Monday, December 03, 2018

Grace

When I look up the word “grace” in various dictionaries, the meanings of the word are multitudinous. Sometimes a dictionary will include archaic or obsolete definitions, and one of those that comes up occasionally is “ready willingness to help”.

This relates strongly to a theological concept that was a part of early separatist (Puritan) theology in the 1600s in England.  David Clarkson (1622-1686), a well known separatist minister in England, wrote and preached and described God’s grace as a great willingness of the part of God “to do  good freely, willing to help in time of need”, going on to discuss the throne of grace and the  mercy-seat of God as description of a God full of both grace and mercy, writing “And what is  mercy but a willingness to pity and relieve? And what is grace but a willingness to do it freely, a free willingness”.

His writings were widely published and studied for the next two centuries, including during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. You can find this subject outlined in volume 3 of his works which was published by a group of Presbyterian scholars in 1865 in Edinburgh. (Works of David Clarkson, volume 3,  p. 140-141)


In the LDS Bible Dictionary, as well as in many modern Protestant glossaries, the focus of the definition of grace is on the divine means of help or strength given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ, It is portrayed as the means by which we receive divine assistance or it is portrayed as as the enabling assistance or power itself.

However, by Clarkson’s definition, what that Bible Dictionary is describing as grace is actually not grace, but rather it is the result of grace in a believer’s life. To Clarkson and others grace is God’s great willingness to extend His powerful help and strength to us.

I find that when I read the scriptures with that more obsolete definition in mind, my understanding of God takes a slight change, and I read the passages of grace reflecting more in the very nature and willingness of God to help, instead of simply the majesty and power of that help which He bestows.  It transforms my relationship with Him and my understanding of His approachability.

I think it not unlikely that Joseph Smith would have been familiar with that Clarkson/Presbyterian definition of grace as he translated the Book of Mormon, considering his various family members who had been “proselyted to the Presbyterian church” and had joined it.

And considering the huge plethora of situations outlined in the Book of Mormon where good people face very difficult and often fearful personal or community problems that they plead to God for help with, it seems fitting that this older definition and understanding of grace would be appropriate for its translation as well.