Sam Storms on Saving & Common Grace

All Christians know that divine grace is the unmerited favor and mercy of God that saves sinners from a well-deserved eternal death, but few have given thought to the concept of common grace.

What theologians typically refer to as special grace is the favor of God that actually results in the salvation of the human soul. Special grace is the work of the Holy Spirit in calling, regenerating, justifying, and sanctifying individual sinners. Special grace is restricted to those who actually come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Herman Bavinck defined the special or saving grace of God as "his voluntary, unrestrained, unmerited favor toward guilty sinners, granting them justification and life instead of the penalty of death, which they deserved" (208). Louis Berkhof defined it simply as "the free bestowal of kindness on one who has no claim to it" (71). J. I. Packer expressed it this way:

"The grace of God is love freely shown towards guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and indeed in defiance of their demerit. It is God showing goodness to persons who deserve only severity, and had no reason to expect anything but severity" (Knowing God, 120).

But this is not the only manifestation of God's grace to a sinful world. Even those who never come to saving faith in Jesus Christ are recipients of divine grace. Consider the fact that the apostle Paul (among others in Scripture) portrays the universal condition of humanity in extremely bleak language. Drawing upon the testimony of the Old Testament, he writes: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Rom. 3:10-12). Such is the predicament of people apart from Christ. Theologians call it total depravity. But, as John Murray has observed, this apostolic assessment of human nature forces us to deal with a series of very insistent questions:

"How is it that men who still lie under the wrath and curse of God and are heirs of hell enjoy so many good gifts at the hand of God? How is it that men who are not savingly renewed by the Spirit of God nevertheless exhibit so many qualities, gifts and accomplishments that promote the preservation, temporal happiness, cultural progress, social and economic improvement of themselves and of others? How is it that races and peoples that have been apparently untouched by the redemptive and regenerative influences of the gospel contribute so much to what we call human civilization? To put the question most comprehensively: how is it that this sin-cursed world enjoys so much favour and kindness at the hand of its holy and ever-blessed Creator?" (Collected Works, II:93).

The answer to these questions is found in the distinction the Bible draws between God's common, or non-saving, grace and his special, or saving, grace. [By the way, although the Bible never uses the terms "common" or "special" when describing God's gracious activity, the latter cannot be properly understood apart from drawing this conceptual distinction.]

The common grace of God has been variously defined. According to Charles Hodge, the Bible teaches that

"the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth, of holiness, and of life in all its forms, is present with every human mind, enforcing truth, restraining from evil, exciting to good, and imparting wisdom or strength, when, where, and in what measure seemeth to Him good. . . . This is what in theology is called common grace" (II:667).

Abraham Kuyper defines common grace as

"'that act of God by which negatively He curbs the operations of Satan, death, and sin, and by which positively He creates an intermediate state for this cosmos, as well as for our human race, which is and continues to be deeply and radically sinful, but in which sin cannot work out its end" (279).

A simpler and more direct definition of common grace is given by John Murray, Common grace, he writes, "is every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God" (II:96). 

really good article by Sam Storms

John Murray, Common Grace

"The word 'common' in the title of the topic is not used in the sense that each particular favour is given to all without discrimination or distinction but rather in the sense that favours of varying kinds and degrees are bestowed upon this sin-cursed world, favours real in their character as expressions of the divine goodness but which are not in themselves and of themselves saving in their nature and effect. So the term 'common grace' should rather be defined as every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God." 

Kuyper Quote, Wow

. . . the unbelieving world excels in many things. Precious treasures have
come down to us from the old heathen civilization. In Plato you find
pages which you devour. Cicero fascinates you and bears you along by
his noble tone and stirs up in you holy sentiments. And if you consider
your own surroundings, that which is reported to you, and that which
you derive from the studies and literary productions of professed infidels,
how much more there is which attracts you, with which you sympathize
and which you admire. It is not exclusively the spark of genius or the
splendor of talent which excites your pleasure in the words and actions
of unbelievers, but it is often their beauty of character, their zeal, their
devotion, their love, their candor, their faithfulness and their sense of
Christianity, Culture, and Common Grace honesty. 

Yea, we may not pass it over in silence, not infrequently you
entertain the desire that certain believers might have more of the
attractiveness, and who among us has not himself been put to the blush
occasionally by being confronted with what is called the “virtues of the
heathen”?
 
Kuyper argues that common grace accounts for this state of affairs, which
seems to go against the grain of the doctrine of total depravity.

Jerram ruined me. I used to, during my early years following Jesus, LOVE LOVE to make fun of/hate/out-argue, etc people who were not followers of Christ. Come to think of it, you needed to be a "Reformed" follower of Christ for me to think you were wisely using the air God was giving you.

Anyway, I go to Covenant Seminary and Jerram Barrs makes me read the Bible and study the life of Jesus Christ and I find that EVERY HUMAN is an image-bearer of God......and therefore worthy of dignity and respect.

