What Is Proleptic Grace?
Readers of the Friends of CRTS website may have heard of saving grace and common grace, which are standard terms among students of theology. Proleptic grace, however, may be an unfamiliar term. Perhaps the best way of introducing it is to say that it is the answer to another question, namely, how was an Old Testament saint saved from sin and thereby made right with God? The answer to this question is that an Old Testament saint was saved by proleptic grace. Now we can answer the former question that the title asks: what is proleptic grace? Let us begin by discussing the individual words in the term.
We will start with grace. Grace is often popularly defined as unmerited favor. When one receives grace, he or she gets a favor or benefit that he or she does not deserve. Grace is never earned. It is always a gift that the recipient freely obtains from the giver. Grace is related to mercy but is not its equivalent. To receive mercy entails not getting a disfavor or punishment that one deserves. Mercy is being spared of one’s just deserts. Salvation, or a right relationship with God, has always come by grace and mercy. God graciously gives sinners the forgiveness that they do not deserve and mercifully spares them from the judgment that they do deserve. Grace and mercy, however,do not come cheaply. By not treating sinners as their sins deserve, God does not deny his justice. Rather, he accepts a substitutionary payment for sin’s penalty. In fact, the Bible teaches that God goes so far as to make the payment and satisfy his own justice. Grace and mercy, then, cost God dearly.
The other word in our term is proleptic, which has to do with anticipation and even foretaste. To experience something proleptically is to encounter it ahead of time. A future reality or event reaches back in time and affects earlier happenings in some way or another. The not yet impinges on the now so that the past or present is colored, shaped, or defined by the certainty of what is yet to come. There is even something progressive and organic about a proleptic relationship. If the earlier event anticipates the later, the later event emerges or grows out of the earlier. In other words, the two events exist on a continuum. Movement alongthe continuum leads to the full realization of that which is tasted proleptically or ahead of time.
If we put the two words together, proleptic grace is grace received and enjoyed ahead of time. What makes the grace possible still lies in the future, but the effects and benefits are nevertheless felt before the efficacious or grace-giving event has occurred. Proleptic grace enables one to live in the present as if he or she were living in the future. Future reality and values are lived out in the present. With proleptic grace, the future is to some extent or another now, and real change that owes its power to the future can occur in the present.
If proleptic grace has to do with how Old Testament saints were saved, what, from an Old Testament vantage point, is the grace-giving event of the future? According to the New Testament, “the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (1 Pet 1:10-11). The prophets may not have fully understood how God would work out his plan of salvation, but they nevertheless looked beyond their own time for the personal source of redeeming grace. They believed that God would come in the future and provide an act of redemption more definitive than animal sacrifice. According to John 1:17, “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” What was not in some way available to the prophets before Jesus became available in Jesus. Hence, proleptic grace is an Old Testament concept. It is not experienced in the New Testament. When Jesus announced that the kingdom of God is at hand, he signaled that the source of grace was no longer future. It had arrived in him. So then, if grace was received by Old Testament saints, its source was nevertheless the future incarnation of God’s Son.
The writers of the New Testament present a united testimony to the availability of divine grace solely through the person and work of Jesus Christ. He alone is the Savior, the one who can reconcile sinners to God. Why is this? What is so exclusive about Jesus?
If, as Paul says in Romans 3:10, “there is no one who does good, not even one,” then Jesus is the single exception. Whereas “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), Jesus never transgressed the commandments of God. He did what all other humans have failed to do: he kept the revealed will of God perfectly and so reflected the moral character of God in which he, in his humanity, was made. Everyone else has marred the image of God by breaking God’s commands. Jesus was and is unlike everyone else. He did not deserve God’s displeasure and judgment. He was sinless.
Theologians refer to Jesus’ perfect law-keeping as his active obedience. At all times and in all places, Jesus acted righteously. He never came up short of the will of God for his life. Then, out of continuing obedience to his Father as well as love for those whom he came to save, he laid down his righteous life as an atoning sacrifice for sin and as a propitiation of God’s wrath against sinners. He paid the penalty for the sins of his people in their place and absorbed in his own body the just anger of the holy God whom human sin offends. Theologians refer to the substitutionary death of Jesus as his passive obedience. In this context, the word passive is related to passion or suffering. Jesus suffered the consequences for the sins of his people and thereby satisfied the justice of God.
