But the grace of our Lord surpassingly over-abounded with faith and love, which [is] in Christ Jesus.
Paul has just called himself a blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent man. Here he measures grace against that record. Two questions follow: how much grace, and what did it bring with it?
The force of "overflowed"
Paul's word means more than "enough." Writers who work from the Greek, quoting older and more literal translations, put it more strongly.
The grace of the Lord toward him was exceedingly abundant. Translated more literally, it reads: "the grace of our Lord surpassingly overabounded." He had the most wonderful experience of this grace, which saves so freely and so fully.
The overflow had something to answer — the scale of what Paul had done.
The sin of Saul of Tarsus abounded. Full of ignorant unbelief, he aimed his damaging hostility straight at Christ Himself, by blasphemy and by persecuting His people. So he was, and he felt himself to be, the chief of sinners. But the super-abundant grace of God met the abundance of his sin. Did the glory of divine grace ever shine more brightly than when the rebel Saul met the risen Saviour? We think not. Yet we all owe our salvation to the same good news of the glory of the blessed God.
Faith and love against unbelief and hatred
Grace brought with it the exact opposites of what had filled Saul before. Note what he lost as well as what he gained.
The heavenly Christ was Jesus whom he had been persecuting in His members. It was all over with him, and with his religion too. Christ was everything to him. And he now owns Christ in all who loved Him — the very name he had cursed until that moment. It was sinful unbelieving ignorance. "But the grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love that is in Christ Jesus" — the contrast of unbelief and hatred when he knew only the law.
Mercy in verse 13, grace in verse 14
The order matters. Mercy meets the man where he is. Grace then does more.
Notice how grace closely follows mercy. Mercy had compassionately dealt with him in his condition and circumstances of ignorance. Now grace is exceedingly abundant. It enables him to triumph over every circumstance, because grace is the power that lifts a person above circumstances. Here faith and love in Christ Jesus are closely joined with this grace. Faith is that personal confidence in Him — God-given, in fact — and by faith we take hold of grace. Love is the warmth that comes with it: the very nature of God, poured into the heart by the Spirit of God.
Given, not produced
Paul does not say grace arrived and he supplied the faith and love. One writer points to the grammar: the two are one thing with one source.
Faith and love are like the very life-breath of the believer. They are given at the very start, as a new moral being, and they take the place of the old life of sin... Then, at the height of his energy, he was "breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9). At that moment the blessed Lord stepped in... Faith and love are given, "faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." They spring from there, they are one there (the verb is singular). Further, they are never separated from their source; we have them in Him. This stands at the start of the Christian life, and it runs on through that life to the end. Then faith will be changed to sight, and God will be known as love.
The phrase "in Christ Jesus" carries more than one sense.
And faith and love are necessarily in Christ Jesus — in Him, for He is the source, Object, and sphere of both alike.
What overflowing grace does to a man
Grace on this scale does not puff a man up. It changes his view of himself for good.
There was a time when Paul thought himself to be something. Recall his list of legal achievements and advantages... He then thought himself the best of men and boasted in the flesh to the utmost. But how vast the change when the light of God was let into his soul!... The best of men discovered that he was the chief of sinners. Nothing but sovereign grace and mercy could help such a man... Never again did he "think himself to be something." The proud, arrogant Pharisee became the lowliest of men. He became the closest possible follower of a rejected and suffering Lord. Only grace can do this.
Summary
- Mercy first — mercy met Paul where he was, in his ignorance.
- Then overflow — grace "surpassingly overabounded," and it did so where sin had abounded most. It lifted Paul above every circumstance.
- Then gift — Paul did not supply the faith and love; they came to him with the grace.
- Held in Christ — faith and love are one thing with one source, and they never leave it. He is their source, Object and sphere.
- And so, lowliness — the man who received the most grace never again thought himself to be something.