Undeserved Grace

Only when sin is bitter does grace become truly sweet.

The same book of the New Testament that spends so much time exposing our sin now urges us to receive God’s grace. “We are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith” (Romans 3:25). That word “propitiation” means that Christ’s death turns away God’s wrath for all who believe on Christ.

Who is qualified to turn God’s wrath away? Only He Himself can do so, through the work of Christ. So Christ became the propitiation for sin – that is, He diverted the wrath of God to Himself so that we could be forgiven. God demanded a sufficient sacrifice, and God Himself, through Christ, supplied what He demanded. Yes, some other religions also require a blood sacrifice, but only in Christianity does God become the sacrifice. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

To rescue us, God didn’t just throw us a life preserver; Jesus got into the murky water of this world to scoop us to safety. Only He could rescue us from the dark rebellion of our own hearts. Let us never move from “I appreciate grace” to “I deserve grace.” If we deserved grace, it would not be grace.

How far does God’s grace extend? To the vilest of sinners, to criminals of every stripe. To evil Nazis? Yes, to evil Nazis. That’s what I learned from the book Mission at Nuremberg by Tim Townsend. It is the story of a devout Christian chaplain, Henry Gerecke, who was sent to Nuremberg to represent the Allies as a spiritual advisor to the 21 war criminals held at Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945 (15 were Protestant, 6 were Catholic). Gerecke invited them to religious services and most came; some did not. He spent time with them, sharing the gospel, and refused to give them communion unless they repented and believed the gospel. He thinks that five did so, perhaps as many as seven.

I give but one example:

Joachim von Ribbentrop was Hitler’s foreign affairs minister, found guilty of war crimes and the first to be hung at Nuremberg in 1946. Thanks to Gerecke’s witness, God overcame this criminal’s hard heart. Before his death, he affirmed, “I put all my trust in the blood of the Lamb, that taketh away the sins of the world.” He asked that God would have mercy on his soul. Then, taken to the trap door to be hung, his last words to the chaplain were, “I’ll see you again.”

Of course, we don’t know the real state of Ribbentrop’s heart because words can be cheap; God alone is judge. But do you recoil at the idea that someone who had done such evils would be in heaven? God says, in effect, “What Jesus did in His death and resurrection is so complete, so sufficient that I can forgive a Nazi if he repents and believes on My Son, but I cannot forgive an upstanding, decent, and kind person who does not believe on My Son!”

Hell can be avoided and heaven gained; the wrath of God need not terrify us if we understand His provision and come under the protection of Christ, for “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). There is more grace in God’s heart than sin in your past.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer joins James and Betty this Monday on LIFE TODAY. Excerpted from The Eclipse Of God by Erwin W. Lutzer. Copyright ©2024 by Erwin W. Lutzer. Published by Harvest House Publishers. Used by permission.