Something of a double transaction occurs in making sinners right with God. On the one hand, the unrighteousness of sinners was imputed to Jesus who then endured the penalty of death. Believers in Jesus mercifully do not have to receive the wages of their sin for Jesus satisfied the justice of God. On the other hand, Jesus’ righteousness was and is imputed to those who put their trust in his active and passive obedience. Believers in Jesus graciously receive the gifts of faith and repentance by which they appropriate the new life that Jesus, at great cost to himself, secured for them. As seen in John the Baptist’s reference to Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), vicarious atonement is the New Testament’s way of salvation. It knows of no other.
But what about the Old Testament? Does it have a similar view of humanity’s plight and need? When Paul said that “there is no one who does good,” he was citing Psalm 14:3 and its parallel in Psalm 53:3. The Old Testament agrees that humans have fallen short of what God has made them to be and do. In fact, Genesis 3 narrates the original sin of Adam and Eve that brought corruption, condemnation, and death on all their descendants, i.e., the whole human race. If Psalms 14 and 53 agree that no one does good, 1 Kings 8:46 concurs that “there is no one who does not sin.” Similarly, Proverbs 20:9 asks, “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin?’” The sage expects a negative answer because, as he assertselsewhere, “The simple [raw, untutored youth] inherit folly” (Prov 14:18) and therefore are predisposed to go the wrong way without the intervention of covenantal instruction (Prov 29:15). Furthermore, Ecclesiastes 7:20 leaves no one out when it states, “There is not a righteous man [person] on earth who does what is right and never sins.” So then, whether people live before the first coming of Jesus, during it, or after it, they have the same dilemma. They have failed to keep God’s revealed will perfectly and so have become unrighteous in God’s sight. Moreover, they have inherited the proclivity to disobey, and so they sin because they are sinners. Their depraved conditionhas separated them from God’s favorable presence, and they are, thus, subject to the wrath and judgment of a holy God. This is the common predicament of all humankind.
Both Testaments may share the same view of humanity’s dire condition, but how does the New Testament solution of Jesus’ active and passive obedience affect the person who lived before Jesus? Jesus may now be the way to a right relationship with God, but was he always the way? If so, how could someone who lived before Jesus call on his name for salvation? Perhaps someone in the Old Testament era was condemned to perish in his or her sin just because he or she, by virtue of circumstances beyond his or her control, was born before it was historically possible to know Jesus.
Let us consider for a moment the possibility that people in the Old Testament were not saved by grace through faith in Jesus. What other options exist? Hypothetically, there are two.
The first option is that no one in the Old Testament era was saved. This option cannot be seriously considered for at least two reasons. First, Paul in Romans 4 regards Abraham as the exemplar of justification by faith. As such, he is also the spiritual father of all who likewise receive forgiveness of sins on the basis of faith in God’s promises. These promises reach their climax in Jesus whose resurrection is the proof of God’s satisfaction with his death for sin. The point is that the exemplar cannot be exempt from that which he exemplifies. Second, Hebrews 11 lists numerous Old Testament saints who believed God’s promises and, so the argument goes, have been waiting to be made perfect along with New Testament saints. In other words, they share the same inheritance that Jesus has secured for New Testament Christians. The New Testament simply will not allow this first hypothetical option. There was salvation before the first century a.d.
The secondoption is that Old Testament saints were saved by keeping the law. This is a variation of the seemingly universal human endeavor to commend oneself to God’s favor by personal performance. As seen above, though, both Testaments agree that no one can do good and thereby earn a right relationship with God. No onecan, in his or her own strength, adhere to the revealed will of God and so match the character of God. Everyone falls short of God’s standard. What is more, the Old Testament does not hold out personal performance as the basis for a right relationship with God. God may be interested in human obedience, but human obedience does not create the relationship between God and his people. Rather, God’s gracious initiative does, and obedience then follows as the response to what God has done. Both Testaments agree that the imperative of obeying God’s commands follows the indicative of God’s redemptive deeds. The latter makes the former possible.
