What is God's grace according to the Bible?
Answered from the commentary of H. J. Vine, A. J. Pollock, J. T. Mawson and 11 others
God’s grace is His free and unmerited favour toward sinners who deserve judgment, given because of what He is, not because of anything worthy in them. It brings salvation through Jesus Christ: by His death and resurrection, God can righteously forgive and justify those who believe, and this salvation is a gift received through faith, not earned by works. Grace has appeared in Jesus, who is full of grace and truth, and from His fulness believers receive grace upon grace.
That grace also teaches those it saves to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly. It gives strength for weakness, trial, and service, and supplies what is needed for the path. The authors agree most plainly that salvation is by grace through faith and not by works; they differ on whether saving grace is given to all or only to some.
Verses: Ephesians 2:8, Ephesians 2:9, Romans 3:23, Romans 3:24, Romans 5:1, Romans 5:2, Romans 5:8, Romans 5:15, Romans 5:16, Romans 5:17, Romans 6:14, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Titus 2:11, Titus 2:12, Titus 3:4, Titus 3:5, Titus 3:6, Titus 3:7, Hebrews 4:16, 1 Peter 4:10, 1 Peter 5:10
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
What is grace? I have never yet heard an adequate definition, and never expect to! For grace is the way God acts in showing His favour to sinners, who do not deserve it in the smallest degree. Grace is the way God acts, not as measuring and meeting our need as sinners, but who with lavish hand blesses us according to what He is in His very nature.
Divine grace, or the free and unmerited favour of God to undeserving objects, is the source of all our blessings. We were sinners, and justly exposed to the wrath of God; we were utterly unclean, and entirely unworthy of anything but judgment. It was when we were "sinners," and "without strength," that Christ died for us. All hope then, and confidence in God, is founded on divine grace; not that righteousness could possibly be excluded; hence it is written, "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 5:21.)
God’s grace is unmerited favour. It expresses itself in the fact that God’s attitude towards the sinner is irrespective of anything favourable in the sinner. It is blessing without conditions.
This is grace, indeed! Unmerited favour! It is the love and mercy of God shown out to those who only deserved His wrath.
The dictionary tells us that grace is unmerited favour; but God’s grace to the sinner who believes is more: it is favour for the one who merited judgment; and further still, according to the riches of that grace, as well as to the praise of the glory of it, believers are taken into Divine favour as sons, through the redeeming work of Christ; they are “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6-7). Mephibosheth by royal favour dwelt at the palace of the king “as one of the king’s sons,” but today we “are all the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” The fact is, we are treated not according to our deserts, but according to what God’s beloved Son deserves.
Great pains have been taken by the Holy Spirit to impress upon us the important fact that the blessing of justification comes to men as entirely of God. It does not come to them because they deserve it; it is by grace, which supposes absolute demerit in the objects of it. God has found no reason in men why He should approach them with this blessing, He has needed none, for the cause of it all is found in His own heart. He blesses men because of what He is Himself and not because of what they are. This is the meaning of the words, "Being justified freely of His grace."
This way of blessing, as is evident, shuts out all boasting on the part of men. It is wholly excluded. Here is the reason why proud men hate the idea of the grace of God. We are justified freely by His grace. Grace gave Jesus to die. Grace is the way of God's acting in justification, and faith is the response upon our part. We are justified by faith apart from the works of the law. This is the conclusion to which we are led by the truth we have been considering.
For the saving grace of God has a service suited to itself. It does not, like the law, govern a people already in relationship with God; it calls, as Christ did, not the righteous but sinners to repentance. The word of truth it proclaims for all to hear is the gospel of salvation; and those who hear not only live but are saved by grace through faith, quickened with Christ, raised up together, and made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, that God might display in the coming ages the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
The concluding verses of the section (8-10) show that salvation is entirely by grace on God's part, pure favor at a time when we deserved wrath and judgment. "Through faith" is the means by which we receive such grace, faith being not in itself a thing of merit, but that which rightly recognizes all merit in the Lord Jesus Christ, having confidence simply in Himself. "And that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." Even faith to believe is seen as God's gift for in our natural state faith was far from us. God alone has worked marvelously in changing matters, giving us faith and salvation by grace, and indeed every spiritual blessing.
The contemplation of it leads the Apostle to again emphasize the fact that our salvation is all of grace. He had stated this previously, in verse 5, in a parenthetical way. In verse 8 he enlarges upon this important fact, and adds that it is also through faith. The grace is God's: the faith is ours. Yet even our faith is not of ourselves. Faith is not a natural product of the human heart. The weeds that grow by nature in the heart of man are detailed for us in Romans 3:9-19. Faith is no weed at all, but rather a choice flower which once planted by the heavenly Father can never be rooted up. It is the gift of God.
Verses
- Ephesians 2:8–98For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God's gift 9not on the principle of works, that no one might boast.
- Romans 3:23–2423for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which [is] in Christ Jesus;
- Romans 5:1–21Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ; 2by whom we have also access by faith into this favour in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
- Romans 5:8but God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us.
- Romans 5:15–1715But [shall] not the act of favour [be] as the offence? For if by the offence of one the many have died, much rather has the grace of God, and the free gift in grace, which [is] by the one man Jesus Christ, abounded unto the many. 16And [shall] not as by one that has sinned [be] the gift? For the judgment [was] of one to condemnation, but the act of favour, of many offences unto justification. 17For if by the offence of the one death reigned by the one, much rather shall those who receive the abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness, reign in life by the one Jesus Christ)