The Awful Grace of God

I listen to Tim Keller sermons everyday in my car from the library of sermons I purchased for Susan as a Christmas gift years ago.  I just listened to "Christian Hope and Suffering" May 16, 2004 based on 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 and 12:7-10.  

In that sermon Keller states "As Asechylus, of all people (the Greek poet), once wrote, "It's God's law that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own dispite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God"  

Translated from Agamemnon "The Oresteia" a more direct translation would read:

“Zeus… has established this law:
that wisdom comes through suffering.

Pain, remembering its wounds,
drips before the heart in sleep;
and even against our will
comes understanding…
from the gods.”

What confused me from Tim Keller's statement is the term "The awful grace of God".  Rarely have I seen the word grace used with the word awful.  He was translating from a Greek philosopher who was polytheistic and not a Christian for emphasis not theological Christian principle. 

 BUT.... maybe that is an appropriate term in the mystery/paradox of understanding suffering, hope and grace in Christianity. 

Grace is an unmerited gift from God and so suffering (awful grace) might also be an unmerited gift from God.  Pain that you didn't seek or ask for - that has a path to hope and wisdom.

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Postscript - 6/11/2026

I was re-listening to the audio sermon only to discover that T. Keller's reciting of the quote sounded like "all filling Grace of God".  I even had R.M.2 listen to the quote as we were traveling to Ky to meet with P.N. for our mini book club meeting and he said it sounded like "awe filling Grace of God".  This lead me to more research to determine regardless of what T. Keller said - what was the actual quote.   It came from Edith Hamilton's 1937 translation:  

“Even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart…
and in our own despite, against our will,
comes wisdom to us
by the awful grace of God.”

The word was Awful.  In fact Robert F. Kennedy used the same quote in his April 4, 1968 speech in Indianapolis after Martin Luther King was assasinated.  

Postscript #2  6/23/26  At dinner with J.P. and D.P this discussion came up.  Susan and J.P. kept saying that the ancient meaning of awful and modern meanings are quite different.  J.P. with the help of Perplexity proved their point.  "In that sentence, "awful" means something like "awe-inspiring", overwhelming, even terrifyingly weighty," not "bad" or "disgusting" in the cololoquial modern sense. Historicallly, awful meant full of awe, or worthy of respect or fear and only later drifted toward the everyday meaning "terrible". So "awful grace" names a paradox: grace that is both gracious and crushingly heavy, a gift that comes by way of pain.