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About the Book
"The Grace That Makes Us Holy" by Gloria Copeland explores the transformative power of grace in the lives of believers. Copeland emphasizes that it is through grace that we are made holy and empowered to live a life of victory and freedom. She encourages readers to embrace God's grace and trust in His ability to transform and sanctify them.
Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory the Wonderworkerâs Early life
Gregory was born in a Pontus, a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in the modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey, around 212-13. His was a wealthy home and his parents named him Theodore (Gift of God) despite their pagan beliefs. When he was 14 years old his father died and soon after, he and his brother, Athenodorus, were anxious to study law at Beirut, Lebanon, then one of the four of five famous schools in the Hellenic world.
Influence of Origen
However, on the way, they first had to escort their sister to rejoin her husband, who was a government official assigned to Caesarea in Palestine (modern Haifa, Israel). When they arrived they learned that the celebrated scholar Origen, head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, lived there.
Inquisitiveness led them to hear and speak with the Origen and his irresistible charm quickly won their hearts. They soon dropped their desires for a life in Roman law, became Christian believers and pupils of Origen, learning philosophy and theology, for somewhere between five and eight years. Origen also baptised Gregory.
Pastor (then Bishop) of Neoceasarea
Gregory returned to his native Pontus with the intention of practicing oratory, but also to write a book proving the truth of Christianity, revealing his evangelistic heart. But his plans were disrupted when locals noticed his passion for Christ and his spiritual maturity. There were just seventeen Christians in Neoceasarea when Gregory arrived and this small group persuaded him to lead them as their bishop. (âbishopâ simply meant a local overseer). At the time, Neocaesarea was a wicked, idolatrous province.
Signs of the Spirit
By his saintly life, his direct and lively preaching, helping the needy and settling quarrels and complaints, Gregory began to see many converts to Christ. But it was the signs and wonders that particularly attracted people to Christ.
En route to Neocaesarea from Amasea, Gregory expelled demons from a pagan temple, its priest converted to Christ immediately.
Once, when he was conversing with philosophers and teachers in the city square, a notorious harlot came up to him and demanded payment for the sin he had supposedly committed with her. At first Gregory gently remonstrated with her, saying that she perhaps mistook him for someone else.
But the loose woman would not be silenced. He then asked a friend to give her the money. Just as the woman took the unjust payment, she immediately fell to the ground in a demonic fit, and the fraud became evident. Gregory prayed over her, and the devil left her. This was the beginning of Gregoryâs miracles. It was at this time he became known as âGregory Thaumaturgus,â âGregory the Miracle Workerâ (or Wonderworker).
At one point Gregory wanted to flee from the worldly affairs into which influential townsmen persistently sought to push him. He went into the desert, where by fasting and prayer he developed an intimacy with God and received gifts of knowledge, wisdom and prophecy. He loved life in the wilderness and wanted to remain in solitude with God until the end of his days, but the Lord willed otherwise.
His theological contribution
Though he was primarily an evangelist and pastor, Gregory also had a deep theological understanding.
His principal work âThe Exposition of Faithâ, was a theological apology for Trinitarian belief. It incorporated his doctrinal instructions to new believers, expressed his arguments against heretical groups and was widely influential amongst leaders in the Patristic period: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa (The Cappadocian Fathers). It was the forerunner of the Nicene Creed that was to appear in the early 4th century.
In summary
He gave himself to the task of the complete conversion of the population of his diocese. The transformation in Neocaesarea was astonishing. Persuasive preaching, numerous healings and miraculous signs had a powerful effect. Such was his success that it was said that when Gregory became bishop (c 240) he found only seventeen Christians in his diocese; when he died only seventeen remained pagan (Latourette 1953:76).
Basil the Greatâs Testimony
Basil the Great (330-379, Bishop of Caesarea, in his work âOn the Spiritâ wrote the following account of Gregory the wonder-worker.
âBut where shall I rank the great Gregory, and the words uttered by him? Shall we not place among Apostles and Prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they; who never through all his days diverged from the footprints of the saints; who maintained, as long as he lived, the exact principles of evangelical citizenship?
I am sure that we shall do the truth a wrong if we refuse to number that soul with the people of God, shining as it did like a beacon in the Church of God: for by the fellow-working of the Spirit the power which he had over demons was tremendous, and so gifted was he with the grace of the word âfor obedience to the faith among. . .the nations.â that, although only seventeen Christians were handed over to him, he brought the whole people alike in town and country through knowledge to God.
