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Remembering Past Grace for the Sake of Future Grace
An Old Testament Pattern
The pattern of looking back in order to believe in future grace is as old as grace itself. The Old Testament tells us of times when the people of God looked back to strengthen their faith in future grace and of times when they didn’t.
For example, we are told that soon after Gideon died “the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals” (Judg. 8:33). Why did they do this? Why would they choose a second-rate foreign deity instead of trusting the future grace of the true God for their help and deliverance? The next verse gives the answer: “And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side” (Judg. 8:34). They forsook their faith in God’s future grace because they stopped remembering his past grace.
Nehemiah points to another example when the people rejected the Lord in the wilderness and wanted to go back to Egypt. “Our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt” (Neh. 9:16–17). Forgetting the past grace of God’s “wonders” caused the slavery of Egypt to look better than the future grace of God.
Future Grace
John Piper
In Future Grace, John Piper offers meditations grounded in solid biblical reflection, helping readers defeat the power of sin by banking on the promises of Christ.
Not all the people in the Old Testament failed to cherish past grace for the sake of joyful hope. For example, David wrote,
I remember you upon my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. (Ps. 63:6–7)
God had been his help again and again. He remembered his past grace, and the effect was that David sang for joy as he reveled in the ongoing protection of future grace under the wings of God.
God himself commands this pattern of remembering bygone grace for the sake of faith in future grace. In Isaiah 46:9 he says,
Remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.
The reason God wants his people to look back on “the former things” is to increase their confidence in the future things he is planning for them. “My counsel shall stand, / and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isa. 46:10). Remembering the former things that God has done gives a good foundation for believing his word when he says, “I will accomplish all my purpose.”
Now the Grace of God Has Come in Jesus
If looking back on past grace was the way the saints of the Old Testament fought the fight of faith in future grace, then it is all the more necessary for us to fight this way today because for us the greatest grace in world history is now past. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come into the world. In a sense we could say that God’s grace has come in person and done such a decisive work of grace that all other experiences of grace depend on it. Paul says simply, “For the grace of God has appeared” (Titus 2:11).
In fact, the New Testament is explicit that all future grace hangs on the past coming of Jesus. For example, Paul says, Christ came “to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs” (Rom. 15:8). In other words, Christ came to guarantee that the promises of the Old Testament would indeed come true. He came for the sake of future grace. From the time of Christ onward, faith embraces Christ crucified and risen as the unique, once-for-all foundation for all future grace. When we look back to the death and resurrection of Christ, God shows us in the present the enormity of his love for us, and thus warrants all our confidence in future grace. “God shows [present] his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died [past] for us” (Rom. 5:8). Without the death of Christ, there would be no future grace.
All the Promises of Future Grace Are Yes in Christ
One of the most amazing and wonderful statements of this truth goes like this: “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:20). Let’s savor this extraordinary truth for a moment.
The question that God is asking us in this text is “Are you living in the fullest enjoyment of my Yes to all my promises?” Or, to put it another way, “Have you said yes to all the future grace of God’s ‘Yes’ to you in Christ? Or have you said no, maybe, or not now to God’s ‘Yes’?” This text begs for an immediate and radical response. It calls us to cry out to God, “I consecrate myself to forsake saying no, maybe, and not now because of my unbelief. And I say yes to every future grace of every promise in your ‘Yes’ to me.”
Let’s take a step back for a moment to make sure that we see the full force of this verse. According to 2 Corinthians 1:15–16, Paul plans to visit Corinth twice. He is going to cross the Aegean Sea to visit the church on his way to Macedonia, and then he plans to come back by Corinth and visit them again. This is his plan, and so they hear about it.
Jesus is God’s decisive yes to all who believe.
But then something happens that makes him change his mind. Evidently the rumor starts to circulate that Paul’s heart is divided. Yes, he loves them and wants to see them and bless them. But maybe not as much as he loves his own convenience or some other church. Is Paul’s heart saying both yes and no to the Corinthians?
He answers passionately in 2 Corinthians 1:17–18: “Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say ‘Yes, yes’ and ‘No, no’ at the same time? As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No.”
In other words, Paul was saying, “My planning and my preaching are not fickle; they are not double-minded. They are unified; they are yes to you. I live for your good. I am for you and not against you. My life and ministry are a resounding yes to your joy! Yes to your holiness! Yes to your faith and hope and love and peace and power!”
And then in 2 Corinthians 1:19–20 Paul says that his own life is a yes to the Corinthians, because God has spoken his final, decisive Yes to them in Christ,
whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. [literally, “the (decisive) Yes has happened in him”—God’s heart is not divided in Christ. Christ means Yes to all who will have it!] For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.
So Paul, in effect, is saying, “My heart is not divided toward you because God’s heart is not divided toward you. If you belong to Christ by faith, then everything God could possibly give you for your good he has signed over to your account in Christ. You hear the same answer at every point: Is this promise in my account? Yes. Is this gift in my account? Yes. Is this blessing in my account? Yes. Yes. Yes. All the promises of God are Yes in Christ. Christ is God’s Yes to all future grace.”
All Future Grace Is Ours in Christ
In Galatians 3:29 Paul writes, “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (see also Eph. 3:6; Gal. 3:14, 22; Heb. 9:15). All the promises of God for the good of his people are in Christ. He confirms them and secures them and purchases them for all who “are Christ’s”—for all who believe and belong to him (Gal. 3:22). Every sinner who comes to God in Christ with all his needs finds God coming to him in Christ with all his promises. When a sinful person meets the holy God in Christ, what he hears is yes: “God, do you love me?” Yes. “Will you forgive me?” Yes. “Will you accept me?” Yes. “Will you help me change?” Yes. “Will you give me power to serve you?” Yes. “Will you keep me?” Yes. “Will you show me your glory?” Yes.
