Grace
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He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
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| Grace | |
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| SERMONS, ESSAYS AND OPINIONS | |
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Grace, in Christianity, refers to God's love and salvation being poured out on people even though they don't deserve this love and favour.
It is especially seen in God's action to save sinners who cannot rescue themselves, but the biblical idea is broader than forgiveness alone. By grace God calls, forgives, justifies, adopts, transforms, strengthens and sustains his people, and gives them gifts with which to serve others.
Grace therefore lies near the centre of the biblical account of Salvation. Humanity turns away from its Creator in Sin, yet God continues to seek, forgive and restore. God's grace is revealed most fully in Jesus Christ, who entered human history as God the Son, died for sinners and rose again so that those who trust in him might be reconciled to God.
The Bible never gives a single dictionary-style definition of grace. Instead, its meaning emerges from the character and actions of God throughout Scripture. Grace is present long before the New Testament begins, but in the New Testament the language of grace becomes particularly prominent, especially in the writings of the Apostle Paul.
The Biblical Idea
Grace in the Old Testament
The Old Testament consistently shows God as gracious, merciful and faithful. Grace was present from the beginning of God's dealings with humanity. God's preservation of Noah, his calling of Abraham, his rescue of Israel from Egypt, his covenant with Israel, his patience with a rebellious people and his repeated willingness to forgive all display divine grace.
The principal Hebrew noun corresponding to the idea of favour or grace is חֵן (ḥen). It commonly describes favourable regard freely shown by one person towards another and, importantly, by God towards human beings. It often occurs in the expression "to find favour in the eyes of" someone. The related verb חָנַן (ḥanan) means to show favour, be gracious or have compassion.
The first major biblical example occurs with Noah in Genesis 6:8: Noah "found favour" (ḥen) in the eyes of Yahweh.
The Greek Septuagint translated the Hebrew expression with χάρις (charis), the same Greek noun that later becomes the principal New Testament word for grace.
The language becomes particularly important in Moses' relationship with Yahweh. In Exodus 33:12-17 Moses repeatedly speaks of having found favour in God's sight. Moses' experience of grace leads immediately into one of the Old Testament's most important declarations about the character of God in Exodus 34:6-7 where Yahweh reveals himself as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Grace is therefore rooted in who God is. God does gracious things because God is gracious.
Another important Hebrew word is חֶסֶד (ḥesed). It is often translated "steadfast love", "loving kindness", "loyal love", "mercy" or "faithfulness". Older Christian writing sometimes treated ḥesed almost as if it were simply the Old Testament word for "grace", but this is too narrow. Ḥesed particularly carries the idea of faithful, enduring and relational love, often in a covenant setting. It overlaps strongly with grace without being identical to ḥēn. In the Septuagint it is commonly translated with ἔλεος (eleos), "mercy", rather than charis.
Together these words reveal complementary aspects of God's character. Ḥen emphasises favour graciously given; ḥesed emphasises God's steadfast and faithful love.
This is important when reading John 1:14-17. John's description of Jesus as "full of grace and truth" probably echoes Yahweh's revelation to Moses in Exodus 34:6, where God is abundant in steadfast love and faithfulness. John therefore presents Jesus not as introducing a previously unknown gracious God, but as the supreme revelation of the gracious character God had already revealed.
Other important Old Testament passages include Psalm 84:11, where God gives grace or favour and glory; Proverbs 3:34, where God gives grace to the humble; and Zechariah 12:10, which speaks of a "spirit of grace" or supplication.
Grace in the New Testament
The principal New Testament word translated grace is the Greek noun χάρις (charis). It occurs about 155 times in the New Testament. Its range of meaning includes favour, kindness, graciousness, benefit, gratitude and, particularly in Christian usage, God's freely bestowed favour. It does not simply mean "gift", although the ideas are closely connected. The related noun χάρισμα (charisma) means a gracious or freely given gift, while χαρίζομαι (charizomai) can mean to grant something freely or to forgive a debt or offence.
