God's grace is His unmerited blessing (cf.Deut 8:18) or as Calvin described it: "divine benevolence". Grace is placarded on every page of Scripture. "Sola gratia" blows through the Pentateuch like a mighty wind - as the Holy Spirit in fact. Unfortunately so many have been taught to look for or expect to see only God's law and wrath (along with some interesting character studies) in the Pentateuch and not for His utterly amazing grace to sinners of ancient Israel. What God did for our first parents , the patriarchs and Israel to bear them up and see them through despite everything damnable about them should be of great comfort and assurance for us. Thank God our hope is not in the church we1re building today but in the church He is building. In the same gracious, sovereign way He dealt with elect Israel He continues to preserve, protect and provide for His church even now.
The Lord's church is the invisible church consisting of the elect of all history. Christians since Calvary and all the Old Testament believers since the garden are all saved the same way - by union covenant with Christ, the second Adam. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:22). Old Testament saints and New Testament saints are made part of one body - the bride of Christ. There is a marvelous organic unity of the people of God throughout the ages with the Old and New Testaments being analogous to the childhood and adulthood of one person, not two separate, distinct persons (Gal. 4:3-34).
The Bible is the progressive unfolding of God's promise-plan to redeem His fallen creation in Christ1s finished work on the cross and renew all creation at His second coming in judgment. The covenant of grace is the same throughout Scripture but it is administered differently under the two testaments. Under the Pentateuch, grace was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the Passover lamb and other types and ordinances delivered to the Jews, all foreshadowing Christ's active and passive obedience and the heavenly realities to come. For that time this administration of grace was sufficient and efficacious through the operation of the Holy Spirit to instruct and to build up the faith of God's people in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins and eternal salvation.
The New Testament speaks of the new covenant salvation in Christ as a participation in the Old Testament covenants of promise (Eph. 2:12-13). Those Gentiles were once "far off" in that they were "strangers from the covenants of promise" are "now in Christ...made near by the blood of Christ." There are many New Testament verses which imply that the Christian church is the spiritual Israel of the new covenant.
In the very act of creation there is the expression of God grace in bringing into existence the dimension of time and space whereby He would reveal and glorify Himself to a special order of beings created for intimate fellowship. He who created everything is gracious. Graciousness marks everything about God and His relationship with the creation. It is to be a mark of Christian character as well. Everything He made, including matter, was good and it was very good (1:31). As we read the creation account there is, unlike the crude pagan mythologies, exquisite orderliness, symmetry, coherence, purpose and vitality in the universe. In addition, we have a remarkably rich variety of life which reveals His power, wisdom, goodness, truth and beauty. It is with a certain tenderness He "breathed" life into His special creature as He begins to relate to all He has created at a deeper level - the infinite, transcendent Creator God also is the immanent, personal God. He begins to step into the world He created. As redemptive history unfolds, He steps more deeply into covenant relationship with man until its majestic fulfillment in the Incarnation. His benevolence to His creature and created order in chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis is as a boundless joy. Its as if God is pouring Himself into His work blessing it and moving from one order of grandeur and majesty to another. Man is blessed by God on the sixth day and in the beginning there was no distinction between things sacred and things secular. All was honorable and in harmony and balance. For instance, work was a divine blessing. The Lord made paradise for man and placed him there to take care of it , to prosper it and to name it (2:15). Thus, work as stewardship of creation is dignified and justified in its own right. It is a gracious privilege that God's gives man to enjoy as he participates with God in His creating activity (much like He also privileges us with prayer and evangelism).
In addition, to reflect a sense of the intimacy of the Godhead within His creation the Lord graciously gave Adam a marvelous companion - equal but different so as to complement his role as ambassador or vice regent and to give full bloom to divine love within creation. That union between man and woman in marriage was made holy and within that union was instituted the family (1:28) - "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over...". God reveals that families are to be at the center of His kingdom and that children were to be a special divine blessing.
Before the Fall we see then that God was gracious to Adam in His act of condescension to breath life into him and in His "walk" with him in the garden. In 2:25 we read that "the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." Because of their intimate, harmonious relationship with God, they were innocent, without guilt, and at peace with each other and the creation. This is in such contrast to Adam's blaming Eve for his sin in Genesis 3:12 and how thereafter their relationship would be characterized by dominance (3:16). While the word covenant does not appear in chapters 1 and 2 its elements are nevertheless present. There are parties to the covenant (1:27), promises (1:28-31) and conditions (2:16-17). Adam received a commandment from God that he was to obey and that became his test of living in gracious fellowship with his sovereign ruler. It would be the same test that man would face and fail repeatedly; would he accept the creature-Creator relationship and its blessings-obligations. Adam knew what he was free to do in enjoying the blessings of fellowship with the living God and the benefits of His creation. He also knew where the boundaries were set in this creature-Creator relationship i.e. the line of authority and importantly what the consequences were if he crossed the line into disobedience. God is fair. Adam knew the rules and the consequences if they were broken ("you shall surely die").
