Grace and Disgrace part 1

I often think about the meanings of words that include "grace."  Usually when we talk about grace in English, we're talking about doing something gracefully (with style, ease, and beauty).   The theological meaning of "grace" is quite different.  So, I will sometimes think about how the English words including "grace" are related to the biblical meaning of the word.

Grace means to receive something good that you didn't earn.

All of us are sinners.  Our sin nature is what makes us unworthy of God, and our sinful actions (trespasses/transgressions) are symptoms and signs of our guilt (Romans 1).  It is not our sinful actions that make us unworthy of knowing God; we are already unworthy by our sin nature.

God, in his radical love for us, gives us grace--an undeserved gift:  he pays the price for our sin, making us innocent, which we call justification.  The second thing God promises is to remove the consequences of our sin: death (spiritual and physical).  We call this removal of consequences "salvation."  In other words, we have been declared innocent, and our sentence has been commuted.

God shows us extreme forgiveness, and we call it grace.  We, on the other hand, tend to treat people quite differently.

Imagine a hypothetical friend.  If they have some shortcomings, it's easy to look past them by remembering your friend's positive traits.  However, if that person does something really wrong (a grievous sin) or really annoying (a "sin" against you), you tend to notice all the little bad things about them.

Personally, I tend to think back on my relationship history with the person and question everything that they did that I previously viewed positively or neutrally.  All their past actions instantly seem suspicious.  I tend to suddenly go from supporting my friend to judging them based on the broken trust caused by their one action (a severe sin, or a sin against me).

We tend to be impacted by that one misstep our friends make.  I was trying to think of a word that describes the one action that taints the whole history of a person in my mind, and I thought of one:

Disgrace.

We usually refer to a person as a disgrace, but the word has other meanings, which can refer to actions.

Dictionary.com defines "disgrace" as:
1. the loss of respect, honor, or esteem; ignominy; shame.

3. the state of being out of favor; exclusion from favor, confidence, or trust.

Simply put, disgrace happens when one thing reflects negatively on a larger situation.

When our friend does something wrong or annoying, we often allow the disgraceful act to rule our opinion of and attitude toward our (former) friend.  

When someone does one bad thing, we view all their good in light of the one bad thing. On the contrary, when God looks at us, he views all of our bad things in light of the one good thing His Son did for us on the cross.

We show others judgment, based on disgrace.  God shows us love, based on His grace.

We'll explore this issue more in the next blog.