Bible Question:
what is grace |
Bible Answer: Welcome to the Forum RBRS! The forum is made up of many people who call themselves Christians. We represent many points of view here. So you must be like the noble-minded believers of Berea and check out what we say with Scripture to see if those things are so. (Act 17:10,11) Now to your question: What is grace. Well, like many words it has more than one meaning. We say, "She was a gracious hostess" or "He glided gracefully over the ice" or "Jim led us in saying grace before the meal." Even in Scripture grace is not always used in the same sense. Do a word search of grace in the "Search word(s):" box to your right and you'll see in some cases that this word is not used with the same meaning. Nonetheless the first and most common (yet most important!) meaning of grace is unmerited or undeserved favor. And a verse in which this meaning is very clearly seen is Ephesians 2:8, 9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." You clearly see here that faith and salvation are "not of yourselves" and "not as a result of works," that is, undeserved and unmerited. So, the meaning of grace here is in keeping with the fact that eternal life is a free gift of God. (Rom 6:23) This is also the meaning Paul uses in the context of this passage in Romans: Rom 11:6 "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace." Finally, one of my favorite passages to show this meaning of grace is Titus 3:4-7, because it also uses the "flip-side" of grace--mercy, which is the WITHOLDING of merited or deserved punishment: "But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Peace, Lionstrong |