So, here I am years later and somehow, God shows me the beauty of his world through a dude that I probably have


Maybe because I love my son, who loves music and can actually play it

Michael Stipe, Humility, Bono, U2






this is it.
and we get to watch him zen out, confess, render his self transparent concerning what could otherwise be a big, bad, demonic case of bono envy. dude stops mimetic rivalry in its tracks (or at least renders it non-destructive).
i'm gonna learn to rock out too.

brief explanation of Mark's ending, from ESV study bible

Mark 16:9–20 “Longer Ending of Mark.” Some ancient manuscripts of Mark's Gospel contain these verses and others do not, which presents a puzzle for scholars who specialize in the history of such manuscripts. This longer ending is missing from various old and reliable Greek manuscripts (esp. Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), as well as numerous early Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian manuscripts. Early church fathers (e.g., Origen and Clement of Alexandria) did not appear to know of these verses. Eusebius and Jerome state that this section is missing in most manuscripts available at their time. And some manuscripts that contain vv. 9–20 indicate that older manuscripts lack the section. On the other hand, some early and many later manuscripts (such as the manuscripts known as A, C, and D) contain vv. 9–20, and many church fathers (such as Irenaeus) evidently knew of these verses. As for the verses themselves, they contain various Greek words and expressions uncommon to Mark, and there are stylistic differences as well. Many think this shows vv. 9–20 to be a later addition. In summary, vv. 9–20 should be read with caution. As in many translations, the editors of the esv have placed the section within brackets, showing their doubts as to whether it was originally part of what Mark wrote, but also recognizing its long history of acceptance by many in the church. The content of vv. 9–20 is best explained by reference to other passages in the Gospels and the rest of the NT. (Most of its content is found elsewhere, and no point of doctrine is affected by the absence or presence of vv. 9–20.) With particular reference to v. 18, there is no command to pick up serpents or to drink deadly poison; there is merely a promise of protection as found in other parts of the NT (see Acts 28:3–4; James 5:13–16).

Why NOT Mark 16:9-20

this is from Kim Riddlebarger
Before we turn to our text this morning, you have undoubtedly noticed that I am ending our study of
Mark’s Gospel at verse 8 of chapter 16. The reason for this is that the so-called “longer ending”
of Mark is very likely not canonical–that is, it is not part of the original gospel.
A sermon is not an appropriate place for a lesson in textual criticism, which is the science of determining
the original text of the various books of the New Testament, but we need to talk about this briefly. When
a gospel or epistle of the New Testament was first written, the original text of that document is called the
autograph. This is the document which we believe was given under divine inspiration. That original
autograph was then carefully copied by hand because of the need to read these letters in the churches,
scattered around the Mediterranean world and elsewhere. Professional scribes were often employed, but
over time copy errors crept in, and a later scribe who copied a manuscript already containing an error,
would quite naturally copy that error into his own manuscript. These copyist errors are called “textual
variants.” The older and better manuscripts are much more likely to be free of such errors.
While this sounds like this would undercut the authority of the New Testament–it does just the opposite.
The early church placed great emphasis upon the preaching of the biblical text, so that literally hundreds
of manuscripts were prepared and circulated everywhere Christianity spread. The problem is not a lack
of biblical manuscripts, but too many manuscripts, many of them quite early. Textual criticism seeks to
identify the earliest and best manuscripts and almost always gets us back to the original wording of the
autograph. Furthermore, in no case is any doctrine affected by these variants and in any good English
translation of the Bible, wherever there is a known textual variant it is clearly marked off as not being in
the best and earliest manuscripts. That’s the case with Mark 16:9-20.
(See the discussions in: Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, 601-605; France, The Gospel of
Mark, 685-688; Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York:
United Bible Societies, 1975), 122-128.)

While the longer ending of Mark first appears at some point in the fourth century, Mark’s gospel ends at
verse 8 in the best and oldest New Testament manuscripts. A number of church fathers (Clement and
Origen) who quote from Mark, never mention the longer ending and wrote as though verse 8 was the end
of the gospel. The two most famous biblical scholars of the early church (Eusebius and Jerome) were
both aware of the longer-ending, but believed that it was not in the best and earliest manuscripts available
to them. They rejected the longer-ending as a scribal addition and not part of the original text of Mark.
There are a couple of reasons why this longer ending began circulating. Mark either abruptly ended his
gospel at verse 8, or the original copy of Mark, which was written on a scroll, may have been damaged
(and the end torn off) so that the original ending was lost. Given the abrupt ending, a copyist then wrote
a summary of what happened after verse 8, and based this upon things mentioned in the other gospels.
There is also a one verse ending in some manuscripts, but it never got the support the longer ending did.
Over time, this 11 verse summary was appended to the end of the gospel, and after several hundred years
went by, it was simply included as a part of the gospel. So, our modern English versions include it, as
they should, but mark it off as not included in the best and earliest manuscripts. So it is not as though
Christian are hiding a corrupt text of the New Testament. On the contrary, textual criticism has proven
that we have at least 99% of the autographic text, and in those few places where there are any questions
(like Mark 16:9-20), the variants are included so that people can make up their own minds.
In any case, I think that the evidence is very clear that the canonical gospel ends at verse 8, and that
longer ending is highly unlikely to have been authored by Mark.


--Kim Riddlebarger