The Glory of Divine Grace

Dr. MacArthur says of Rahab’s lifestyle prior to her conversion, “…there were no redeeming qualities whatsoever about Rahab’s life up to this point.” (pg. 52) But, the exact same could be said of me, and every person’s life, before Christ. At the end of this chapter, Dr. MacArthur once again reminds us that “Rahab was redeemed not because of any meritorious works she did. She did not earn God’s favor by any good deeds…. She is a reminder that God by His grace can redeem even the most horrible life.” (pgs. 66-67) In the past, people have tried to sanitize Rahab’s story. But, the trend in the Church today seems to be to glorify a past like Rahab’s, as though the only way the glory of divine grace can be truly magnified is through a sordid past, littered with the (so-called) vilest of sins.

I am weary of hearing conversions discounted simply because their story is not as “exciting,” or as “glamorous” as those who have been saved from “the very basement of the moral hierarchy.” (p. 52) I was saved at the age of three. I grew up in a Christian family, attended church, Sunday school, Awana…. By human standards, I was a “good” kid, but by God’s standards, I was a sinner. My testimony does not include a dark tale of prostitution, drunkenness, adultery, or murder – the kind of sins that might rank in this “basement.” Does that somehow make my sins “less sinful?” Does that make God’s mercy and grace in my life any less amazing or undeserved? No, of course not. In fact, this grace is magnified in the very fact that I have been spared so many of the struggles and temptations that result in a life lived apart from Christ. I have had almost my entire life to love and serve my Savior! I was a sinner, condemned to eternal punishment, and separation from God, in Hell – saved only by the grace of God, through the death and resurrection of His Son. The same divine grace that redeemed Rahab’s life, that saved the thief on the cross, that called Saul from persecuting the Church to become the Apostle Paul, is the same grace that saved me!

Larnelle Harris says it well in the chorus of his song “Were It Not For Grace,”