He too by Christâs mighty name commanded even rivers to change their course, and caused a lake, which afforded a ground of quarrel to some covetous brethren, to dry up. Moreover, his predictions of things to come were such as in no wise to fall short of those of the great prophets. To recount all his wonderful works in detail would be too long a task. By the superabundance of gifts, wrought in him by the Spirit, in all power and in signs and in marvels, he was styled a second Moses by the very enemies of the Church.
Thus, in all that he through grace accomplished, alike by word and deed, a light seemed ever to be shining, token of the heavenly power from the unseen which followed him. To this day he is a great object of admiration to the people of his own neighborhood, and his memory, established in the churches ever fresh and green, is not dulled by length of time. (Schaff and Wace nd., Series 2. 8:46-47).
âGregory was a great and conspicuous lamp, illuminating the church of God.â âBasil the Great.
Kneeling Among Lions - Learning to Pray Like Daniel
Tucked away in the book of Daniel, sandwiched between stories about fiery furnaces and lions on the one hand, and visions of statues, beasts, and rising kings on the other, is an extended prayer with a shockingly immediate answer. Daniel 9 contains an extended, earnest, and heartfelt prayer by the prophet. And before he even says âAmen,â the angel Gabriel is standing before him, ready to give insight and understanding to the broken-hearted prophet. What did Daniel pray that caused God to immediately dispatch an angel with an answer? And can Danielâs prayer instruct us today in how to pray? Plot Against Prayer Danielâs prayer is a dated prayer. âIn the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerusâ (Daniel 9:1). And the particular timing mentioned draws attention to one of the most famous stories in the Bible. At the end of Daniel 5, Darius the Mede conquers the Chaldeans and dethrones Belshazzar. In chapter 6, he appoints 120 local rulers as governors over his kingdom, with high officials overseeing them. Daniel is one of these high officials. Indeed, he is distinguished above all of the high officials because of the excellent spirit (or is it Spirit?) residing in him (Daniel 6:1â3). Darius plans to elevate Daniel over all the other officials, provoking them to jealousy. They then plot to find fault with Daniel in hopes of bringing him down. After examining his life, they conclude, âWe shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his Godâ (Daniel 6:5). Soon enough, they do find a ground for complaint against Daniel â his habits of prayer. Danielâs custom is to pray three times per day with an open window facing Jerusalem. The jealous officials manipulate Darius into passing an irrevocable decree against praying to anyone except the king (Daniel 6:6â9). And Danielâs defiance of this decree famously lands him in the lionsâ den (Daniel 6:10â16). What is the relevance for the prayer of Daniel 9? Itâs likely that Daniel 9 is the sort of prayer that Daniel was praying with that famous window open. Whatâs more, if weâre attentive to the whole Scriptures, we can better understand why Daniel was praying with a window open facing Jerusalem. Solomon, Jeremiah, and Daniel In 1 Kings 8, Solomon is dedicating the temple of the Lord. As he nears the end of his prayer, he contemplates the possibility (and even likelihood) that the people of Israel will sin grievously against God. When they do, God will, in fulfillment of the warnings of Deuteronomy, give them over to their enemies so that Israel will be carried captive into a foreign land. Nevertheless, God will remain faithful to his promises and his people, even as he sends them into exile. In Solomonâs request, notice the specific direction his exiled people ought to pray: Yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, âWe have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,â if they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace). (1 Kings 8:47â51) Solomon specifically mentions repenting and praying from exile toward Israel, toward Jerusalem. Thus, Danielâs actions make perfect sense. He is following Solomonâs instructions in hope that God will have compassion and restore his people. Beyond Solomonâs dedication, the immediate cause of Danielâs prayer is Jeremiahâs prophecy concerning the seventy weeks. Recorded in Jeremiah 25, the prophet rebukes Israel for her stubbornness and promises Godâs judgment through Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who will lay waste to Israel. Babylon will be triumphant for seventy years, after which God will bring judgment upon them for their own sins. Daniel has this prophecy in mind when he offers his own prayer of repentance (Daniel 9:2). Lessons from Danielâs Prayer These particulars matter. Daniel offered this prayer at a specific moment in redemptive history, under the covenant that God made with Moses, during the time when Jerusalem was the center of the spiritual universe. Today we are in a different redemptive