How Does Grace Transform Us?

The mystery that God is the God of all mankind (the third mystery we studied) has led us on a long discussion of grace. As Michael said to me in an email last week, I never knew very much about grace, but now I see it everywhere, and I can’t get enough of it. That’s how grace is like oxygen. It’s everywhere. It’s vital for life. And it’s free. Grace is to the soul what oxygen is to the body. 

Today, I’d like to discuss the fourth mystery. It is related to the third mystery, but specifically relates to the mystery of what grace does to the believer, how it transforms us. 

Paul talks about the revealed mystery, about something made known:

Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

 For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. (1 Corinthians 15:1-10)

He goes on to relate the death of Christ to our own death to sin and the resurrection as the condition of forgiveness and mercy and grace. He then exposes the mystery, very specifically: 

 Behold, I am telling you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be firm, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:51-58)

“I am what I am,” Paul says, “by God’s grace, but I was changed and you will be changed by grace to in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye you will go by grace from the mortal to the immortal, you will go by grace from the corruptible to the incorruptible, you will go from death unto life.” 

This is the persistence of grace. This is the promise of grace. This is the power of grace. It is steadfast and immovable. To study the transforming power of grace more, we turn to the story of the conversion of Saul to Paul. 

Saul is introduced in Acts 7 as an accomplice to the murderous stoning of Stephen. He is seen holding the coats of those doing the stoning. In Acts 8:1 we are told that Saul was consenting to Stephen’s death and that, as a result, “there arose that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.” 

The story continues in Acts 9: 

 Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them in shackles to Jerusalem. Now as he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told to you what you must do.” The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

 Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many people about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on Your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer in behalf of My name.” So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like fish scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized; and he took food and was strengthened.

 Now for several days he was with the disciples who were in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” All those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying, “Is this not the one who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?” But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ. (Acts 9:1-22)

Saul is a Hebrew name, linked to the royalty of the first king of Israel, who was also named Saul. The name means to ask or to question. He was apparently the royal Inquisitor. And you might say that the questioner is about to get the answer of a lifetime. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the one who asks questions gets a thundering answer. 

It is commonly thought that the conversion of Saul to Paul is associated with his change of name, but this is not so. Paul is a Greek name meaning “little” or “small,” quite a different meaning from the royal meaning of the name Saul. But God addresses this man as Saul. In fact, he is referred to as Saul 11 times in the Book of Acts after his Damascus Road experience. 

The names Paul and Saul appear to be interchangeable between the Hebrew and the Greek. Paul himself takes up his new name when he begins his first missionary journey to the Greek believers. In order to become all things to all people, he apparently takes a Greek name to be a more effective minister to the Greeks. 

The road from Jerusalem to Damascus is a metaphor for the road of life. On it, we live our lives of purpose, prejudice, and passion. We live our lives also of pedigree, and for Saul, that pedigree is rich. He records his pedigree as follows: 

 …, although I myself could boast as having confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he is confident in the flesh, I have more reason: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

 But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss because of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them mere rubbish, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:4-11). 

Paul’s pedigree is solid, he says. “By the grace of God, I am what I am. So because in a moment I was changed, I am now a new man.” Grace doesn’t change our past. “And it is not of yourself, lest any man should boast.” But it changes everything, even your name—that most personal aspect of who you are, from Saul the royal to Paul the little. That’s what grace does. And just as Paul experienced on the road of life, so too we experience grace as an overwhelming sensory experience. 

Even today, 50 years later, I remember when I found grace or, I should say, grace found me. I was a student at Andrews University. It was a Sabbath morning worship service. Job Addlestone, a bible teacher, was giving a sermon on judgment. He said that God does not condemn us, but that there is joy in judgment; that grace saves us from any kind of judgment. I had never heard these concepts before. It was utterly liberating. Like the paralytic at the Gate Beautiful, I wanted to jump for joy. I went on to learn much more about grace. But it was even in the quiet church service that morning that an overwhelming sensory experience occurred to me. 

