Grace Is All Gift

Augustin on grace:

Saint Paul teaches that he who sees ought not to boast as though what he sees, and even the power by which he sees, had not come to him by gift [1 Cor. 4:7]. For, whatever powers he has, did they not come to him by gift? [Rom. 7:22]. By the gift of grace he is not only shown how to see you, who are always the same, but is also given the strength to hold you. By your grace, too, if he is far from you and cannot see you, he is enabled to walk upon the path that leads him closer to you, so that he may see you and hold you.

—Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 155.

Grace

My stock lies dead, and no increase
Doth my dull husbandry improve:
O let thy graces without cease
                                      Drop from above!

If still the sun should hide his face,
Thy house would but a dungeon prove,
Thy works night's captives: O let grace
                                      Drop from above!

The dew doth ev'ry morning fall;
And shall the dew out-strip thy Dove?
The dew, for which grass cannot call,
                                      Drop from above.

Death is still working like a mole,
And digs my grave at each remove:
Let grace work too, and on my soul
                                     Drop from above.

Sin is still hammering my heart
Unto a hardness, void of love:
Let suppling grace, to cross his art,
                                      Drop from above.

O come! for thou dost know the way.
Or if to me thou wilt not move,
Remove me, where I need not say,
                                      Drop from above.

—George Herbert, The Complete English Poems (New York: Penguin, 1991), 54.

God Does All, and We Do All

Jonathan Edwards gives the most profound explanation I've ever read or heard for the interplay between divine sovereignty and human willing and acting (the italics are mine):

In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some, and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, and we act all. For that is what he produces, namely, our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are, in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.

In the Scriptures the same things are represented as from God and from us. God is said to convert, and men are said to convert and turn. God makes a new heart, and we are commanded to make us a new heart. God circumcises the heart, and we are commanded to circumcise our own hearts; not merely because we must use the means in order to the effect, but the effect itself is our act and our duty. These things are agreeable to that text, "God worketh in you both to will and to do."

"God does all, and we do all. God produces all, and we act all." Now that is profound. Do you see it? If you don't, O ponder it long and hard. Peer as deep down as you can into this deep mystery! And ask yourself if this is not what Phil. 2:12-13 means when it says to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure."

So there is not the tension that some might think. God really does all, and we really do all.

—"Concerning Efficacious Grace," in Miscellaneous Observations on Important Theological Subjects (vol. 2, Works; Banner of Truth: Carlisle, 1997), 557.

O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation

After being laid low with some illness of late and feeling sluggish in my walk with God for some time, I recall a few favorite paragraphs outside the Bible. It's from Augustin's Confessions.

Lord, I am your servant, born of your own handmaid. You have broken the chains that bound me; I will sacrifice in your honor. Let me praise you in my heart, let me praise you with my tongue. Let this be the cry of my whole being: Lord, there is none like you. Let them say this and, in answer, I beg you to whisper in my heart, I am here to save you.

Who am I? What kind of man am I? What evil have I not done? Or if there is evil that I have not done, what evil is there that I have not spoken? If there is any that I have not spoken, what evil is there that I have not willed to do? But you, O Lord, are good. You are merciful. You saw how deep I was sunk in death, and it was your power that drained dry the well of corruption in the depths of my heart. And all that you asked of me was to deny my own will and accept yours.

But, during all those years, where was my free will? What was the hidden, secret place from which it was summoned in a moment, so that I might bend my neck to your easy yoke and take your light burden on my shoulders, Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer? How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose and was now glad to reject! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honour though not in the eyes of men who see all honor in themselves. At last my mind was free from the gnawing anxieties of ambition and gain, from wallowing in filth and scratching the itching sore of lust. I begain to talk to you freely, O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation (Book IX, Section 1).

The Call of the Sovereign Christ: Total Response

When the call to discipleship goes forth from the sovereign Christ, why must the response be immediate?  In chapter 2 of Bonhoeffer's The Call to Discipleship, this question is posed.  The answer:

Why?  For the simple reason that the cause behind the immediate following of call by response is Jesus Christ himself.  It is Jesus who calls, and because it is Jesus, Levi follows at once.  This encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority of Jesus.  There is no need of any preliminaries, and no other consequences but obedience to the call.  Because Jessus is the Christ, he has the authority to call and to demand obedience to his word.  Jesus summons men to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God.  In this short text [Mk. 2:14] Jesus Christ and his claim are proclaimed to men.  Not a word of praise is given to the disciple for his decision for Christ.  We are not expected to contemplate the disciple, but only him who calls, and his absolute authority.

Have you heard his call?  Are you holding anything back?  Jesus is Lord of all.  Follow him.  Follow him unswervingly with spiritual abandon.