This word-family helps explain the New Testament understanding of grace. Grace is not simply an emotion within God. It produces gifts and actions. What God graciously wills, he graciously gives.
Grace in Jesus Christ
Although charis is not especially frequent in the Synoptic Gospels, the reality of grace permeates the ministry of Jesus.
Jesus welcomed sinners, touched people regarded as unclean, healed those who could not repay him and ate with people despised by respectable society. His parables repeatedly portrayed the generosity of God towards people who had no claim upon him.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 is among the clearest pictures of this. The returning son could offer no restoration of everything he had squandered. He intended to ask merely for the position of a servant, yet the father received him as a son. The initiative, welcome and restoration flowed from the father's love.
The parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16 similarly portrays a master whose generosity exceeds calculations of what individual workers deserve.
Yet the fullest expression of grace is not one particular saying of Jesus. It is Jesus himself. John 1:14-17 describes the incarnate Word as full of grace and truth and declares that from his fullness believers receive "grace upon grace". The passage reaches its climax by contrasting Moses' role in giving the law with the arrival of grace and truth through Jesus Christ. This should not be read as if Moses represented an age devoid of grace. Rather, God's grace reaches its decisive revelation and fulfilment in Christ.
Grace and the Cross
The New Testament particularly connects grace with the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Romans 3:23-26 brings together the problem of sin, the free nature of justification and the redemptive work of Christ. All have sinned and fall short of God's glory, yet believers are justified freely by God's grace through the redemption accomplished in Christ (Romans 5:8).
The striking feature of this grace is its direction. Christ did not die for humanity once humanity had made itself worthy of him. God acted while people were still sinners.
Paul develops this contrast throughout Romans 5. Adam's trespass brought condemnation and death; God's gracious gift in Jesus Christ abounds beyond the trespass. Grace is God's answer to human sin, but it does not pretend that sin is insignificant. The cross reveals both the seriousness of sin and the abundance of grace.
Saved by grace
One of the clearest summaries of salvation by grace occurs in Ephesians 2:1-10. Human beings are first described as spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. God then makes them alive together with Christ.
Salvation is by grace, through faith, and is not the achievement of human works. Consequently there is no ground for boasting. Yet Paul immediately adds that those who are saved are created in Christ Jesus for good works.
Grace and good works therefore stand in a particular relationship. Works do not purchase grace; grace produces a changed life in which good works follow.
Paul makes the same point autobiographically in 1 Corinthians 15:10. Paul attributes both what he had become and the work he subsequently performed to the grace of God. Grace did not make him passive. It produced labour, obedience and ministry.
Grace as power and help
Grace in the New Testament is more than God's decision not to punish. When Paul pleaded for the removal of his "thorn in the flesh", Christ answered that his grace was sufficient because divine power was made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:8-10). Here grace is sustaining power.
Likewise, the writer of Hebrews tells believers to approach God's throne of grace confidently so that they may receive mercy and find grace for help when needed (Hebrews 4:16).
Grace is something upon which Christians continue to depend after conversion.
Grace transforms
Grace is sometimes caricatured as God overlooking wrongdoing. The New Testament instead describes grace as an enemy of sin.
Titus 2:11-14 explains that the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation and training believers to reject ungodliness and worldly desires and to live godly lives.
Paul similarly asks whether Christians should continue sinning so that grace might increase in Romans 6:1-2. His answer is emphatically negative.
Grace forgives sinners, but its purpose is not to leave them unchanged. The grace that justifies also begins a life of Sanctification.
Gifts of grace
The relationship between charis and charisma is particularly evident in Paul's teaching about spiritual gifts in Romans 12:3-8 1 Corinthians 12:4-11.
Different Christians receive different gifts "according to the grace given" to them. Ministry itself is therefore an expression of grace. A Christian cannot finally boast about his or her abilities, because whatever is genuinely used for God's kingdom has first been received.