This truth is seen especially in the book of Exodus. The Sinai covenant was given to Israel after Yahweh had brought them out of Egypt—a deliverance that required faith in the blood of the lamb on the doorpost (Exod 12:7, 13). Yahweh then led his people to the base of Mount Sinai and constituted the tribes as a kingdom of priests to the nations (Exod 19:6). The Sinai covenant told an already redeemed people how to live as such so that they might model a redeemed community to the world around them. Notice the preface to the Ten Commandments: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exod 20:1). The Ten Commandments and so-called Book of the Covenant (Exod 21-23) that follows are grounded in the historical act of deliverance that God sovereignly accomplished. And why did God perform this mighty deed on behalf of his people in Egypt? Exodus 2:24 says that he remembered his earlier covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The imperative of Israel’s obedience to God’s commands grows out of the indicative of God’s mighty deed in fulfillment of his promise. So then, thepurpose of the law in Exodus was not to draw people up short at the bar of God’s justice and show their need for a Savior. The Exodus was a redemptive act, and the law was given afterwards for sanctification and mission.
Let me pause for a moment and compare Exodus with Paul who seems to have a different view of the law. In Romans and Galatians, Paul teaches that the law makes lawbreakers aware of their need for a savior. The law in Paul’s thinking, then, seems to have more to do with justification than sanctification. Its purpose seems to be to condemn sinners rather than to instruct saints. Paul’s comments have to be read in view of a pastoral concernthat he, as a minister of the gospel, had to address in his day. This concern applied to people within Judaism, Christianity, and, indeed, all humanity. How Paul handled this pastoral concerndoes not contradict the Exodus view of the law. Rather, Paul applied the Exodus understanding of the law to alater situation that Exodus did not specifically address. In other words, Paul had to respond to people who wanted to (mis)use Exodus for justification. Such people mistakenly supposed that they could keep the law in order to commend themselves to God’s favor. This thinking was not restricted to the first century a.d. Humans continually imagine that they can get on God’s good side by their own effort or performance. The law, however, was never given for this purpose. So then, in response to this misreading of the law, Paul says in effect, “If you want to try to commend yourselves to God by keeping the law, well then go ahead, but know this: such a misapplication of the law will condemn you. Trying to keep the law for justification will, at worst, create despair, and, at best, arouse a yearning for grace.” Even so, Paul was aware of the law’s original purpose as related to godly growth and worldwide focus. When Paul in Romans 13 talked about Christian living in terms of love, he said that love looks like keeping the law. Love is not an empty pitcher into which followers of Jesus Christ pour their own definitional content. No, God tells his people what love looks like. It looks like keeping his commands. God tells his people how to live for his glory. Glorifying God looks like keeping the law. God tells his people how to be a kingdom of priests and minister in his name to the ends of the earth. Doing this looks like keeping the law. The law gives content to Christian living and mission.
Returning to the original discussion of proleptic grace, the indicative of divine grace means that Old Testament saints were saved no differently than New Testament saints: by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. From a historical point of view with regard to the death of Jesus in the first century a.d., Old Testament saints were saved proleptically, i.e., before Jesus accomplished their salvation in time and space. Similarly, New Testament saints are saved retrospectively, i.e., after Jesus died, rose, and ascended. In the mind of God, however, Jesus was slain before creation (2 Tim 1:9, 1 Pet 1:20), and all saints receive the benefits of his work “after the fact” of God’s eternal decree. Consequently, Old Testament saints could (as Deuteronomy 10:16 and 30:11-14 imply) proleptically experience new covenant reality that only the grace of God in Jesus Christ makes possible (John 1:17). The Spirit of God was at work in Old Testament times to apply the benefits of Jesus’ active and passive obedience to those who believed what God said through his prophets. Old Testament saints could and did receive forgiveness of sins and undergo internal transformation that produced righteous conduct.
As an aside, John 7:39 cannot be taken absolutely, or else one is affirming either that no one was saved in the Old Testament, that salvation can occur without the work of the Spirit, or that the Spirit was not active before the first century a.d. None of these possibilities finds support in the Bible. So then, John 7:39 must be read in light of proleptic grace. If the Holy Spirit applies the work of Jesus Christ to believers, then the Holy Spirit, from a historical point of view, began his ministry, as it pertains to regeneration and sanctification, in the first century a.d. He is the Spirit of the resurrected Christ and so is sent after the ascension. In the mind of God, though, the power of the Spirit of Christ (who is the Holy Spirit applying the work of the incarnate Son) could reach back in history and proleptically redeem and sanctify sinners. He did so on the basis of the work of Christ that, from a historical point of view, was to come in the first century a.d. but from God’s point of view was a done deal before time began.