Notice two things about Saul’s experience on the Damascus Road. We’ve already said it’s an intense sensory overload. But when God shows up, as usual, he starts with questions: “Why are you fighting me?” God asked Saul. This is a universal question. Why are you fighting me? Why are you fighting God? God is the solution, not the problem. He is the answer, not the question. It is the fundamental condition of mankind to see God as the problem, the adversary, the condemner. When God is in fact the God of grace to all mankind, why are we fighting him? Why are we opposing God, he asks. “I’m the solution to your problems, not the problem itself.” 

Second, when grace finds you, it doesn’t just affect you. It affects those around you as well. The men who were with Saul stood speechless, hearing the voice but beholding no speaker. The discovery, the revelation, of grace has an effect on everyone who’s near. It’s apparent to all and it defies explanation. It leaves them speechless. The experience of grace is so dramatic, that there can be no question about where it comes from. The origin of grace is not ambiguous. “Who are you, Lord?” Paul says. He asks and answers the question all at once. There is only one answer. Grace comes from God, because grace is God. 

Grace, we see from the story, blinds us also to the road that we are on. We are shut out of our own independent pathway. We are led by the Spirit in the way of faith. We are blind to our way and we are led into God’s way. Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. They had to lead him by the hand to Damascus. Grace, you see, raises us from the earth, from our own ways, and it leads us by the hand into God’s ways. 

In Damascus, Saul is at Judas’ house on Straight Street. Ten or so years ago, I visited Straight Street to see what it looked like. There are no houses on it anymore. It’s now a market. But the stone gate at its entrance, which dates back to the first century AD, is still there. It’s probably the gate that Ananias went through to go to Judas’ house to see Paul. 

He finds Paul there. Paul is blind, and neither eats nor drinks for three days. Here we see a metaphor for death, even the death of Christ, cut off for three days in the tomb, no vision, no normal bodily function, isolated, rising again to grace—dying to sin, resurrected to salvation. It is the mystery of the transforming power of grace that we read about in 1 Corinthians 15. It is the transition from death to life. 

After three days, God appears in a vision to Ananias. Like Saul, he too needs a transformation of grace. Just as Peter did in Acts 10 in his visit with Cornelius, we see here again Ananias’ concern. He answered: “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to thy saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief of priests to bind all who call upon his name. But the Lord said to him Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and the kings and the sons of Israel.” 

Here again, we see that grace is for the good. No matter how good you are—even a good disciple like Ananias; and grace is for the bad, no matter how bad you are—even a murderer like Saul. 

Grace transforms us all. We all need grace. Ananias lays hands on Saul. This is grace being shared. This is the passing on of grace. Grace transforms enemies into brothers, adversaries into relatives. Powerful stuff, is grace. The transfer of grace brings Saul back, as it were, to life. He has a metaphorical resurrection. The scales fall from his eyes, he is filled with the Holy Spirit, he is baptized, and he eats again. Here we see a real picture of resurrection of the rebirth both of the body and of the Spirit. This is what grace does. It leads you where God takes you. “I am what I am,” Paul says, “because of God’s grace.” With the scales removed, with new vision, with a new picture about what life is, there emerges new insight concerning God’s ways. 

Note that the grace doesn’t change Saul’s personality. He’s just as eager to do God’s work. But it does change his character. His zeal for doing something for God is now directed by grace, not by his own effort. Not his vision for life, but God’s vision for life. Death to his own ways, raised to new grace.

What does grace do to the individual believer? Has grace in any way changed you? Have you had a grace experience? What are your thoughts about this fourth mystery, the transforming power of God’s grace? 

Donald: Is goodness really just evidence of grace? Is mercy, unmerited favor, kindness? It is so unfortunate that we tend to see God as the condemner rather than as the God of grace. We look to him as the judge of our behaviors. We even joke about it: “If I knew I was going to hell, I might as well have a great time while I’m here.” If we didn’t have a condemner, we’d have a good time. How did we get here? 