All the promises of God—all the blessings of God in the heavenly places (Eph. 1:3)—are yes in Christ Jesus. Jesus is God’s decisive yes to all who believe. He is the foundation of all future grace. When we look back to strengthen our faith in future grace, we look primarily to Jesus.
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The Magnificent Meaning of Amen
The place where the past and the future are linked repeatedly in our lives is prayer. I mention this here because Paul links prayer with God’s yes in this verse in a striking way. In 2 Corinthians 1:20 he says (in choppy Greek that comes through in choppy English), “That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” Here’s what he is saying (in a smoother translation): “Therefore, because of Christ, we say Amen to God in our prayers to show that God gets the glory for the future grace we are counting on.”
If you’ve ever wondered why we say amen at the end of our prayers and where that custom comes from, here’s the answer: Amen is a word taken straight over into Greek from Hebrew without any translation, just like it has come into English and most other languages. In Hebrew it was a very strong affirmation (see also Num. 5:22; Neh. 5:13; 8:6)—a formal, solemn, and earnest “I agree,” “I affirm what you just said,” or “This is true.” Most simply, amen means a very earnest yes in the context of addressing God.
Now notice the connection between the two halves of 2 Corinthians 1:20. The first half says, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.” And the second half says, “That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” When you realize that amen and yes mean the same thing, here’s what the verse says: In Jesus Christ, God says his yes to us through his promises; and in Christ, we say our yes to God through prayer.
This implies four crucial things for our faith in future grace that we express in prayer.
All Prayer Seeks God’s Yes Through Jesus
First, our prayer goes to God through Jesus. Paul says, “Through him is our Amen.” God’s yes comes to us in Christ. Therefore, prayer goes to God through Christ. Prayer goes where the yes is: in Christ. Everybody wants to hear a yes when they pray, and that is what we hear in Christ and nowhere else. This is what we mean when we say, “In Jesus’s name,” at the end of our prayers. He is God’s yes to all the future grace that we seek in prayer.
The Giver of Grace Gets the Glory
Second, we see that prayer is for God’s glory. Paul says that when we pray through Christ, “our Amen [is] to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20 NASB 1995). Amen is the great affirmation that God is the bountiful giver and I am the needy receiver. Amen affirms God’s inexhaustible future grace to respond to our need in the very best way for his glory and for our good. Prayer has the wonderful capacity to highlight our emptiness and God’s fullness at the same time. It is wonderfully suited to express our inadequacy and God’s all-sufficiency. When prayer looks away from our flaws and deficiencies and turns to God for his future grace, he gets the glory that he deserves, and we get the good that we need.
Prayer Goes to the Bank Called Future Grace
Third, we see that prayer is a response to promises—that is, to the assurances of future grace. Prayer is drawing from the account where God has deposited all his promises of future grace. Prayer is not hoping in the dark that there might be a God of good intentions out there. Prayer goes to the bank every day and withdraws promises of future grace that are needed for that day.
Don’t miss the connection between the two halves of this great verse. Notice the words “that is why” (“therefore,” NASB 1995): All the promises of God are Yes in Christ. That is why (therefore) we pray amen through him, to God’s glory. To make sure we see it, let’s turn the two halves around. When we pray, we say amen to God through Christ because God has said amen to all his promises in Christ. Prayer is the confident plea for God to make good on his promises of future grace for Christ’s sake. Prayer links our faith in future grace with the foundation of it all: Jesus Christ.
“Amen” Is Our Yes to Future Grace
This leads to the final point: Amen is a full and precious word in times of prayer. It doesn’t mean primarily, “Yes, I have now said this entire prayer.” Rather, it means, “Yes, God has made all these promises.” Amen means, “Yes, Lord, you can do it.” It means, “Yes, Lord, you are powerful. Yes, Lord, you are wise. Yes, Lord, you are merciful. Yes, Lord, all future grace comes from you and has been confirmed in Christ.” Amen is an exclamation point of hope after a prayer for help.”
“In Jesus’s Name, Amen”
When we come to the end of our prayers and say the simple words, “In Jesus’s name, amen,” we are really saying two amens. When we say, “In Jesus’s name,” that is God’s amen to us. All his promises are amen in Jesus: Jesus Christ is God’s yes and amen at the end of our prayers. Then when we say, “Amen,” this is our yes and amen back to God for his, which means that our amen and the prayer it supports is our yes to God’s yes to us. It is a commitment from our hearts that we will now live by faith in the yes of God’s guaranteed future grace.
Forsaking No, Maybe, and Not Now for Yes
This brings us back to our earlier question: “Are you living in the fullest enjoyment of God’s yes to you in Christ Jesus?” Or, to put it another way, “Have you said yes to all God’s yes to you, or are you answering God’s yes to you with a no, maybe, or not now?”
The foundation of future grace is Jesus Christ. Of course, he is more than this. Ten thousand times more. He is the water of life that satisfies us now. And he is the treasure that sums up and outshines all other future grace. But here and now, what I am emphasizing is that Jesus Christ is the foundation of future grace—all of it, including eternal fellowship with him. His gospel work secures everything good that God has planned for us:
What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined. (1 Cor. 2:9)
He is the confirmation and yes to all God’s promises. He is worthy of our fullest confidence and trust. The prayer of consecration that rises in my heart, and I hope in yours, is this: “O Lord, I promise that by your grace my future will be a future of unfailing yes to you. I consecrate myself to forsake the no, maybe, and not now of my unbelief. And I say yes to everything in your yes to me. I pledge myself to a holy dissatisfaction until my thoughts, words, and deeds express the radical holiness that comes from the wonderful, joyful freedom of living by faith in guaranteed future grace. Amen. And I do mean AMEN.”
This article is adapted from Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God by John Piper.
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