What is grace?

Grace is one of the central words of the New Testament. In everyday speech it can mean elegance or a short prayer before a meal. In the Bible it means God’s favor toward people who have not earned it and never could. The commentary of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown defines it as God’s free favor in redemption.

The key is the difference between a wage and a gift. A wage is paid because it was earned; a gift is received because someone chose to give it. Paul draws this very contrast: what sin pays out is death, while eternal life is God’s free gift (Romans 6:23).

Grace is a gift we cannot earn

The clearest description of grace in the Bible comes in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:8–9 · King James Version (1769)

Grace is the source of salvation, and faith is only the means by which we receive it. Faith is not a payment. And because no one earns salvation, no one can boast about it: the most respectable person and the worst sinner come to God on the same terms.

This matters because the Bible is honest about our condition. It says that all have sinned, and then announces what God has done about it.

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:23–24 · King James Version (1769)

The word “freely” is the same Greek word used elsewhere for something received for nothing. “Justified” was a legal term: the judge declares a person righteous. John MacArthur explains that God placed the believer’s guilt on Christ in His sacrificial death and credits Christ’s righteousness to the believer. So grace never means that God simply looks away from sin. He punished sin in Jesus, and so He can justify the guilty while remaining just (Romans 3:26). And He did this out of love: Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

Paul also says that grace and merit cannot be mixed. If something is by grace, it is no longer by works (Romans 11:6). Paul is speaking of the remnant God chose, but Matthew Henry draws the general rule: “Salvation from the first to the last must be either of grace or of debt.”

Grace has a face: Jesus Christ

Grace is not only an idea. John sets the law given through Moses beside the grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). The law showed people what was right and exposed their sin, but it could not give them the power to obey. In Jesus, God came close to people who were far from Him and in the end gave His life for them.

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Titus 2:11 · King James Version (1769)

MacArthur and William MacDonald both note that “the grace of God” here is Jesus Christ Himself, grace in person, who appeared when He came into the world and gave Himself for our sins. “To all men” means that grace is not limited to any class of people: in the verses just before, Paul has spoken to old and young, men and women, free and slaves.

Paul goes straight on to say that the same grace that saves also teaches. MacDonald calls it a school of holiness, where believers learn to say no to ungodliness and worldly desires and to live wisely, justly and with devotion to God here and now (Titus 2:12).

That answers a common worry: if salvation is free, does it matter how we live? Paul raised the question himself and answered it with a firm no (Romans 6:1–2). The freedom of grace is freedom to obey God, not permission to sin. Good works cannot save us, but God has prepared them for those He saves (Ephesians 2:10). They are the fruit of grace, not its price.

Grace is strength for every day

Grace does not end at the moment a person comes to faith. Paul suffered from what he called a thorn in the flesh and asked the Lord three times to take it away. We are not told what the thorn was, but we are told the answer.

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Cor 12:9 · King James Version (1769)

God did not remove the trial; He promised grace that would last as long as the trial did. The verb “is sufficient” is in the present tense: grace keeps on being enough. And Paul found that his weakness was the very place where the power of Christ was seen. He was writing to a church impressed by boastful teachers, and he answered them by boasting in his weakness, as Christ Himself was crucified in weakness.

That is why the letter to the Hebrews invites believers to approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, to find help when they need it (Hebrews 4:16). Paul said that he was what he was by the grace of God, and that even his hard work was really the grace of God working with him (1 Corinthians 15:10).

What grace means for you

Grace changes how a person stands before God. No one has to clean up their life first or prove they are good enough. Through faith in Jesus Christ, grace brings peace with God and a sure hope (Romans 5:1–2).

Grace also changes how we treat others. People who know they have received undeserved kindness learn to forgive as God in Christ forgave them (Ephesians 4:32). And grace is something to keep growing in for the rest of life (2 Peter 3:18).

The way to receive God’s grace is not to try harder but to trust Christ: to admit our need, to believe that He died and rose again for us, and to accept what God freely offers.