So then what is the function of bygone grace or past grace?

Answer, it puts solid ground under our faith in future grace.

Because somebody could be really troubled with my emphasis on the future,

faith in the future,

they'd say, aren't you belittling Christ?

Aren't you making light of the cross when you constantly stress that the power of the faith

that transforms is a future-oriented faith in grace that's coming to you. Doesn't that treat the cross as

small or insignificant? So let me try to explain how the past grace demonstrated at the cross

and the future grace that is arriving to me moment by moment relate

to each other so I'm arguing that solid ground under faith in future grace is in the past

Romans 832 he who did not, there's past tense, did not spare his own son, but another past tense,

delivered him up for us all, and now notice the logical shift, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

Now that's a rhetorical question.

Whenever you have a rhetorical question in the Bible, that doesn't have an answer after it.

You've got to supply the answer, and when you supply the answer, you can turn the rhetorical question into a statement, right? So what would the

statement be? The statement would be, surely, since God did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, he will most certainly give us all

things with him. That's the logic there. The logic of heaven.

Because he died in the past, because Christ died in the past, he provided a foundation that makes God's commitment to all who are in him for the future absolutely certain. Omnipotent grace is on my side forever because of the

past work of Jesus. If I'm united to Christ, I may have complete certainty that everything

God is, he is for me from from now until eternity, because of the past

work. And the logic is called an a fortiori, right? I don't know if I can explain what an

a fortiori argument is. It's from the greater to the lesser.

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