?  Think with me of the text found in Romans 8:31-39.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?  32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?  33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;  34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  36 Just as it is written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.”  37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is grace.  God is for me.  God has given me all things in Him.

God has acquitted me of my guilty standing.  He will never leave me nor forsake me.  He will never cease loving me.  I have all this because of God gracing me.  When I put my life and all of its little pieces into the larger picture of His grace . . . I walk away knowing that I have been blessed beyond my ability to perform.  This is the perspective I am to have as I live relationally in a fallen world and strained fellowship.

May this truth permeate our thinking and may grace continue to reign.

By Pastor Patrick J. Griffiths.  For more information see the Waukesha Bible Church series on Galatians.