We have been asking why the cross is so fertile a soil for the fear of God, and we have seen one answer: that at the cross we receive great pardon for terrible sin. But there is another answer. For the grace of God serves as a bread-crumb trail, leading us up from the forgiveness itself to the forgiver. That is, in the light of the cross, Christians not only thank God for his grace to us but also begin to praise him for how gracious he is, for how beautifully kind and merciful he reveals himself to be in the cross. “Oh! that a great God should be a good God,” wrote John Bunyan, “a good God to
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