Grace Lost, and Grace Restored

Grace Lost, and Grace Restored

When I was growing up sugar was sold in five-pound bags. It had been for years. One day while buying groceries, I was comparing prices and noticed a larger-than-normal difference between the name-brand and store-brand sugar. It’s then that I noticed the store-brand was a four-pound bag, as opposed to the name-brand that was still five pounds.

Before long the store-brand was changed to a four-pound bag, but kept the price at the five-pound bag price. That’s a 20% increase in price and no one ever raised an eyebrow. In these days of low-inflation, manufacturers have to get creative to raise profits without causing customer push-back. Customers reached for their trusty bag of sugar and never even noticed the size difference.

Genesis 3:1 (ESV) Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

If current marketing ploys can pull off a coup like the sugar down-sizing, how much more capable is the enemy? Adam and Eve were not gullible. They were created in God’s image, which included a free will to choose. They knew what God had told them about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, when the serpent urged them to partake of the fruit of the tree, they considered what he said.

“Why wouldn’t God want us to know good and evil?”, they thought. Without even realizing it they had broken covenant with the One who loved them unconditionally. God had kept that one tree from them so they could love others unconditionally. He knew that the moment they became aware of good and evil their lives would change forever.

You see, knowing the difference between good and evil gives man the ability to judge another man. The only problem is that he doesn’t judge them based on the whole truth, only what he deems to be either good or evil. Without being God, man still presumes to know enough to pass judgment on another man.

With one motion the enemy brought man down from God’s level to his level. Man never envisioned that the first evil they would encounter was their own. They fell from Grace that day. Knowing good and evil made them aware of their separation from God. They feared what He might do to them. They hid, and mankind has been hiding ever since. It is only by a new encounter with Grace that man can come out of hiding.

Innocence was lost, but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we can once again regain innocence and be restored to right relationship with our Creator. Jesus took away the curse of “knowing good and evil” and restored access to the “life” of God. That is the Great Exchange: our death for His life. Grace has returned!