GRACE: The Classy Cliché

Elegantly Described in the Old Testament

“Grace” vies with “law,” “love,” and “sin” for top spot on the Christian cliché list. This is not to say that these words and concepts are not important — the very opposite is true! But the words, being bandied about in ignorance, are so hackneyed that they have become meaningless because, “Everyone knows what they mean.” Not so, the language is being caught — not taught. We think we know what they mean but we don’t. The Church is no different to the Secular World. I have recently had personal experience when making a submission to the Crown Law Department which did not give a crisp definition of the term, “hate speech,” even though it will be included in impending legislation. The problem is, there are many definitions but no one has been able to give a definition of the banal definition being used.

Brace yourself! It is the detail which makes me a boring person that brings the Bible alive for me. There may be more here than the normal, well adjusted person would care to know.

Hebrew view of Grace.

Surprisingly, Grace is not the possession of only Christianity. Judaism has been aware of it since Genesis 19 (Lot rescued from Sodom). Anyone who does not think that the OT is also the Age of Grace has not been paying attention.

Dr Baruch Korman (LoveIsrael.org) is an outstanding Bible Teacher who is what is technically known as “a complete Jew.” That is, his culture is Jewish, and he’s an ordained Orthodox Rabbi who has come to know Jesus as His Personal Lord and Saviour. He is bilingual Hebrew/English and fluent in Koinonia Greek, in which he did a PhD. So he brings with him the Hebrew Logic, as well as the Gentile. He teaches about a facet of Rabbinical Logic known as, “Hearing the words unspoken.” It is actually universal but I had never paid attention to it. It is a memory-aid that will be laboured on a bit here because you will come across it often elsewhere in this blog. When someone is reading a list of names and read yours, there are things that instantly spring into their mind about you (your looks, what they had heard about you, their experiences with you, can you be trusted, your talents, and so on) in a flash — without conscious effort — you can’t stop it. When they read the next name, the same unspoken words are heard about her — in a flash.

When a practising Jew sees the the name יהוה (Yehovah), the words unspoken he hears is, “Covenant keeping God Who delights in making and keeping promises.” When he reads, say, Yehovah Shalom, he hears “Covenant keeping God Who delighted in promising to give us a full life and now delights in keeping that promise.” And so on…

Dr Baruch, as an ordained Rabbi, says, “When a trained Orthodox Rabbi reads the word grace, he hears, ‘Provision.’” That is, provision from God for the Saint to live a life pleasing to Him. For Christians that means, “ Christ is sufficient in everything.” This covers ALL things in spirit, soul and body — including everything necessary to expand the Kingdom from Heaven.

You could stop here because it is a definition with meat on it. When you read/hear the word “Grace,” hear the unspoken words, “Provision to live a life pleasing to God. That is, do whatever the Lord wants me to do.”

But if you decide to go deeper, and you should, you will discover a few things.

• The definition, “unmerited” favour, is not scriptural. There is certainly favour, and we certainly do nothing to merit it. But if God decides to give it then, by definition, it is not up to us to decide if it is merited or not. To do so is to reject His hospitality which is an insult to Him in the Middle Eastern culture in which the Tanakh was written. Semantics become important. “I have done nothing to warrant the favour God gives me,” is different to, “I don’t deserve it.” That moves the credit to where it is due.
• The word heard by the Rabbi is neither the Hebrew for grace nor provision. It is H2617 — Chesed generally translated, lovingkindness.

This is because the Hebrew translated as grace is a compound of three words, חֶסֶדוחֵן (Chen v’Chesed).

• Decoupling Chen v’Chesed

[It has the same construction as fish’n’chips where the combination is greater than the sum of the individual parts.]

חֶסֶדוחֵן = H2580 — ḥēn חֵן + conjunction vav ן + H2617 — Chesedחֶסֶד

H2580 — ḥēn חֵן: grace, charm, elegance.

ן vav conjunction with (the ’n’ part)

H2617 — Chesedחֶסֶד mercy, kindness, lovingkindness, goodness, kindly, merciful, favour, good, goodliness, pity.

An adequate English translation of this could be, “lovingkindness elegantly delivered with charm.”

Judaism contracts this to one word meaning mercy, kindness, lovingkindness, goodness, kindly, merciful, favour, good, goodliness, pity.

So you could choose your own unspoken words to hear for, grace, “Mercy, kindness, lovingkindness, goodness, mercy, favour, good, goodliness, pity which God chose to elegantly deliver with charm.

The forgoing evidence has not been presented to convince any reader but to allow a personal decision to be made. There is much more to know about this subject. Perhaps you’ll pay another visit, sometime.

All Glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

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