Grace

Good Morning,

In Ephesians it states, By Grace ye are saved.  I am amazed how few people I talk with understand what grace means.  This is by far one of the best definitions I have read.

~Al

Grace

 

Christianity first made grace a leading term in the vocabulary of religion. The prominence and emphasis of its use are due to St. Paul, in whose Epp. the word figures twice as often as in all the NT besides. 'Grace' is the first word of greeting and the last of farewell in St. Paul's letters; for him it includes the sum of all blessing that comes from God through Christ: 'grace' the source, 'peace' the stream. In the Gospels, the Johannine Prologue (vv. 14–17: contrasted with 'law,' and co-extensive with 'truth') supplies the only example of 'grace' used with the Pauline fulness of meaning. This passage, and the Lukan examples in Acts (Act 6:3; Act 11:23; Act 13:43; Act 14:8; Act 15:11; Act 20:24; Act 20:32), with the kindred uses in Heb 1:1-14, 2 Peter., Jude, 2 Jn., Rev., may be set down to the influence of Paulinism on Apostolic speech. There is little in earlier phraseology to explain the supremacy in the NT of this specific term; a new experience demanded a new name. 'Grace' designates the principle in God of man's salvation through Jesus Christ. It is God's unmerited, unconstrained love towards sinners, revealed and operative in Christ. Tit 2:11-14, interpreted by Rom 5:1 to Rom 6:23, is the text which approaches nearest to a definition; this passage shows how St. Paul derived from God's grace not only the soul's reconciliation and new hopes in Christ (Rom 5:1-11), but the whole moral uplifting and rehabilitation of human life through Christianity. St. Paul's experience in conversion gave him this watchword; the Divine goodness revealed itself to the 'chief of sinners' under the aspect of 'grace' (1Co 15:9 f., 1Ti 1:13-16). The spontaneity and generosity of God's love felt in the act of his salvation, the complete setting aside therein of everything legal and conventional (with, possibly, the added connotation of charm of which charis is redolent), marked out this word as describing what St. Paul had proved of Christ's redemption; under this name he could commend it to the world of sinful men; his ministry 'testifies the gospel of the grace of God' (Act 20:24). Essentially, grace stands opposed to sin; it is God's way of meeting and conquering man's sin (Rom 5:20 f., Rom 6:1 ff., Rom 6:15 ff.): He thus effects 'the impossible task of the Law' (Rom 7:7 to Rom 8:4). The legal discipline had taught St. Paul to understand, by contrast, the value and the operation of the principle of grace; he was able to handle it with effect in the legalist controversy. Grace supplies, in his theology, the one and sufficient means of deliverance from sin, holding objectively the place which faith holds subjectively in man's salvation (Eph 2:8, Tit 2:11). Formally, and in point of method, grace stands opposed to 'the law,' 'which worketh wrath' (Rom 3:19-26; Rom 4:15, Gal 2:15-21; Gal 5:4); it supersedes the futile 'works' by which the Jew had hoped, in fulfilling the Law, to merit salvation (Rom 4:2-8; Rom 11:6, Gal 2:16-20, Eph 2:8 f.). Grace excludes, therefore, all notion of 'debt' as owing from God to men, all thought of earning the Messianic blessings (Rom 4:4) by establishing 'a righteousness of one's own' (Rom 10:3); through it men are 'justified gratis' (Rom 3:24) and 'receive the gift of righteousness' (Rom 5:17). In twenty-two instances St. Paul writes of 'the grace of God' (or 'his grace'); In fifteen, of 'the grace of Christ' ('the Lord Jesus Christ,' etc.). Ten of the latter examples belong to salutation-formula (so in Rev 22:21), the fullest of these being 2Co 13:14, where 'the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ' is referred to 'the love of God' as its fountain-head; In the remaining five detached instances the context dictates the combination 'grace of Christ' ('our Lord,' etc.),—Rom 5:15, 2Co 8:9; 2Co 12:9, Gal 1:6, 1Ti 1:14 (also in 2Pe 3:16). In other NT writings the complement is predominantly 'of God'; 1Pe 5:10 inverts the expression—'the God of all grace.' Once—in 2Th 1:12—grace is referred conjointly to God and Christ. Christ is the expression and vehicle of the grace of the Father, and is completely identified with it (see Joh 1:14; Joh 1:17), so that God's grace can equally be called Christ's; but its reference to the latter is strictly personal in such a passage as 2Co 8:9. A real distinction is implied in the remarkable language of Rom 5:15, where, after positing 'the grace of God' as the fundamental ground of redemption, St. Paul adds to this 'the gift in grace, viz. the grace of the one man Jesus Christ,' who is the counterpart of the sinful and baleful Adam: the generous bounty of the Man towards men, shown by Jesus Christ, served an essential part in human redemption.

--Hastings Dictionary, G. G. Findlay.