Paul Zahl: When Grace Comes

Grace . . . is at the bottom of the house of cards that is human identity.  It is the ground floor of our striving after love.  When grace comes in, when it rewrites the script, when its light shines in the basement of the house that is ourselves, unbuilt to God, grace demolishes and creates.  It does what it promises.  Unlike the law, which produces the opposite of what it demands, grace succeeds.  It produces the fruit, to use the New Testament metaphor, of a law-congruent life.