(Eph 2:12) But God’s grace is the shining ray of hope In the New Testament the word grace appears about one hundred thirty times, thus bathing the passages with the bright hope of salvation through the gift44 of God’s love What are your answers to the following: (a) Reconcile how God can forgive a murderer (b) What makes God so longsu ering in His dealings with sinful man? (c) If a sinner cannot be saved by doing good works, where is there hope? (d) How can God let redeemed sinners into heaven? All these questions are answered by the one word grace Sinners who refuse the gift of God’s grace — being clothed in Christ’s righteousness — will spend eternity in the pain and agony of separation from Him God’s grace does not contradict or cancel His holiness That is why we may expect to read much about judgment in the New Testament (e.g., the book of Revelation, which is mostly judgment) All the divine attributes are absolutely perfect and eternally concurrent When God sends awful judgment for sin, because He is a holy God, He does not thereby nullify His grace The gospel is a universal message Jesus and His disciples preached the gospel (“good news”) rst to the Jews, because they were of the favored nation whose roots were in Abraham, to whom was given the promise of eternal blessing (Gen 12:1-3; 17:1-8) In this connection it should be observed that the story of the gospels is a transition between the Old Testament law and the postPentecost church era Israel rejected the Messianic message, and with that rejection came the extension of the call to the Gentile world Of that John F Walvoord writes, The ful llment of the promise of God to David was postponed, and into the foreground came the undeclared purpose of God to call out from every nation a new company, composed of both Jew and Gentile, independent of all His promises to Israel, having its own calling and destiny.45 So Israel was not the exclusive audience of gospel preaching — the priority of the divine program was only with regard to time: “ rst for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Rom 1:16, NIV) Before long in the historical books (gospels-Acts) the gospel is preached to Gentiles as well as to Jews That universal audience of the gospel is what Jesus had in mind when He gave the commission to His disciples, “You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8) Throughout the New Testament the gospel is seen as the power of God for salvation to every one who believes (Rom 1:16) The work of Christ is wholly dependent on the person of Christ Jesus could what He did only because of who He was, the true God-man For example, He could perform miracles because He was God He was a genuine substitute for mankind on the cross because He was genuinely human And He was an acceptable sacri ce because He was sinless and perfect Because of His humanity, He could identify with those being tempted — He Himself su ered when He was tempted (Heb 2:18) The problem with those who reject the works of Jesus (such as His performing of miracles) is that those persons not believe Him to be who He truly is.46 ... Israel rejected the Messianic message, and with that rejection came the extension of the call to the Gentile world Of that John F Walvoord writes, The ful llment of the promise of God to David... and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8) Throughout the New Testament the gospel is seen as the power of God for salvation to every one who believes (Rom 1:16) The work of Christ... not the exclusive audience of gospel preaching — the priority of the divine program was only with regard to time: “ rst for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Rom 1:16, NIV) Before long in the historical