Grace: More than a Life Preserver

In the grace of salvation, God doesn’t merely cast a life preserver for sinking souls to grasp. Instead, He takes those who have already drowned in the depths of the sea and breathes new life into them. Today, R.C. Sproul portrays the sovereign power of God’s saving grace in Christ.

The analogy is that fallen man is like a man who can’t swim, and he’s cast adrift into the ocean. He’s gone under twice already. He’s going now down under for the third time. His head is already under the water. He’s got one arm stretched out, and only the top part of his fingers are above the surface of the water. And unless somebody throws a life preserver—and they better throw it accurately, that preserver has to come right up against his hand—he most certainly will perish forever. And so, God throws the life preserver right against his fingers. But if that man doesn’t grasp the life preserver on his own strength, he will drown.

See, that’s not what I find in Scripture. I don’t find saving grace being offered to people who are sick unto death in a hospital room. That saving drug is given and administered to a corpse, ladies and gentlemen, who is already pronounced dead, who cannot on his own strength even respond to the gospel. What God did for you, if you’re in Christ, is that after you went down the third time and you were stone cold dead at the bottom of the sea, God the Holy Spirit dove into the water, picked you up out of the water, took you up on the shore, and resuscitated you and brought you alive again through the power of His creation. You are a new creation in Christ. And that’s grace.