Past, present and future grace
The New Testament can speak of grace in past, present and future terms.
Believers have been saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8).
Believers presently stand in grace (Romans 5:2), receive grace for weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9) and approach the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).
Peter also tells Christians to set their hope completely upon the grace that will be brought to them at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13).
Grace therefore encompasses the whole Christian journey, from God's initiative in calling a sinner to the final salvation that will be revealed when Christ returns.
Grace through Church History
The Early Church
Grace remained central to Christian teaching immediately after the apostolic period.
Around the end of the first century, 1 Clement told the Corinthian Christians that believers were called by God's will in Christ and were not justified by themselves, their wisdom, piety or works, but through faith. Significantly, the following chapter immediately urged Christians towards diligent good works. The pattern resembles the New Testament relationship between grace, faith and obedience: good works do not provide the basis of God's saving favour, but they belong to the life that follows it.
As Christian theology developed, grace was increasingly discussed alongside baptism, the Eucharist, human freedom, sanctification and participation in the life of God.
Augustine and Pelagius
One of the most important disputes about grace occurred in the early fifth century between Augustine and Pelagius and his supporters.
The controversy concerned the extent to which fallen human beings could turn towards God and obey him through their natural powers. Augustine insisted that grace was not merely God's creation of human free will, the giving of the law, the example of Christ or the forgiveness of previous sins. Fallen people required God's inward action to enable them to will and perform what was good.
For Augustine, even the beginning of a person's movement towards God depended upon grace. Grace did not simply make obedience easier; without God's gracious action, saving obedience was impossible.
The Second Council of Orange in 529 strongly affirmed this priority of grace. It taught that even the beginning of faith and the desire to turn towards God depended upon the work of the Holy Spirit rather than arising independently from fallen human nature.
These debates profoundly shaped later Western Christian thinking.
Medieval Christianity
During the medieval period Western theologians developed increasingly detailed accounts of grace and its relationship to the Christian life.
Thomas Aquinas, for example, taught that fallen human nature required grace to be healed and that human beings required grace to be raised towards the supernatural life of fellowship with God. He distinguished different ways in which God's gracious action operates but maintained that God alone is ultimately the cause of grace.
Grace was also closely associated with the sacramental life of the Church. These developments provided part of the theological background against which the Protestant Reformation later occurred.
Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Eastern Christian theology developed with somewhat different emphases from the medieval Latin West. In Eastern Orthodoxy, grace is commonly described as the saving and deifying activity of God through the Holy Spirit. Salvation involves theosis, participation in the life of God, and grace transforms the believer rather than merely altering his legal standing.
Orthodox theology strongly insists that grace is God's gift and that salvation cannot be achieved independently of God, while also speaking of synergy: human beings respond to and cooperate with God's gracious action. The sacramental and communal life of the Church has an important place within this understanding.
The Protestant Reformation
Grace became one of the defining issues of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. At the heart of the dispute was a basic question: how is a sinner made right with God?
The Reformers emphasised sola gratia - "grace alone". They taught that people could not earn God's acceptance through good works, religious practices or personal merit. Instead, a sinner was justified (declared right with God) entirely because of God's grace, received through Faith in Jesus Christ.
The controversy first became public over the sale and preaching of indulgences (a Church-granted reduction in punishment for sins). These belonged to the wider medieval Catholic system of penance. A Christian who committed serious sin after baptism was ordinarily expected to repent, confess the sin to a priest, receive absolution (the priest's declaration of forgiveness) and carry out acts of penance.
In 1517, Martin Luther publicly challenged the preaching of indulgences. His criticism soon developed into a much deeper disagreement about salvation itself. Luther argued that a sinner is made right with God through faith in Christ, because of God's grace, rather than through a process involving faith, the sacraments, acts of penance and meritorious works.
The Lutheran Augsburg Confession later expressed this clearly, teaching that people could not be justified before God by their own strength, merits or works, but were freely justified for Christ's sake through faith.
