Humanity’s long and sordid history is a display of meanness and evil. Yet God created all and seemingly put up with the evil. How would He satisfy the kindness of His heart and His own inner demand for justice and fairness? How would He satisfy His “conscience” concerning the volcanic eruption of evil on the earth? In an amazing display of grace He met both concerns through the person of His Son.
The Son of God was born as a human person in 3 or 4 B.C. so that He could illustrate the kindly intent of God through His courageous life. He was also born to harmonize God’s desire to be kind with the demands of His conscience,” which said that wrong must be paid for. He who created everything, the Son of God, would pay for the unleashing of evil by creation. Humanity really cannot complain about the presence of its own evil, because it is God who has paid the price tag. The dying person on the Cross becomes the absolutely ultimate display of grace and mercy.
Grace displays and pays. Grace displays God’s heart and pays for the creature’s sin. Without asking our permission Christ suffered and died for our sin. He was an equal opportunity sufferer for Christians and non-Christians alike. After Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died and rose again, God started the church to experience and teach grace throughout the earth. Those who trusted in Jesus—that He suffered, died and rose again on their behalf—became the church. God’s treatment of the church also illustrates His grace.
