Christ is the grace of God come into this world, God made Man, given to us, offered for us, reigning over us. Reformed Christians are accustomed to emphasizing the “means of grace,” especially “the word, the sacraments, and prayer.” These are not the only means by which God imparts grace to us and strengthens us. He also does so by Christian fellowship, communion with the Spirit in meditation and solitude, by acts of service, through fighting battles against the world, the Devil, and our own flesh in sanctification. But all of these channels of grace are instruments whereby Christ is communicated to us. It is Christ proclaimed, Christ praised, Christ prayed, Christ obeyed, and Christ enjoyed that strengthens us in the life we have with God, by the Spirit, in Christ.
The means of grace are not pouring a mystical substance into us; they are communicating Christ to us. He comes to us in gospel proclamation and in the forms of water, bread, and wine. We meet him in the prayers and songs of the Church. We see him in the faces and lives of our brothers and sisters who are members of his Body on this earth. We feel his strength as we grow weak in resisting temptation, and even when we do not feel his strong arms, we know by faith that he is there to encourage and support us.
When we talk about the means of grace, we are talking about the ways in which the Holy Spirit brings Christ to us and applies the benefits of his kingly, priestly, and prophetic work. Grace is the milkshake, and the means of grace is the straw by which that sweet goodness gets into our mouth. But grace is not a substance like a milkshake; it is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are accounted righteous in him. We are becoming righteous through him. We will be fully vindicated in righteousness because of him. “He must increase, and I must decrease.” That is what the means of grace are accomplishing in our lives. They are causing there to be more of Jesus in my life and less of Joel.
There is a mystery to the means of grace that we ought to embrace and celebrate. Exactly how does preaching awaken a sinner dead in trespasses and bring him to new life by the Spirit in Jesus Christ? How does baptism cleanse the penitent believer and seal his regeneration received by sovereign grace alone? How does the Eucharist strengthen our faith and nourish our souls in grace, especially when it is gluten-free communion bread? How can a service of covenant renewal worship make any real difference at all in my relationship with God?
We are not able to explain these things, and if we think we can, it just proves how ignorant we are. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies (1Cor. 8:1). Some Christians think of growth in grace strictly in intellectual and rationalistic terms. The “means of grace” sounds too Catholic to their ears, too superstitious, and so they simply approach the Christian life as a matter of learning and applying information. Others acknowledge the category of the means of grace, but they are inconsistent in how they think about it. “The word, the sacraments, and prayer,” yes, but mainly the word, because we know that the Supper is expendable but the Sermon never is. We may inadvertently elevate the preacher and his wisdom above the ministry of our High Priest and his memorial of grace. The point is not to pit the Table against the Pulpit or debate the relative potency of the Supper versus the Sermon. The point is that both the Sermon and the Supper are a ministry of Christ. He is proclaimed both in the preaching and in the elements. He is eaten by faith with both our ears and also our mouths.
The means of grace are the ways in which Christ comes to us, enters into us, continues to fill us, and finally saves us. The word and water, bread and wine, fellowship and feasting, praises and prayers, celebration and suffering, all become the Spirit’s instruments for proclaiming, applying, and exalting Christ in our hearts. Christ in you is the “hope of glory” (Col. 1:27), and the means of grace are how the Spirit brings our Savior to fill us with hope and, finally, with his glory.
