Putting the Amazing back into Grace

Been chewing on Aaron's Oct 20th post for a couple of days - it went right along with our Sunday School lesson as well as with the Providence series we're getting right now.
I was thinking about how Scripture tells us that the Old Testament gives us types and shadows of the truth revealed fully in Christ... and how He tells us - He chose Israel,

Deu 7:6-8
(6)"For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
(7) It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,
(8) but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Then I was reading Piper's tweets on Pastor Mike's page and found this...

Why We Love the Doctrines of GraceOctober 23, 2009
By: John Piper

Unconditional election delivers the harshest and the sweetest judgments to my soul.
That it is unconditional destroys all self-exaltation; and that it is election makes me his treasured possession.
This is one of the beauties of the biblical doctrines of grace: their worst devastations prepare us for their greatest delights.

What prigs we would become at the words, “The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6), if this election were in any way dependent on our will. But to protect us from pride, the Lord teaches us that we are unconditionally chosen (7:7-9).

“He made a wretch his treasure,” as we so gladly sing.

Only the devastating freeness and unconditionality of electing grace lets us take and taste such gifts for our very own without the exaltation of self.


How sweet Amazing Grace is - and it's only amazing if God did it.



I stole the title of the post from: Putting the Amazing back into Grace - Michael Horton