The Reformed Heidelberg Catechism made a similar point, describing forgiveness, righteousness and salvation as gifts given by grace because of Christ rather than earned through human merit.
This did not mean that Protestants rejected baptism, the Lord's Supper or the preaching of Scripture. Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed and other Protestant traditions continued to regard these as important ways through which God strengthens and teaches his people. The disagreement was over whether such practices formed part of the process by which a sinner became right with God.
The Roman Catholic response to the Reformation was formally expressed at the Council of Trent, particularly in its Decree on Justification in 1547. The Council taught that salvation begins with God's grace rather than human effort; however, it also taught that people must cooperate with that grace and that God gives grace through the sacraments of the Church. This included confession. A person who committed serious sin after baptism was expected to repent, confess the sin to a priest and receive absolution. The absolution was understood as a real means through which Christ granted forgiveness, rather than simply an announcement that forgiveness had already taken place apart from the sacrament.
Catholic theology therefore speaks of sacramental grace: the belief that God truly gives grace through sacraments such as baptism, confession and the Eucharist.
The Reformers rejected this understanding of justification. They argued that a sinner is made right with God through faith in Christ alone, entirely because of God's grace, and not through the sacraments or good works. The central disagreement was therefore not about whether grace was necessary - both Catholics and Protestants affirmed that - but about how grace is received and how a sinner becomes right with God.
Further disagreements then developed within Protestant Christianity about how God's grace brings a person to faith. In the Reformed or Calvinist tradition, God does more than make salvation possible. His grace effectively brings those he calls to repentance and faith. Salvation therefore begins with God's action rather than with an independent human decision.
The Arminian and later Wesleyan tradition also teaches that people cannot turn to God without his grace; however, it teaches that God first gives prevenient grace (grace enabling a human response), allowing people genuinely to repent and believe while still allowing them to refuse God's grace. John Wesley spoke of this grace coming before conversion and enabling a person to respond to God. He also spoke of God's grace continuing throughout the Christian life: bringing conviction of sin, justification and sanctification.
Grace in Language and Popular Culture
The theological importance of grace profoundly influenced the English language. The English word came through Old French from Latin gratia, with meanings including favour, goodwill, gratitude and pleasingness. Over time "grace" acquired several related meanings: divine favour, elegance or beauty, courteous behaviour, a prayer of thanks before a meal and even an ornamental musical note.
Perhaps the best-known cultural expression of Christian grace is Amazing Grace, written by John Newton in 1772 and first published in Olney Hymns in 1779. Newton had earlier participated in the Atlantic slave trade and later became an outspoken opponent of it. His hymn interpreted salvation autobiographically as the rescue of a sinful and undeserving person through God's grace. It eventually became one of the best-known Christian hymns in the English-speaking world.
The idea has also continued within modern popular music. U2 concluded their 2000 album All That You Can't Leave Behind with the song Grace, personifying grace as something operating outside ordinary systems of repayment and retribution. Its memorable concluding image is: "Grace makes beauty out of ugly things."
The line captures one genuine dimension of the Christian idea: grace does not simply overlook what is damaged but can transform it.
The secular use of "grace" to describe beauty, elegance or generosity is therefore not entirely disconnected from the theological meaning. In each case there is an idea of something good that is given, bestowed or present beyond what strict necessity requires.
Theological Discussion
Grace is more than "unmerited favour"
Grace is frequently defined in evangelical Christianity as "unmerited favour". This is a useful definition, particularly because it captures the fact that grace cannot be earned.
Yet by itself it is incomplete. Biblically, grace is not only God's favourable disposition towards a person. Grace acts. God graciously chooses, calls, forgives, gives, rescues, justifies, strengthens, transforms and preserves.
A fuller definition might therefore be: Grace is God's freely given favour expressed through his loving action towards those who have not earned it, ultimately revealed in Jesus Christ and active in saving, transforming and sustaining his people.
