Grace precedes judgment.

Grace precedes judgment.

Grace precedes judgment!!!

OK, got it? Do yourself a favor and keep on repeating that to yourself until it cannot escape your conscious mind. Make a jingle out of it if you must, but do not let it leave you…ever. Satan hates me for writing this (part of me is curious as to what kind of attacks I’ll be surviving this week), but too bad for him! As Paul said under even greater pressure, “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you’” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Grace is how God reaches across otherwise insurmountable chasms to save His children, beginning with salvation from spiritual death and eternity in Hell, the condition and destination of our birth, respectively. If a person doesn’t understand this, or refuses to accept this truth, they have effectively chosen death over life. If a person fails to see grace preceding judgment, all they see is the judgment. This is precisely what Satan wants, so he has propagated a world system that diverts man’s attention from God’s grace at every possible turn. While in all reality this is an impossibility (God’s grace is abundantly supplied), with a little help from man’s volition, he finds success. It’s a real tragedy.

As a result, many people in this world see God as a fiercely judgmental being that is approachable only through the vicious barbs of condemnation. Sadly, they see God as a predator, when all along He’s standing in front of them as Savior.

Even so, the truth is that saving some implies judging others. The key here is understanding which precedes the other, grace or judgment. Get them backwards and God becomes a monster.

So, I thought I’d write a few words about how this judgment thing works, partly for those still lost and confused about God, partly for those already saved. I’m pressed deeply to find a greater consideration regarding my Lord and Savior. It hurts to think of Him being misrepresented in the souls of others, not just because it’s a wrong He must endure, but that the perpetrators suffer horribly as a result, some destined to do so for all of eternity.

And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

— John 9:39-41

Jesus made the statements above after healing a blind man. In v39 He says, “For judgment I came into this world,” which, at first glance to a grace-oriented believer, may seem a contradiction to what we know to be true. Jesus stated plainly elsewhere, “If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47). As earnest disciples of the Word of God, we must reconcile all tensions that exist in our souls regarding scripture, as no such tension actually exists in the Word, itself.

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). In light of this, John 9:39 demands an explanation if we desire clarity on the whole of scripture. Let me see if I can help with reconciling this for you, if it is not already. The good news is that like most “aha” moments in our learning, once understood, it remains part of our permanent perspective. The best way to pursue this end, as always, is to seek more scripture on the topic. So let’s start there.

First, the Bible says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Well, Jesus Christ is the Word, and He is full of grace. With a little substitution in John 9:39, we might say, for our purposes here, “And Jesus said, “For judgment [grace] came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” In other words, for the sake of judgment, God sent the manifestation of grace, Jesus Christ, into the world.

It is in the presence of grace that the actual rejection of it can exist, precipitating judgment on those grounds.

God is a righteous judge. A righteous judge demands evidence against the accused. Grace is always the evidence for judgment, specifically when it is rejected. Grace, then, becomes the grounds for sentencing. Without it, there’d be no viable conclusion a judge (God in context here) could make, at least not righteously.

Satan’s accusation is that God is not gracious in His dealings with His creatures. That is to say that since grace is absent (this is his argument), then there ought to be no judgment. So, he propagates this lie in the world. He’s not afraid to twist the truth, even Holy Scripture, to pursue his goal. He’s no different than a sleazy lawyer (note: “Satan” is actually a title that means attorney) who convinces the jurors that good evidence should not be admissible as grounds for indictment.

What the Word of God does say is that grace precedes judgment. In fact, it is for judgment that grace came into this world (ala John 9:39). Grace stands as the evidence in the supreme court of Heaven that every indictment against every creature ever created is righteous. But just because evidence exists as the means of painful judgment doesn’t mean the righteous Judge, or the evidence, is bad. In fact, both of these are intrinsically good. Remember, perpetrators are not victims, like sleazy lawyers like to suggest.

There is no valid argument against grace. The best our enemy can do is try to hide it from our sight.

Grace is so simple and pure that often Satan’s best wager is to introduce foreign complexities into the minds of the unsuspecting, as Paul feared, “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3). God’s dealings with His creatures is, in fact, so magnificently flawless, that once seen clearly, it’s a wonder we ever saw anything else, or would ever want to again.

God’s first dealings with His creatures were gracious. He created them holy and righteous. And every one of them fell. Then came judgment. From the outset, grace has preceded judgment. This pattern has continued throughout human history. Out of love, His grace was manifest in Jesus Christ, and it hung on the Cross as the greatest evidence in human history ever proffered in the supreme court of Heaven. Judgment has never been His desire; salvation is, by grace (Ephesians 2:8), for He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

Judgment, then, in all fairness to the righteous Judge, Himself, is the choice of man, not some predatory god. It is the result of one first rejecting God’s grace. For in the presence of something good there must exist the choice for the opposite, lest there be no such thing as free will.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live.

— Deuteronomy 30:19

Grace precedes judgment.

Love in Christ,

Ed Collins