"I am not rejecting the grace of God. For if through law [is] righteousness, then Christ died for nothing."
-The grace of God... The grace of God. Grace is God’s undeserved favor. Grace is God loving unlovely me. Grace is God accomplishing for me what I could never do, and that is salvation, rescuing me from the death penalty which I justly deserved. Grace is God giving Himself up and dying on the Cross for me. Grace is God saving me - calling me, drawing me, granting me repentance, baptizing and sealing me with His Spirit when I believe. And so the last thing a thinking person would want to do would be to somehow reject God’s grace or make it of no effect in my life.
-One way to reject God’s grace would be to proceed with works-based righteousness, the notion that I could somehow do something, anything, perform some kind of ritual or obey some set of commands which would somehow cleanse my soul and atone for my many many misdeeds. But as Paul points out, if there were any good deed I COULD do which would earn me right standing, then there would have been no need for Christ to do what HE did, for Him endure the Cross to begin with. No need for God to in essence kill His beloved Son, to allow the Romans and the Jews to do what THEY did to Jesus. If I can get there on my own and save myself by obeying the law, any law in fact, then Christ (Who DID die) died for no reason whatsoever. A waste beyond compare.
-But really, who in their right mind would do such a thing, what thinking person would reject a free gift, particularly a gift of this magnitude, of such eternal import, especially considering the Source? Exactly. Rejecting the grace, the favor of God so underserved yet so rich and free can only be the act of a fool (Romans 1.22). And such monumental foolishness...!
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