grace, happiness, christ, and the bible

Dane Ortlund has suggested that the grace of God can be found in every book of the Bible. I agree.He writes:

... while the Bible is not uniform, it is unified. The many books of the one Bible are not like the many pennies in the one jar. The pennies in the jar look the same, yet are disconnected; the books of the Bible (like the organs of a body) look different, yet are interconnected. As the past two generations' recovery of biblical theology has shown time and again, certain motifs course through the Scripture from start to end, tying the whole thing together into a coherent tapestry--kingdom, temple, people of God, creation/new creation, and so on. Yet underneath and undergirding all of these, it seems to me, is the motif of God's grace, his favor and love to the undeserving.

Read his post for his insight to grace.

On a different but related point, The Old Guys posted this from John Calvin's Commentaries on Ephesians:

The full certainty of future happiness rests on the revelation of God’s love to us in Christ, which He makes in the gospel.

And then Erik posts this insight from J.C. Ryle:

The true Christian is not justified because of any goodness of his own. His peace is not to be traced up to any work that he has done. It is not purchased by his prayers and regularity, his repentance and his amendment, his morality and his charity. All these are utterly unable to justify him. In themselves they are defective in many things and need a large forgiveness. And as to justifying him, such a thing is not to be named. Tried by the perfect standard of God’s law the best of Christians is nothing better than a justified sinner, a pardoned criminal. As to merit, worthiness, desert, or claim upon God’s mercy—he has none. Peace built on any such foundations as these is utterly worthless. The man who rests upon them is miserably deceived. The true Christian is counted righteous for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is justified because of the death and atonement of Christ.

Which leads me to this excellent reminder posted by Of First Importance quoting Peter Leithart:

Scripture everywhere teaches about Christ. His life, death, and resurrection are the hinge on which the drama of Scripture turns.