era, under the new covenant, when the heavenly Jerusalem is the center of the universe. Nonetheless, there are truths that span the covenants. Despite our differences in time, redemptive era, location, and circumstances, Danielâs prayer was still âwritten for our instruction, that . . . we might have hopeâ (Romans 15:4). So how does Danielâs prayer give us hope? Confess Clearly First, Daniel says âAmenâ to Godâs judgment. Danielâs prayer is fundamentally a prayer of confession and repentance. Again and again, Daniel acknowledges the sin of Godâs people. âWe have sinned. We have done wrong. We have acted wickedly. We have rebelled. We have turned aside from your commandments. We have not listened to your prophets. We have committed treachery. We have not obeyed your voice.â Twenty times, Daniel acknowledges that Israel has sinned. You will look in vain for any rationalizations in this prayer. Daniel is not asking God to excuse Israelâs sin; he is asking God to forgive Israelâs sin. And forgiveness begins with saying âAmenâ to Godâs judgment. âDaniel teaches us to mince no words in confession, to use no euphemisms, to soft-pedal no transgressions.â And this instructs us. We all are prone to justify and rationalize our sin, to ask God to excuse us for what weâve done, rather than asking him to forgive us for what weâve done. But Daniel teaches us to mince no words in confession, to use no euphemisms, to soft-pedal no transgressions; indeed, the great variety of terms for sin and wickedness in his prayer teaches us to labor to be clear before God about the precise ways that we have fallen short of his standards. Remember Specifically Second, Daniel remembers Godâs word and Godâs works. In confessing, Daniel directly quotes Deuteronomy 7:9, and frames his prayer by Israelâs failure to obey the law of Moses (Daniel 9:11). In punishing Israel, God is simply confirming the oaths and curses he laid down in Deuteronomy 28. Even more than that, Daniel remembers the great works of God, especially the exodus, when God brought his people out of Egypt with a mighty hand (Daniel 9:15). âGod is pleased with Bible-shaped and Scripture-saturated prayers.â This too instructs us. God is pleased with Bible-shaped and Scripture-saturated prayers. It is good and right for us to orient our confession, our repentance, and our supplications in light of Godâs laws, his promises, and his warnings. By using Scripture to frame our own prayers, we approach God in a way that he has established, with words that he has inspired, and thus we have greater confidence that he will hear and answer. Plead Confidently Third, Daniel pleads for Godâs mercy. Even as he says âAmenâ to the judgment of God, Daniel appeals to Yahwehâs mercy and forgiveness (Daniel 9:9). Daniel knows that judgment is not Godâs final word. And thus, he asks for God to again shine his face on his sanctuary (Daniel 9:17), and to turn aside his anger that has cast his people into exile. In doing so, Daniel demonstrates his deep faith in Yahwehâs fundamental character toward his people: he is a God compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (Exodus 34:6â7). We too can approach Godâs throne with confidence because we know it is a throne of grace. Whatever chastisement and discipline he brings, mercy reigns in the heart of God. He will by no means clear the guilty, but he loves to forgive those who turn to him in humble faith. Unifying Thread Finally, what ties these elements together is Godâs righteousness â his unswerving commitment to uphold the glory of his name. Underneath Danielâs âAmenâ to Godâs judgment, underneath Danielâs remembrance of Godâs word and works, and underneath Danielâs appeal to Godâs mercy is Danielâs sure faith that God is uppermost in Godâs affections. To the Lord belongs righteousness, and therefore he has punished his people (Daniel 9:7). His judgment is a fulfillment of his commitment to his word; he will not overlook transgressions against his law (Daniel 9:11â12). He is righteous to bring this judgment. But more than that, he is righteous in showing mercy. Daniel appeals to Godâs love for his name. God made a name for himself in delivering Israel from Egypt (Daniel 9:15). And now, Daniel roots his plea for mercy in Godâs righteousness (Daniel 9:16). Israel has become a byword; the nations mock at the once-great nation and the once-great city of Jerusalem. But this nation and this city are called by the name of Yahweh. And therefore, Danielâs final plea is not based on Israelâs righteousness, but on Godâs name. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. (Daniel 9:17â19) So too for us. When we approach God, we do not come based on our righteousness. How could we? Instead, we beg God to act on our behalf for his own sake. Indeed, as those who live under Godâs new covenant, we appeal to him in the name of his Son Jesus. We plead for God to hear and forgive and pay attention and act on our behalf because we are called by the name of his Son, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with his blood-bought people.
