Grace = God’s mercy to those who don’t deserve it
The grace of God is really the MOST THRILLING concept that a Christian can every know, and when we receive it, it should flood the heart with praise to God that such a thing exists and is available to us! Because without GRACE, there is no hope for any of us.
The only alternative to grace is being able to save ourselves by our own efforts, by our own perfection, which I’m sure we’d all agree, is impossible. We can’t be perfect, we can’t be without weakness, sin, failure and so God doesn’t offer this as a way to being saved. The New Testament makes this abundantly clear:
For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. (Romans 3:20)
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:5)
If salvation is to be effective, it has to be acceptable to God. This is why GRACE is such a key word in the Bible, because Jesus is the only worthy sacrifice, and God sent him to us. If we don’t understand this concept of grace, we’ll never understand the Gospel, or the Christian faith, grace is the heart of our message – that salvation comes through Christ alone.
In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. (1 Peter 5:10)
For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)
Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us. (Hebrews 10:29)
For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. (Titus 2:11)
Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. (Romans 3:24)
He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. (Ephesians 1:7)
What is Grace?
Grace is needed because, though we were created in the image of God, able to know and enjoy him, when we sinned we were separated from Him, and sin and rebellion has since dominated our actions. He was made completely alien to us.
This put God in a difficult place because, though he loves us with an eternal, relentless love, he cannot condone sin. His holiness and justice demand that sin be dealt with, punished.
These factors alone would condemn mankind to an eternity in hell. But in his love, he planned salvation, he would provide a way out for us. Though we didn’t deserve it he sacrificed himself for us, taking the punishment we chose and deserved. This is grace, free, undeserved, a gift.
How Grace Works
In Ephesians 2:4-5, we find 3 great gospel words – Love, Mercy and Grace. Because God LOVES us, he has MERCY on us, through GRACE. Grace is not some abstract idea, it’s God at work. Grace is God loving the unlovely, pardoning the guilty and saving the lost. Grace is the unique work of God.
We don’t deserve it because we chose to sin, it’s our fault. What we deserve is hell, but through Christ, we can receive Heaven.
D.M Lloyd Jones once said,
Salvation is not, in any sense, God’s response to anything in us. It’s not something we, in any sense, deserve or merit. The whole essence of the teaching at this point, and everywhere in all the New Testament, is that we have no sort or kind of right whatsoever to salvation, that the whole glory of salvation is that through we deserve nothing but punishment in hell and banishment out of the sight of God to all eternity, yet God, of his own love and grace and wondrous mercy has granted us this salvation. Now this is the entire meaning of this term grace.
For more on what Christianity teaches, check out the other topics in our ‘Bitesize Theology’ series:
God; Jesus; The Holy Spirit; The Trinity; Sin; Atonement
Inspired by Peter Jeffery, ’Bitesize Theology’, Evangelical Press, 2000