The fall of man turned on one issue: "Hath God said?" (3:1). Would man believe and trust the word of God or yield to the temptation of becoming a law unto himself? By whose authority, whose law shall he live his life, God1s or his own? Indeed, we in Adam fell from grace - the covenant of grace established from the beginning by God with us and for us. The Fall tore apart the very fabric of life and its relationships; work became struggle, the family blessing became painful; enmity came between husband and wife and Satan and Eve (3:14-20). Now man as sinner was alienated from God and under His condemnation and wrath. The imago Dei is defaced, but it is not erased and it can be "renewed...in the image of the Creator" (Col. 3:10). For such a renewal of the shattered relationship with man, God will have to take the initiative and extend man His sovereign grace that enables man to turn his now wicked heart from his rebellion and back to God. Covenant is grace upon grace. It is God freely restoring man who is now wholly without merit and deserving of condemnation back into fellowship with Himself. Because God1s very character is graciousness He brings blessing to his covenant relationship with His sovereignly chosen people - this is the oneness of His gracious activity which lends Scripture its unmistakable unity and coherence. God promised eternal blessing (justification and sanctification and glorification) was conditioned upon Adam1s obedience but now the promise would be based on the coming obedience and victory of the Redeemer - the second Adam.
After the Fall God would have been perfectly justified to have carried out His sentence of judgment against cosmic treason. Rather than justice God extends Adam and Eve mercy. We further see how His grace is manifested in the first pronouncement of the gospel and its promise of the ultimate triumph of the Son of Man over Satan (3:15), the naming of Eve as mother of life (3:20), His provision of skins to cover their nakedness (a view of animal sacrifice that prefigured the sacrificial system and the Lamb of God) (3:21), and driving them out of the garden to spare them from committing more offenses (3:24).
Paradise was lost, fallen humanity is forced to live as aliens and strangers in the world, and utopia would not be possible until creation is redeemed at the consummation of time and . While the afterburn of the Fall would reverberate through every human heart down through the ages, God's presence, protection and provision would be with those upon whom His electing grace would rest.
In Genesis 4:1, we see that God gave Adam and Eve a son who they appear to believe is the promised Redeemer (3:15) but rather than their Savior Cain turns out to be the world's first murderer. In the Pentateuch, God1s detailed prescriptions about how He is to be worshiped traces back to Cain and Abel and what God had revealed as an acceptable sacrifice and the proper attitude with which it is offered. Instead of destroying Cain who murdered His brother in anger and jealousy, God graciously preserved Cain1s life (Gen 4:12) in order to build a city to satisfy his restlessness and that of his descendants (4:17-20). Thus, early on we see two kingdoms in civilization; on the one hand is the city of God where we see the line of Seth who called on the Lord as their hope of eternal rest (4:25); on the other hand, there is the secular city of Enoch but it, as culture, is honorable because it has the same Creator and Sustainer; that it why the unbeliever is capable of all sorts of great things because he remains an image bearer whose evil heart is restrained by God's grace. The Church is composed of Jews and Gentiles who like Abel worshiped the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and like Seth's descendants who called on the name of the Lord.
In Genesis 4 we see the depth of sin in the taking of a human life. The earth from which God formed man swallows up the blood of life. "And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." (4:11). This taking of life also was desecration of creation itself as described in Numbers 35:33-34: "Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed except by the blood of the one who shed it. Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell, for I, the LORD, dwell among the Israelites."
Genesis 5 shows the breadth of sin. "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (6:5) As man propagated over space, sin multiplied, even to the extent of co-habitating with Satan's angelic rebels in an attempt to reign over time. But God1s grace is over all things. "And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased [accelerated], grace abounded all the more [accelerated faster] (Rom. 5:20). God's grace preserved Noah and his family through the deterioration of the world and the world was given righteous justice in the flood.
Genesis 11:1-10 shows us the height of sin wherein man seeks to displace God's rightful place as ruler of heaven and earth. Instead of trusting the promise in the rainbow, they built a tower and took salvation into their own hands seeking to exult themselves through their technology. "Come let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves." So God confused their language and scattered them as an act of grace to save mankind from evermore moral offenses for "nothing which they propose to do will be impossible for them." In a wonderful reversal of Babel, God at Pentecost again descended from heaven but this time to enable each person to hear the gospel in their own language and to signal the arrival of the spiritual kingdom in Christ.
