So we can see from this list that God’s grace was active, and it was and still is manifested in many ways. It involves all that has been mentioned, plus much more. That is what Paul refers to in Ephesians 2, verse 8, when he says it is the grace of God that saves us [“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”]. There is no merit of our own in salvation. God gives salvation as a gift, a free gift. The price has been paid. That’s how it is given as a free gift. Jesus paid in full the price for our redemption on the cross.

However, we must comply with conditions that God has given for us in order to be saved by His grace. When we have complied with those conditions, we are saved by grace through our own faithful obedience. Our compliance with the provision that God has set forth, our obedience to the things that He requires of us still do not merit—still do not earn us salvation. Salvation is still a free gift! Again, the price has been paid in full. We are simply doing what God has asked of us, and what He has commanded of us to do in order to obtain it.

As we know, this is a stumbling block for many people. Grace is a misunderstood entity. There are many who would say, well, we “put conditions” on God’s grace, and of course we’re not, but we’re accused sometimes of putting conditions on God’s grace and upon salvation. If we say that it is necessary for a person to be baptized, then we are putting a “condition” on that, and a person is then “earning” his salvation. Of course, that is not what we’re doing and that is not what a person is doing.

The analogy that so well illustrates that point has to do with a person who is approached and is offered a huge sum of money—a million dollars:

“I’m going to give this to you, there are no strings attached, you don’t owe me anything, and there is no obligation. You don’t have to pay taxes on it—it’s yours!”

“What have I done to earn it?”

“Well, you haven’t done anything to earn it! I’m a philanthropic sort of fellow and I just want you to have this money. Now, you just need to go across the street to the bank and present yourself to the teller and tell them who you are and they’ll count out a million dollars and you can walk out with it.”

“Oh, I’m not going to do that. That’s asking too much!”

Well, who among us would say that? We wouldn’t! And who among us would feel as though, by walking across the street and presenting ourselves to a teller, we had somehow earned the million dollars? We wouldn’t!

The same thing is true of God’s grace. God has said, in effect, “walk across the street, present yourself to the teller and you’ll have salvation.” Have we earned it? No! We’ve simply complied with what God has required.

Speaking of this, the Hebrew writer says, referring to Jesus, “And having been perfected, He became the Author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,” Hebrews 5, verse 9.

Now let’s look at THE ATONEMENT:

As we’ve already established, God desires a close and intimate relationship or fellowship with us, but sin has interrupted that. However, from the beginning, God had a plan to reconcile—to redeem—man and the atonement is God’s means to bring this about. The atonement may be defined as covering over of sin—the reconciliation between God and man accomplished by the blood of Jesus Christ. Remember: We talked about reconciliation, going from enmity to friendship, making that exchange. And it is the blood of Christ that makes that exchange—that reconciliation—possible. It is the result of Christ’s sacrificial sufferings by virtue of which all who exercise proper faith and obedience receive forgiveness for their sins.

God used the law and the sacrifices of the Old Testament to prepare us for the actual atonement. We see this in Numbers 15, verse 28, which speaks of the priest making atonement, under the Law of Moses [“So the priest shall make atonement for the person who sins unintentionally, when he sins unintentionally before the Lord, to make atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him.”].

Also, the Passover Feast was symbolic of the coming atonement, Exodus 12:1-13 [see verse 13: “Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”].

The Law of Moses itself was given to prepare us for Christ, Exodus 30, verse 10 [“And Aaron shall make atonement upon its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement; once a year he shall make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD.”],and Leviticus 16, verses 6-16 [See verses 6 and 16: “Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his house…So he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, for all their sins; and so he shall do for the tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness.”].