Craig T. Owens

I think Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges is one of the best books about God’s grace I have ever read! You can read my full book review by clicking here. There are way too many quotes for me to share from this book, so here are a few that really zero-in on grace (I’ll be posting more quotes soon).

“I think most of us actually declared temporary bankruptcy. Having trusted in Christ alone for our salvation, we have subtly and unconsciously reverted to a works relationship with God in our Christian lives. We recognize that even our best efforts cannot get us into heaven, but we do think they earn God’s blessings in our daily lives.” 

“It was because of His grace that God the Father sent His only Son to die in our place. To say it another way, Christ’s death was the result of God’s grace; grace is not the result of Christ’s death.”

“The gospel is addressed to those who have no money or good works. It invites us to come and ‘buy’ salvation without money and without cost [Isaiah 55:1]. But note the invitation to come is addressed to those who have no money—not to those who don’t have enough. Grace is not a matter of God’s making up the difference, but of God’s providing all the ‘cost’ of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.” 

“We can never rightly understand God’s grace until we understand our place as those who need His grace.”

“We were dead in our transgressions, but God intervened. We were in bondage to sin, but God intervened. We were objects of wrath, but God intervened. God Who is rich in mercy intervened. Because of His great love for us, God intervened and made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions and sins. All this is summed up in one succinct statement: ‘it is by grace you have been saved.’ Our condition was hopeless, but God intervened in grace.” 

“God’s grace, then, does not supplement our good works. Instead, His grace overcomes our bad works, which are our sins. God did this by placing our sins on Christ and by letting fall on Him the wrath we so richly deserved. … That’s the way His grace operates. It looks not to our sins or even to our good deeds but only to the merit of Christ.”

“The apostle John wrote that Jesus was ‘full of grace and truth,’ and ‘from the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another’ (John 1:14, 16). The idea portrayed in verse 16 is analogous to the ocean waves crashing upon the beach. One wave has hardly disappeared before another arrives. They just keep coming from an inexhaustible supply. So it is with the grace of God through Christ. He is full of grace and truth, and it is from His inexhaustible fullness that we received one blessing after another.” 

“God often does bless people who seem to us to be quite unworthy. But that is what grace is all about, because we are all unworthy.”

“We all want grace, but we cannot enjoy grace when there is an attitude of comparing.” 

“Under a sense of legalism, obedience is done with a view to meriting salvation or God’s blessing on our lives. Under grace, obedience is a loving response to salvation already provided in Christ, and the assurance that, having provided salvation, God will also through Christ provide all else that we need.”

“All Christians look to Christ alone for their justification, but not nearly as many also look to Him for their perfect holiness before God. … Holiness should be an objective for your daily life. But to live by grace, you must never, never look to the work of the Holy Spirit in you as the basis for your relationship with God. You must always look outside of yourself to Christ. You will never be holy enough through your own efforts to come before God. You are holy only through Christ.” 

“When our Father looks at us, He does not see our miserable performance. Instead, He sees the perfect performance of Jesus.”

“We died to the observance of the law as a requirement for attaining righteousness before God. We died to the curse and condemnation that resulted from our inability to perfectly keep the law. … Being under law implies the wrath of God, whereas grace implies forgiveness and favor. Law implies a broken relationship with God, whereas grace implies a restored relationship with Him. So when Paul said we died to the law, he meant we died to that entire state of condemnation, curse, and alienation from God.”