David: Acts 9:31 says that peace was being built up in the church “in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it kept increasing.” Why fear a God of grace? The Bible tells us over and over again to fear God, but here, in the same breath, it says the Holy Spirit will provide comfort.

Don: The Greek word used really means awe. Fear of the Lord is referred to many times in scriptures, almost always in the context of a sense of reverence rather than fright or concern for safety.

David: That would make sense. Why say fear when they could have said awe?

Don: It has to do with the translation.

C-J: I don’t have a problem with the word condemnation as it’s used in the context of this. I’m grateful when the Holy Spirit condemns. We use that word judiciously. You are condemned for the sins that you have committed, but without the Holy Spirit bringing to my awareness that this is wrong or the condemnation, “You shall not do any of these things”, I’d be a hot mess. 

The condemnation is harsh because when we’re not in the presence of God, we’re in the absence of the presence of God and for me, that is the abyss. It’s not a feeling. It’s a sense of being completely alone and unaware of even who I am. Because my identity at this point in my life is completely wrapped up around my relationship with God. So if I didn’t have that I would have nothing, I don’t mind the condemnation of the Holy Spirit or of God. It’s done in love, like a parent. “Don’t do that! You could have died!”

Kiran: With regard to David’s concern: The Message translation of the Bible says, “They were permeated with a deep sense of reverence for God, the Holy Spirit was with them, strengthening them, they prospered wonderfully.”

Donald: Adventists are quite uncomfortable saying “I am saved.” You feel like you’re not saved, or you’re condemned, that something’s happening that you need to be aware of. A friend pointed out to me that Mrs. White said very specifically that we should never say we are saved: “Those who accept the Savior, however sincere, their conversation should never be taught to say, or to feel, that they are saved.”

C-J: Paul speaks about working out our salvation with fear and trembling. The relationship is one of awe and reverence and is constantly transforming. We’re never finished. There’s a beauty in that relationship, falling in love over and over and over, whether it’s a spouse or a best friend, but here it is the divine.

Kiran: Ananias had a vision in which God told him to go and pray for Saul. He thought: “This man is evil and he’s hurting many of your saints at Jerusalem.” The very next thing God says to him is: “Go, I choose him to be my chosen vessel.” I think this is really strange. We take it for granted that this interaction happened. But suppose I come to the church and the worst enemy of the church comes up and God tells me “I choose him as my vessel, go and pray for him.” That is a very difficult place to be. And I don’t know if I could digest that. 

I think that many of our experiences today are in a way like Ananias’ because we are questioning how can God extend his grace to an enemy of God who kills his own saints, but then here is the mystery: He chose the very person who is killing him as his vessel. The transformation is beyond understanding, how God can turn a weapon against him into a chosen vessel for his use. 

How should I change my perspective so that I can be aligned with what God wants? I think Ananias’ aligning himself with the will of God is really wonderful.

Michael: The problem we’re trying to understand is a matter of viewpoint. Are we looking at God in the Bible from a Jewish point of view or from the nascent Christian point of view? From the Jews’ point of view, Saul was the perfect Jew, so he didn’t need grace. Then he became a Christian. He didn’t have the grace. But according to Jewish tradition, he was perfect. So if we take it from a Jewish perspective, even though he was perfect, he wasn’t. It’s not of your own effort. He didn’t see.

Donald: It’s basically sharing a different facet of the same thing. You’re just seeing it in a new way. If there was ever a time in society where we’re having a difficult time seeing a new perspective, it is now. We lock into our own perspective and we don’t want to see it in a new way. We think the other perspective is wrong, but the reality is, it’s the same thing. It’s just from a different angle, as I think Michael is saying.

Reinhard: Paul’s conversion from enemy to leader of the Christian movement was rapid. I believe this was the work of the Holy Spirit. We too can be transformed from our previous life to lead a better life. When we are close to God, God will work to bring about a rapid change in our lives, as he did for Saul. The transformation of Paul is one of the works of the Holy Spirit, by God’s grace.