In this era, we see grace at work in individual lives and how that affects their relationship with God and with others. It is fascinating in His progressive revelation too see how God tells the patriarchs, "I will be your God" (Gen 17: 7-8; 28:21), then at the advent of nationhood He tells the people "you shall be my people" and finally He reveals "I will dwell in your midst" (Ex 29:45-46).
More particularly what is striking about Abraham - the father of Israel - is that he was an idol worshiper in Ur (Jos 24:2-5,14) - called out of his pagan ancestry to be graciously blessed both quantitatively and qualitatively. There was nothing about Abram to commend himself to God's call, either of works or disposition. On the contrary, he was a total stranger to the one true God.
It is God who always takes the initiative in making the covenants. It is God who says,"I will make a covenant with you." Although there is a human response and obligation involved it is always clear that covenant involves unequal partners. But God is the sovereign initiator and the Lord of the Covenant. This is evident in Genesis 15:17-18 when God gives Abram a vision of a smoking oven and a flaming pot that pass through the animal pieces of the cutting ritual. God binds Himself to keep both ends of His covenant with Abram. Fulfilling covenant solely rests on God1s character. Not only that but the episode of the golden calf and Moses' intercession makes it clear that the covenant was sustained by God1s grace. It was grounded solely in the grace of God1s redemptive purpose for His creation, not on the obedience of the patriarchs or of Israel whose many generations suffered the curse.
Genesis 15 is indeed a foundational chapter in Scripture. Not only does it reveal the basis of God's promise but it shows how God chooses to relate to sinful man. While Abram appears to have believed earlier (e. g. Chapter 12), here Abram is revealed to have believed in God and all He had promised and who God is (i.e. He believed in God1s character) and all that was credited to him as righteousness. From Chapters 12 through 22 we see that the blessings God promised Abraham were not realized by Abraham1s works but as God's gracious gifts. Romans 4:1-16 tells us that Abraham1s salvation from sin was by "grace", not by works. Yet Abraham's work while not the basis for salvation was nevertheless the fruit or evidence of what God sovereignly had already worked into his heart. The reckoning or imputing of righteousness (an alien righteousness) to Abraham was God's gift. Abraham like all people was simply incapable of delivering himself from God1s wrath by meeting the righteous requirements of the law. To be saved, the affections of his heart had to be graciously and sovereignly inclined to God and the things of God. This is what Paul says in Eph 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God."
As Calvin wrote, "We make the freely given promise of God the foundation of faith because upon it faith properly rests...Faith properly begins with the promise, rests in it and ends with it "(Inst. 3.2.9). The sole object of saving faith in both Testaments is Jesus Christ - the promised seed who would be the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises. The only difference is that in the New Testament we have fuller understanding of Christ and His salvific work for us.
In Genesis 22 Abraham is given his test of faith through which he receives a glimpse of the promise. As they were making their way up Mt. Moriah to where Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, Isaac asks his father where is the lamb? In verse 8 Abraham responds in faith, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering" and rather than Abraham's son being sacrificed, God provided a ram caught in a thicket as a remarkable prefigurement of Christ1s substitutionary death on the cross. This could well be what Jesus referred to when He said,"Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad." (Jn 8:56).
In Genesis 28:10-17 there is Jacob's encounter with God which is in sharp contrast to the picture we have of man's self effort to climb to heaven at Babel. At Bethel Jacob "saw a stairway" and "the angels of God were...descending on it" (28:12). Jacob is graciously given a glimpse of the promise which centuries later Jesus would say to Nathanael, "You shall see...angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." (Jn 1:51). Jacob's confession in Genesis 32:10 is that of one who who truly knows his sins and something about God's amazing grace, "I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness which thou has shown to thy servant." In another act of grace to the patriarch as he lay on his death bed Jacob would prophesy the Promised One to come through his son Judah (49:10).
Finally, Joseph's life story is all about God1s grace. Through every kind of circumstance and situation God preserves, protects and provides for Joseph enabling him to will and to do according to God's plan and purpose in covenant with His people. Genesis 50:20 is a wonderful expression of how God works in time and space to redeem the world, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." In the words of Heidelberg Catechism, "...all things, come, not by chance, but by thy fatherly hand."
Hebrews 11:13 tells us about how the patriarchs as well as all the Old Testament saints lived by the promise and grace that God revealed to them. "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance."
A classic statement of God's sovereign grace is found in Exodus 33:19, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." (Ex 33:19). God does not owe man grace for his offense. If He did it would no longer be grace but obligation and God could not satisfy His justice.
