That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:7
Sometime around 1910, the American hymn writer Julia H. Johnston penned the following words as the first verse of her most famous hymn: ‘Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt! Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.’ If you were to sing that hymn, including the refrain after each of the four stanzas, you would sing the word ‘grace’ 38 times! The godly Miss Johnston was obviously trying to convey the importance of the grace of God. I think the apostle Paul was trying to convey the same thing when he by the Holy Spirit penned the words of today’s text.
The grace of God is so important, according to Ephesians 2:8,’ that we cannot have salvation without it. No grace, no Heaven. No grace, eternal hell. Thank God for what Miss Johnson called His marvellous grace. We learned in Sunday school that grace is something that we don’t deserve. And we learn every day that God freely pours out His grace to us because of His great love toward us. It does our souls good to meditate on God’s grace, and to thank Him for it. But don’t expect in your lifetime to ever be able to fully understand and appreciate that grace; that will take all of eternity.
I remember standing with a large crowd of workers at the Saint John shipyard as a federal cabinet minister announced the upcoming construction of several patrol frigates at the yard. At each of Gerry Merrithew’s announcements, that large and excited crowd cheered and whistled. And they were right to do so; each of those ships meant years of steady and well-paid employment for those workers. I can imagine Heaven being a little like that. Our text reminds us that God will show the exceeding riches of His grace to us. And in that great eternal classroom, the students (you and me and all of the redeemed of the ages) will undoubtedly cheer and shout at the everlasting unfolding of those riches. If eternity will not be long enough to unfold those riches of grace, we can excuse our inability to grasp it all today.
It is little wonder that John Newton used the word ‘amazing’ in his great hymn about grace. Only eternity will reveal just how amazing grace truly is. –Jim MacIntosh