Event Type
Open Access
Location
London, UK
Start Date
5-2016 12:00 AM
Description
Grace obliges recipients to respond in gratitude and obedience to God, the giver of grace. While the New Testament emphasizes God's grace given through Jesus Christ in a New Covenant with believers, the Old Testament emphasizes grace more than many Christians recognize. Grace is expressed in the Old Testament especially through God's free choosing of Abraham as the "father of the faithful," through divine covenants with Abraham, with the divinely constituted nation of Israel, and with the governing house of David. Such grace abounds when God's covenanted people fail to keep their covenant, yet God, after disciplining the covenant people even severely, keeps covenant with his people, showing his ongoing "steadfast love" (nearly synonymous with NT "grace"). In Jesus Christ, this grace abounds even more, which the New Testament writings express in marvelous unity. But such grace rightly elicits appropriate responses. From stipulations in the Old Testament Torah that carry over into the life of the first Jesus followers to the expectations of the grace that greased the patron-client system of the first-century world of the earliest Christians, grace obliges recipients to gratitude and loyal action on behalf of the giver of grace.
Included in
Biblical Studies Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Christianity Commons, Comparative Methodologies and Theories Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, History of Christianity Commons, Missions and World Christianity Commons, New Religious Movements Commons, Practical Theology Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
Obligations of Grace
London, UK
Grace obliges recipients to respond in gratitude and obedience to God, the giver of grace. While the New Testament emphasizes God's grace given through Jesus Christ in a New Covenant with believers, the Old Testament emphasizes grace more than many Christians recognize. Grace is expressed in the Old Testament especially through God's free choosing of Abraham as the "father of the faithful," through divine covenants with Abraham, with the divinely constituted nation of Israel, and with the governing house of David. Such grace abounds when God's covenanted people fail to keep their covenant, yet God, after disciplining the covenant people even severely, keeps covenant with his people, showing his ongoing "steadfast love" (nearly synonymous with NT "grace"). In Jesus Christ, this grace abounds even more, which the New Testament writings express in marvelous unity. But such grace rightly elicits appropriate responses. From stipulations in the Old Testament Torah that carry over into the life of the first Jesus followers to the expectations of the grace that greased the patron-client system of the first-century world of the earliest Christians, grace obliges recipients to gratitude and loyal action on behalf of the giver of grace.