Anonymous: If Paul had not been sincere in heart before he even met Jesus, would God still have used him as his chosen vessel? To the best of his knowledge, Saul was doing everything right. He was walking with God, he obeyed God, he did everything he thought he should do. He’s into God. Would God choose someone who’s insincere? Someone like Sapphira and Ananias? Like Judas? Like Simon the magician? Would people who don’t seem to be interested in God’s way from the beginning of their lives be chosen by God? 

Given the gigantic grace of God, how could anyone be lost? Even the insincere, even the people who have no interest in God’s way, won’t God can meet them somewhere with his grace? But what if they reject it? Is there hope for them? 

As we start walking with God in the beginning of our lives, grace is there for sure. Without grace, we cannot go a single step in life. But we don’t feel it. We don’t understand it. We don’t see it. it’s like it’s not there. In Jordan, we didn’t know anything about grace. So coming here and starting to hear and learn about grace, little by little, still not comprehending the whole thing, we’re walking with God according to our best intentions, and then we meet grace on the way. This is where that turning point happens. And from there, grace takes over. But it’s not something that we grow with according to our comprehension or understanding.

We meet with grace as we grow in God. At the beginning of the road, it’s all about the law, obedience, being good, worship, prayer, and so on. We are students, learning to take one step at a time. Along the way, graduation happens, and then we come to know about grace. 

So this opportunity is always open from God’s side. It’s always available. But what about someone who does not even hear about God’s way? Would this happen? Or would it take place in his life in a miraculous way? Or is it not up to God, but up to them?

David: I think the whole point of Paul’s story is that it’s got nothing to do with what Saul did. He did the worst possible things, and that didn’t affect anything. So first of all, it lays completely to rest the notion of works. Works get you nowhere. It’s all down to God and his grace. 

Then the question is, if you don’t have to work for it, is it going to come to you in the same way that it did to Paul? I haven’t experienced what Paul experienced and I don’t behave as Paul did afterwards. I’m not out there evangelizing, The gift of grace seems somehow different for everyone, and you have to wonder why. 

And what about those who have never heard of Christianity, or Christ, or the Bible? People in rural China, and so on? Does this happen to them? Is a Saul-like experience possible for people who’ve never heard of Christ? I think it is. 

The encouraging thing to me about the story is that it lays to rest the argument of works versus faith. It seems that works has nothing to do with it. Perhaps faith does. The one thing Paul had was faith, he was the perfect Jew, as Michael said, so he had faith in God. But he didn’t have the works to justify being proclaimed a Christian.

Michael: I meant he is the perfect Jew in terms of works. I agree that works had nothing to do with it. He was the perfect Jew, but he didn’t have grace.

Kiran: It has nothing to do with the human being. God’s salvation is 100% due to Jesus and Jesus alone. I could be anybody—faithful Jew, faithful Muslim, faithful Hindu, or I could be an atheist. I could be a murderer. Anything—you name it. But my salvation is 100% to do with God. I think that’s liberating. I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is respond when grace comes. 

And grace comes not just once, but several times. I believe that grace came to Saul when they were stoning Stephen. He must have wondered why Stephen maintained his faith while being killed, why he didn’t recant his faulty faith. Peter, when he was denying Jesus, had grace. Even after that, when he went away leaving the discipleship of God and went fishing, there was grace again. We are part of the equation of salvation. Salvation is 100% God’s. If there were a little percentage of something that I could do to save myself, I don’t think we would need Jesus.

Carolyn: I want to go back to Adam and Eve in the garden, and when they were dismissed. I want to go back to where grace began. Did it began with Jesus, or in the garden of Eden, where we first hear about it? Adam and Eve came under the umbrella of God’s grace as they walked out of the garden of Eden. Anyone can have grace. But are we saying now that grace only comes after we accept Jesus? Where and when did grace start?

Anonymous: For the individual, grace starts where or when they notice it. It may have been in the world since Adam and Eve, but if I don’t know about it, then it’s not there

Carolyn: That wouldn’t be fair. A lot of people don’t know about it.

