God’s grace in Jesus Christ
is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. We are saved by God’s
grace, not by our works (Eph. 2:8–10), but God’s grace operates differently in
different classes of people. First, there is the class of those converted as
adults, who have lived lives dominated by sin and its injurious consequences.
God’s grace when they trust his Son is his recovering grace.
Second, there is that class
of children generally reared in a Christian home and the church who, while born
sinners, are spared the deep, injurious effects of sin since God’s grace
captures their little hearts before sin’s effects run deeply in their lives.
This is God’s preventative grace. These are two kinds of grace, both
splendorous, but one is preferable to the other: God’s preventative grace is
preferable to his recovering grace.
All
Grace Is Great, But Some Grace Is Greater
Years ago there was a popular
Christian radio program called, “Unshackled.” It was a dramatization of the
conversion experience of sinners who’d fallen into deep depravity but whom God
had marvelously saved: alcoholics and thieves and drug addicts and prostitutes
and unscrupulous businessmen and on and on. It was always exciting and moving.
One got the impression listening to “Unshackled” that the most exciting
conversions were those conversions of sinners who’d fallen into deep depravity
but whom God had saved and cleaned up for his glory.
This mentality, in fact, has
become the reigning paradigm in much of American Christianity.
But there is one drawback to
the “Unshackled” mentality. It’s the spurious idea that somehow God’s grace is
most greatly exhibited when it rescues the most depraved sinner.
This is utterly false. God’s
preventative grace is preferable to his recovering grace. Do you imagine that
God’s grace is less potent, less glorious, less overwhelming when it captures a
little child in a Christian family and keeps that child from the depths of
depravity? Which is a greater testimony to God’s grace: salvation of somebody
steeped in immorality and drug addiction and abortion and pride or illegitimate
divorce or pornography, or salvation of somebody so that they’ll never have to
endure the painful consequences of these and other sins?
Know this: God promises to
forgive the sins of anybody who repents. But God doesn’t promise to deliver us
from all of sin’s consequences. Oh, how many who were saved later in life still
bear the scars of the sins of their pre-conversion life! And oh, what joy in
the hearts of young adults, reared in the Christian Faith, most from infancy —
knowing that there’s no reason to suffer the dreadful consequences of those
sins of heart and mind and body — because God’s preventative grace is
preferable to his recovering grace.
The
Blessing of a Boring Testimony
Years ago one of my daughters
was going on a mission trip with an evangelical church. She came to me and
said, “Dad, before we go, we’re required to give the group a public testimony
of our salvation experience. I know I’m saved. What should I say? A lot of the
other kids have really spectacular testimonies, but mine is so boring. I
was trained in a Christian home and heard the gospel from an infant and trusted
the Lord. I wish my testimony were more exciting!”
I smiled with gratification,
and told her of the blessing of a boring testimony.
One of the great errors of
the church today is the notion that one must fall into deep depravity in order
to be “truly saved by grace,” and that since this usually excludes small
children, they need to “grow up and sin real good” before they can become “real
Christians.” One is immediately reminded of Paul’s dire comment to the Romans:
For if the truth of God has
increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?
And [why] not [say], “Let us do evil that good may come”? — as we are
slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is
just. (Rom. 3:7-8)
God’s grace is not glorified
because of sin; it is glorified in spite of sin. Obedience is better than
sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22).
God’s preventative grace is
to be more highly prized than His recovering grace. It is glorious grace in
both cases, but God’s grace is exalted more in what it prevents than in what it
repairs.
We learn of Timothy, to whom
Paul writes, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures,
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is
in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15, emphases supplied).
My daughter’s paternal
grandmother was converted as a Sunday school child at nine years old. Her
father himself (that is, I) was converted at two or three years old, and cannot
even remember first being converted.
We can experience salvation
from a very young age, in fact, from our youth. Little children who bounced on
Jesus’ lap believed on Him (Mt. 18:6). The very smallest children can —
and should — be believers.
Indeed, while the modern evangelical message is
generally that children must have an “adult” conversion experience, Jesus
taught just the opposite: adults must have a child’s conversion experience (Mt.
18:3).
Child conversion is rule;
adult conversion is the exception.
Conclusion
May God give us a massive
harvest of young people nourished in the gospel from their infancy! May we, by
the grace of God, rise up an entire generation of warriors for the Faith,
protected from many of the tragic consequences of sin into which those not
blessed with a Christian upbringing have fallen.
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