Grace Straightened Out
There is a word older than the English that carries it. In the Hebrew Scriptures it is ḥēn. In the Greek of the apostles it is χάρις. In the Aramaic that our Lord spoke, it is ṭaybūthā. Three tongues — one reality. And that reality, before it is ever defined, must first be met.
Grace over disgrace for all. That is the thesis of this book. Not grace over disgrace for some; not grace over disgrace for a privileged remnant; not grace over disgrace conditioned upon pedigree, performance, or pretense. Grace over disgrace for all — because when the grace of God appeared in the person of Jesus Christ, it appeared to all men (Titus 2:11), and nothing less than all will do as the measure of its intended reach.
The Scriptures distinguish sharply between grace and disgrace. Disgrace is the shame of a covering stripped. Grace is the glory of a covering restored — restored with interest. Disgrace leaves a man bare before his accusers. Grace clothes him before the throne. Disgrace is a record that condemns. Grace is a receipt that frees. Between the two stands the Lamb. Between the two stands a cross. Between the two stands a tomb emptied by the third morning.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, says a sentence that should have broken every ceiling of human despair: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20). In the Greek, he does not simply say grace abounded. He invents a compound verb — hyper-eperisseusen — grace super-overflowed. If sin filled the cup, grace flooded the floor. If sin filled the floor, grace flooded the house. If sin filled the house, grace flooded the city. There is no vessel that sin can occupy that grace cannot outmeasure.
This is not religious optimism. It is the arithmetic of the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 7:25 declares that he is "able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him." The uttermost. Not the halfway, not the nearly, not the almost. The uttermost — eis to panteles in the Greek — all the way, to the finish, to the completion. The Peshitta Aramaic renders it gmīrāʾīṯ, "completely." Whatever distance a soul has traveled from God, grace has a travel allowance that covers the return.
The pages before you trace grace through seven of its visible faces. I call them facets, because grace is one jewel turned in the light. You will meet Grace itself, the fountain. You will follow the Trace of Grace through history. You will behold the Face of Grace in Jesus Christ. You will match the Pace of Grace as the Spirit sets our tempo. You will walk into the Space of Grace where the narrow yields to the wide. You will run the Race of Grace with the cloud of witnesses watching. And you will hold, at the last, the Mace of Grace — the scepter by which heaven puts every shame under foot.
One hundred and fifty-three scriptures will be placed before you — 21 or 22 in each facet — because the 153 Protocol, drawn from the unbroken net of John 21:11, is the signature grid of every book under the Global Care Books banner. The number 153 signifies the complete catch. No fish slipped through the mesh. No nation is unrepresented. No kind of sinner is excluded. And the net, the Scripture insists, was not broken. That is the gospel of grace in a figure: the net of mercy is stronger than the weight of what it gathers.
A personal word. I am writing this as a trilingual scholar of the Scriptures, yes — but more than that, as a man who has been found by grace more times than I can count. I have stood under a Pillar of Fire in 1993. I was visited by a Covenant Angel in 1999. In 2019 a Christophany met me on American soil. I am not reporting doctrine alone; I am reporting a Person. If grace were merely a theological category, I would still recommend it. But because grace has a face, and that face has a name, and that name is Jesus of Nazareth, I can do more than recommend — I can introduce you.