C-J: God created heaven and earth and he said it is good. That’s grace. It is out of abundance of love and mercy. Grace abounds for the creation and it is good. In the Islamic faith they have 99 characteristics/attributes of God and all of them point to grace, to love, to this profound presence, all of the things we’ve talked about, and it is good.

Jay: The metaphor of of oxygen suggests something that is everywhere, that permeates everything, that has a passive characteristic. It just is. But in the story of Paul, grace is extraordinarily forcible,

Don: It’s an explosion, as if the oxygen got heated and exploded,

Jay: This seems very different from the grace we’ve been talking about—grace that’s everywhere. This, in contrast, is a slap in the face, a knock-you-down, put-you-in-the-tomb-for-three-days kind of grace. Why doesn’t everybody get slapped in the face with it? What am I doing (or not doing) that prevents grace from punching me on the nose? 

Saul isn’t the only one who got slapped. Jonah got slapped, so did Balaam on his donkey. 

There seem to be two different kinds of grace. Everybody wants to be hit by grace..

Reinhard: I believe the transforming power of God’s grace is very evident in Saul’s instant conversion from enemy of the followers of Christ, to their leader. Even Ananias was sceptical. 

The grace of God has been present since the garden of Eden. The word grace is less common in the Old than in the New Testament, and is especially common in the Epistles of Paul, but the goodness of God was given to us from the beginning. It was given to Adam and Eve, and to the Israelites, and to us. The grace of God is very evident in our life.

Michael: I can’t claim that I understand everything but I understand one thing: It is not about works, and if you have grace, it does not mean you become a better person. In fact, if I understand Paul’s story correctly, he was the perfect Jew, but it seems like he ended up becoming gay. Isn’t that the thorn in his flesh that God never took out? So I think grace helped him become more of himself instead of aspiring to a perfect moral standard.

Donald: We are describing grace happening at a particular moment. When did it enter the Garden of Eden? When did it happen to Saul? It then seems like once it happens, something is expected, some behavioral change—some works. We’re not supposed to think that way, but we all, I think, have a sense that “I have accepted the Lord and now my behavior is different.” It’s just being good, but doing something on behalf of others, showing grace. It just seems like those two things are linked, inseparable.

Carolyn: Do you think that, in order to act different, Saul was given a certain amount of knowledge or background to stop his horrendous way of acting before he was given this portion of grace? I think that the Holy Spirit automatically gives us grace, but if we live by works, then we’re right back to wondering if we are good enough. I think there has to be a joyous outcome. If it’s just a determination to work, we’ve lost the grace. 

David: Carolyn said earlier that it’s not fair. Why does Paul get this wonderful experience but the rest of us don’t? I am reminded of the complaint of the elder brother of the prodigal son to their father: “How come he got the fatted calf and not me? I’ve done nothing wrong, and he’s done everything wrong!” The only answer, to me, is that in the end, everybody gets a fatted calf. But the father didn’t say that to his older son. Maybe the rest of us, like the elder brother, just have to take the promise of a fatted calf on faith.

Kiran: When Paul realized his big mistake and got the gift of grace, his reaction, out of gratitude, was not to sit at home but to go out and share the gift with everybody else. I think that’s a different kind of attitude toward works. 

When I myself realized that all the bad stuff that I did was taken by God and all his good stuff was given to me, it was liberating and I wanted to just give my life to God. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know what to do. Whoever said: “This is what God expects from you,” I did it. 

Nothing and no one could stop me: Not my culture, my parents, my elders, my teachers. I think that comes not from a feeling of needing to earn grace or feeling an obligation to pay for it. For me, it came from a feeling of freedom. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I wanted to give back to God. I wasn’t thinking about myself in those days.

Don: It is interesting that you would focus on what others told you to do. That may be another aspect of grace that we need to look at—our responsibility for what to do with grace. We easily and readily (and usually mistakenly) are willing to speak on God’s behalf to people who are willing to listen. 

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