J.I. Packer on Grace and Works
It has been said that in the New Testament doctrine is grace, and ethics is gratitude; and something is wrong with any form of Christianity in which, experimentally and practically, this saying is not being verified. Those who suppose that the doctrine of God’s grace tends to encourage moral laxity (“final salvation is certain anyway, no matter what we do; therefore our conduct doesn’t matter”) are simply showing that, in the most literal sense, they do not know what they are talking about. For love awakens love in return; and love, once awakened, desires to give pleasure. And the revealed will of God is that those who have received grace should henceforth give themselves to “good works” (Eph 2:10; Tit 2:11-12); and gratitude will move anyone who has truly received grace to do as God requires, and daily to cry out thus:
Oh! to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be; Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee! Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love—
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above!
Do you claim to know the love and grace of God in your own life? Prove your claim, then, by going and praying likewise.
- From Knowing God, pg 137
August 3, 2009 at 8:32 am
Is this a Hymn too?