SCANDALOUS GRACE

"Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen. They acquired property in it and became fruitful and very numerous." (Genesis 47:27 HCSB) "These are the tribes of Israel, 12 in all, and this was what their father said to them. He blessed them, and he blessed each one with a suitable blessing." (Genesis 49:28 HCSB)

Simply shocking--scandalous even--that is the behavior we witness in Genesis. That this would be true of a wicked world before God swept them away in the judgment of the flood or of the perverse populace of Sodom that God consumed with fire is not altogether surprising, but the portrait painted of the people God chose to build His nation--it's mind boggling! We are hit right between the eyes with God's scandalous grace.

Noah gets drunk. Abraham sleeps with his wife's slave. Isaac lies. Jacob cheats. The sons of Israel are violent and vile in their conduct, except for Joseph. These are the people God chooses to redeem. Scandalous!

But, that is the nature of grace. It is what makes grace to be grace. It is God's unmerited favor bestowed on undeserving sinners. That is what we all are. Grace is what we all need. Grace is what we can never earn. The external effort cannot hide the internal evil. The best we can do is try to hide our shame behind a garment of fig leaves, cling to a log while it rains for forty days, build a tower to try to reach heaven--to no avail. Only grace can clothe us in righteousness, secure us in the ark of salvation and place a ladder that extends down to us from heaven.

Adam and Eve being driven from the garden---that's not scandalous. We would expect that. God reaching out to them and clothing them. God giving a promise that through this sinful woman's descendant the Savior would be born--that's scandalous.

Humanity thumbing its nose at God and being drowned in the deluge--that's not scandalous. We would say it's sad, but not startling. It's a just sentence from a Holy God. Noah finding grace in the eyes of the LORD and his family being preserved on the ark, realizing that even though Noah was a faithful man, he was also a flawed man, along with his boys--that fact highlighted in him lying naked in a drunken stupor in his tent and one of his sons mocking him. That's scandalous.

Sodom, so depraved that the name has become synonymous with perversion, for that city to be consumed in God's furious fire--that's not scandalous. For Lot to be forcibly removed and not perishing with them, considering what a carnal, compromiser he was--that's scandalous.

It is the scandalous grace of God.

So, here is the conniving rascal named Jacob. If parents were seeking a model for good behavior to instruct their children, they would not choose Jacob! But God chose Jacob to be the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. What of those sons? Not such promising material from which to construct a nation! Just consider some of their prospective fruit grounded in the root of past behavior and present nature.
Here is a sampling:

Reuben, you are my firstborn,
my strength and the firstfruits of my virility,
excelling in prominence, excelling in power.
Turbulent as water, you will no longer excel,
because you got into your father's bed
and you defiled it-he got into my bed.

Simeon and Levi are brothers;
their knives are vicious weapons.

Dan will judge his people
as one of the tribes of Israel.
He will be a snake by the road,
a viper beside the path,
that bites the horses' heels
so that its rider falls backward. (Genesis 49:3-5, 16, 17 HCSB)

God decided to build a chosen people from rotten timber. Scandalous!

We, the people of the New Covenant, should be exceedingly grateful--for that is what God is still doing. John Newton captured the concept in that most beloved hymn, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me."

I am Jacob. So are you. In our heart, if sometimes restrained in our actions, resides shameful thoughts, sinful desires, shocking attitudes. God knows what we are often loathe to admit. He sees what we hide beneath the veneer of respectability. Yet, He loves us. He sent His Son to die for us--the only perfect Man paying the penalty for sinners! He saves us and gives us true righteousness in the same way He did for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--by faith in Him. "Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness." (Genesis 15:6 HCSB)

That's grace abounding to the chief of sinners--the scandal of grace!