200 Proof Grace

In his book, Between Noon and Three, Robert Capon provides a metaphor for the rediscovery of grace during the time of the Protestant Reformation.  He says:

"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarsul of fifteen-hundred year old, two hundred proof grace... one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly.... Grace is to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter the case."

Capon is simply echoing the apostle Paul, who said in Ephesians 2, "For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." In other words, the gospel is 200 proof, pure grace.  

Are you as thirsty as I am?