Grace begins with God
The fundamental direction of grace is from God towards humanity. Christian salvation does not begin when a person makes himself sufficiently virtuous to attract God's attention. It begins in the character and initiative of God (1 John 4:19).
This priority runs throughout Scripture. God called Abraham. God heard Israel in slavery. He sent the prophets. He sent his Son. Christ died for sinners. God raises the spiritually dead to life.
Grace means that God's saving action is fundamentally gift before achievement.
Grace and justice
Grace does not mean that God ceases to care about justice. This can already be seen in Exodus 34:6-7. The same revelation that declares God compassionate, gracious and abundant in steadfast love also declares that he does not simply treat guilt as though it did not exist.
The cross brings these themes together. Romans 3:24-26 presents justification as a free gift of grace while simultaneously presenting the death of Christ as the means by which God demonstrates his righteousness.
Christian grace is therefore not divine indifference towards evil. Forgiveness is possible because God himself acts decisively against sin through Christ.
Grace and faith
The New Testament repeatedly connects grace with Faith (Romans 4:16 and Ephesians 2:8-9).
Faith is not a price paid for grace. It is the means by which the believer receives what God gives. This distinction is crucial. Faith does not become a superior kind of religious work by which someone earns salvation. The object of faith is Christ, and its significance lies in receiving and trusting what Christ has accomplished.
Grace and works
Grace excludes boasting in works as the ground of salvation, but it does not abolish obedience. The sequence of Ephesians 2:8-10 is important: grace → salvation through faith → new creation → good works.
Good works are not the cause of salvation but one of its intended results.
The same pattern occurs in Titus. Grace appears, brings salvation, and then trains God's people to live differently. In other words, grace brings transformation.
A person who concludes that grace gives permission to live indefinitely without repentance has misunderstood what biblical grace does.
Grace and human freedom
One of the longest-running theological questions concerns the relationship between God's grace and the human response.
Scripture clearly presents God as taking the initiative. No one comes to Christ apart from the Father's drawing (John 6:44), and God works within believers both to will and to act (Philippians 2:13).
Yet Scripture also continually commands people to repent, believe, obey, persevere and not resist God.
Different Christian traditions construct the relationship between these truths differently. Reformed theology emphasises God's effectual calling and sovereign grace. Arminian and Wesleyan theology emphasises grace that precedes and enables the human response while allowing that grace to be resisted.
Whatever theological model is adopted, the biblical order should remain clear: humanity does not first become spiritually capable and then summon God's assistance. God's grace comes first.
Grace and the Holy Spirit
Grace can also be understood in a Trinitarian way. Grace originates in the loving purpose of the Father, is revealed and accomplished through the Son, and is applied and made effective in believers through the Holy Spirit.
Grace is the activity of the living God. The Spirit gives life, produces holiness, distributes gifts, strengthens believers and forms the character of Christ within them. The New Testament's language of grace therefore overlaps with its teaching about the indwelling and transforming work of the Holy Spirit.
Grace and Christian character
Those who receive grace are called to become gracious.
Jesus repeatedly connected the mercy received from God with mercy shown towards other people. The servant who had been forgiven an enormous debt but refused to forgive another person's small debt had failed to understand the mercy he had received (Matthew 18:21-35).
Paul similarly connected God's forgiveness with Christian forgiveness (Ephesians 4:32).
A theology of grace that produces pride, contempt or cruelty contradicts the character of the grace it claims to defend.
The recipient of grace has no basis for spiritual superiority. Everything has been received (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Grace as the shape of salvation
Grace should therefore not be confined to one stage of Christian salvation. It is grace when God calls. It is grace when God forgives. It is grace when God justifies. It is grace when God adopts. It is grace when the Spirit transforms. It is grace when God gives gifts for ministry. It is grace when Christ sustains a believer through weakness. And it will be grace when Christ finally raises his people and brings them into eternal life.
Christian salvation begins, continues and ends with the generosity of God.
Quotes
U2
- Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
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