The Sinai covenant is grace because God establishes it with Israel not because of what they will do but what He has done and will do for them. In Exodus 19:4-6 at the initiation of covenant God said that He had delivered them out of Egypt "on eagles wings" and made them "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation". They would be His chosen vessel whereby He would pour out His saving grace to all the nations of the earth. While we think of God being Immanuel in the New Testament, He was very much with Israel in significant and manifest ways. The redemption from Egypt is basis for the covenant, which in turn was the outcome of God's covenant to Abraham. Exodus 2:34 and 3:16-17 tells us God delivered them because He pledged Himself to be their God. "I will be your God and you will be my people." This was a source of encouragement but this privilege of blessedness also brought obligation to obey God's law.
If the law is left in isolation it becomes a system of bondage, but viewed within covenant relationship it becomes an expression of grace. The law made the elect of Israel (as it does for us) more aware of their sin, drove them to despair, intensified their longing for the deliverer and led them to cast themselves on the mercy of God.
God understands that one of the hardest things about belief is that He is invisible to us. That is why He has progressively manifested Himself to His people so that they may know that He is and that He is with us. The pillar of fire manifested God1s presence as did the Skekinah (glory) cloud symbolize His presence in the camp. God had come to tabernacle in Israel1s midst (Ex 29:43-46). The apostle John in his prologue understood what a wondrous thing God had done for Israel but now He had come, not in a cloud, but in the flesh and "pitched His tent" with His people (Jn. 1:14). As in ancient times God revealed Himself fully in the tabernacle even so God's fullest revelation of all was localized in the person of His Son (Heb 1:1-2).
He also graciously instituted for Israel ceremonies and festivals to recall their deliverance by His mighty hand and to remember His promise of salvation. For instance, Passover memorialized how death brought life and how sacrificial death of an innocent substitute spared others from death (Ex 12:21-27). Moreover, in the Day of Atonement ceremony God gave Israel a wonderful object lesson about His grace in freeing them from guilt. As their sin was imputed to the innocent sacrifice, their guilt at the same time was carried off from God's presence in the tabernacle and into the desert by the scapegoat. This is the foregleaming of the Great Exchange on the Cross where Christ was made to be sin, that was not His and those He redeemed through His blood were declared righteous, that was not theirs.
Though God equipped his people for conquest to "possess the land" (Num 10:11-36), their hearts repeatedly longed for Egypt (Num 11:1-35; 14:2-4; 20:2-5; 21:4-5). They rejected Moses (Num 12:1-15) and God1s gift of the land (Num 12:16-14:45) and they committed idolatry and immorality (chap 25). Each rebellious act merited God's punishment yet He remained faithful to His covenant pledge to Abraham (24:9). Their hard hearts condemned them to wander in the desert for forty years. They were always grumbling about something - food (not enough, too much, wrong kind), water, and Moses leadership. In their murmuring we see the fascinating bronze serpent incident (Num 21:4-9) as an act of God's grace to heal whoever obeyed in looking up to what He had ordained to save them from the Serpent1s sting of death. Jesus refers Nicodemus to this incident to reveal God1s grace to those who would look to His cross for victory over death and for eternal life (Jn 3:14). In both testaments of Scripture, those who look to Christ with saving faith while they would yet die in this world would live again, forever. In Jeremiah 31:2 we read, "Thus says the Lord, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness."
With the completion of their wandering in the desert and the old, rebellious generation having died, Moses prepared them to enter and occupy Canaan by giving them the opportunity to hear and respond to the covenant God made with their forbearers at Sinai (Deut 31-34). Moses reminded them of God1s graciousness to them and their obligation to respond in obedience to His mandates. At the end of the Book of Joshua, the 110 year old Joshua also give a farewell sermon similar to Moses1 appeal to the remember the promise and to learn God's graciousness anew in His faithful acts to their fathers. Through both of His servants, God called His people to remember that their origin, the coherence of life and their destiny rest solely in Him, and so it does with us.
The person who lived before Christ"s time was saved by grace through faith in a Redeemer who was yet to come just as today a person is saved through a Redeemer who has already come. One looks forward in time for the vindication of God's justice and the other looks back in time to what has been accomplished; both do so through the gift of faith.
God's sovereign grace enabled the Old Testament saint to look forward to Christ's satisfaction of God's holy requirements just as we on this side of the Cross are enabled through the regeneration of our hearts to look back to Christ's finished work of satisfaction. In the Old Testament many obviously didn't look forward because they hardened their hearts to God despite the evidence of His power and grace in their midst. They were not saved just as many who encountered Jesus personally and witnessed His signs in the New Testament accounts weren't saved.
Scripture teaches that salvation is always by sovereign grace (sola gratia), not through any kind of work or disposition on our part. It1s always a matter of the sovereign election of God. God kept saving all kinds of Old Testament people by election but they were still sinners. He was able to do that justly because it was through Christ's death that God had been forgiving sin all along although that atoning death had not yet occurred. When it did at Calvary, the mystery of God's love and justice was fully explained and God was seen as the just and the justifier.