What's So Amazing About Grace?

Where do you stand on this business of amazing grace? I don’t mean the hymn. I mean the idea of grace, or the…well…the doctrine of it. Do you believe that the mistakes of the past, the wrongs a person has done, even very grievous wrongs, can be wiped away once and for all by God’s love and mercy? Can someone, can anyone, can you, be freed form a lifetime burden of guilt by the grace of God?

There is a supposedly true story of a presentation by a college philosophy professor. His subject was the religion of Islam. He told the class that the Islamic faith stresses justice: good behavior is to be rewarded, bad behavior is to be punished, both on the human level and on the sacred level. The presenter said that even though he was a Christian minister and had many times taught and preached the doctrine of grace, he thought that the approach of Islam made a whole lot more sense.

It does, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t good behavior be rewarded and bad behavior suffer consequences? There’s something in us that objects to sinful deeds going unpunished, even our own sinful deeds.

A character in a contemporary novel expresses this point of view. Referring to the practice in Catholicism of the faithful declaring sins to a priest in the confessional booth, this character says:
“Confession is a thing I can’t agree with. I say it’s cheap. You kneel down in that box and say what you done. And then, basically, you get off scot-free, only cranking out a few ‘Hail Marys’ or some ‘Our Fathers.’ No restitution demanded, no community service” (Louise Erdrich, The Bingo Palace).

John Newton was the son of an English sea captain. At the age of eleven, Newton went to sea himself and, after some years, captained his own ship, one that carried African slaves. Converted to the Christian faith, Newton became a minister and hymn writer. Remembering his former lifestyle and his part in the evils of slavery, Newton wrote the words that have become beloved by millions.
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”

I know a person who came across a church hymnal that had taken some liberties with Newton’s words. Apparently, somebody objected to the word “wretch”. I guess it sounded to them so…well...so wretched. Most people who sing this hymn aren’t wretches, he probably reasoned, they’re good people, most of them church-goers. So this person substituted for the words, “saved a wretch like me,” the phrase, “saveth men like me.”

It was a bad decision, not only because it used that non-inclusive word “men,” but because not one of us escapes the state of wretchedness in our lives. We are born messed up with Satan’s nature; we mess up ourselves – sometimes badly. We slip into petty hatreds, we betray confidences, we remain silent in the face of injustice, we break promises, we fail to love our neighbors as ourselves, we fail even to love ourselves properly.

Wretch is the word for it. A wretch like me. A wretch like you.

My closing word on the matter is simply this – when I bring my life to Jesus Christ as my Savior, I really don’t want justice. I don’t want what I deserve. I want mercy, divine mercy. I want God’s amazing grace.

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