What is the meaning ofcharisin the Bible?

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.

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.

Grace means "Free, undeserved favour." And, Thanks be to God, that is just what God has shown us; and this is the message with which this lovely Epistle begins. But let us remember it is Grace, not from pity, but from Love. I write in Hong Kong, surrounded by tens of thousands of refugees in the most desperate poverty, misery, and squalor: daily I see the children in their rags and wretchedness, and my heart is moved with pity, and I seek to do what little I can to remove their misery. In a measure I show them Grace, for they do nothing to deserve help. But it is Grace moved by pity. But there are a few whom I dearly love, what a difference that makes! A few days ago a dear child we have known and loved for several years, showed me the soles of her shoes, without saying a word: both had great holes right through to her bare feet. I got her new shoes, and at the same time a pretty new dress, for I think she had only the shabby one she had on: I paid about ninety cents for it. When I gave them to her, she climbed on my knee, buried her head on my shoulder, her heart too full for words: and then at last she looked up with wonder, saying: "Mr. Lee, You must have paid a great deal for it!" It was grace, but grace moved by Love, and who can say whose pleasure was greater, the Child's, or mine? Let us ponder the Love behind the words: "GRACE TO YOU," and let us remember always the unfathomable cost. May our hearts respond, not with any formal thanks, but like the Child, may our hearts burst forth: "THANKS BE UNTO GOD FOR HIS UNSPEAKABLE GIFT!!!"

chen, χάρις. The favour and graciousness shown by God to guilty man. It stands in contrast to law, John 1:17; Gal. 5:4; also to works and to desert or reward, Rom. 4:4; Rom. 11:6; 'by grace ye are saved.' Eph. 2:5, 8. The grace of God is vouchsafed to the saints all along the way: we find nearly all the Epistles commence and end with the invocation of grace on the churches: whereas when individuals are addressed MERCY is added. 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4; 2 John 3. The different aspects of grace and mercy have been thus set forth: "Grace refers more to the source and character of the sentiment; mercy to the state of the person who is its object, Grace may give me glory; mercy contemplates some need in me. Mercy is great in the greatness of the need; grace in the thought of the person exercising it."

The word grace (charis) is one of those employed by the Spirit of God to convey a truth which is exclusively divine, and in consequence all human language is inadequate to express its meaning; to seek to define it is to seek to set bounds to the infinite. We may only by assiduous comparison of its varied usage in Holy Scripture obtain some glimmerings of the vast truth communicated by the word "grace." In its many occurrences it has many shades of significations, as indeed we may gather from Peter's expressive phrase — "the manifold (poikiles) grace of God" (1 Peter 4:10).

I say, this is a fine example of grace, and is important, because we are told in the New Testament that we are saved by grace: "By grace are ye saved, through faith;" but perhaps few things are so little understood as grace. It is said by some that grace means that God will do His part, if we will do ours; but this entirely destroys the thought of grace. Others say, that it means unmerited love; but it means more than this, for it brings favour and blessing to those who only deserve punishment and destruction; it brings eternal life and glory to such as have merited eternal death and banishment; and flows freely to us through the smitten Son of God, who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. It is the death of Christ, then, that is here typified by the smitten rock. There the stripes that we deserved were laid upon Him, and thence the water of life flows freely. "From all His wounds new blessings flow, A sea of joy without a shore."

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.

If asked, What is grace, how shall I explain it? Theological definitions are objectionable, because incomplete, imperfect. If I say grace is unmerited favour, a free gift, it would be the truth, but not the whole truth. The grace of God — the gospel of the grace of God — means much more than that — to say that it is unmerited favour is inadequate, incomplete. What is grace? The grace of God, what does it imply? What it does — what it holds out is shown in these two portions, Rom. 5:21 and Titus 2:11. In the Epistle to Titus the Apostle uses a milder word than in Rom. 5:21. In Titus he speaks of grace appearing — in Romans of grace reigning. This is a much stronger term.

As we have seen however, grace is higher yet. Grace is the active, energetic favour of God which delights to fill our cup to overflowing, "abundantly above all we can ask or think". If we have known it in principle, we ought also to know it in daily practice; and by this we should be in practice lifted up above our circumstances. Grace is a power which Paul found sufficient to strengthen his soul to bear "infirmities, reproaches, persecutions, distresses, for Christ's sake," and to do so most gladly (2 Cor. 12:9-10). Grace enabled him to preach "the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 4:7), and to serve God acceptably (Heb. 12:8). It is the active, positive power for good: for having brought salvation, it also teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world" (Titus 2:11-12). Let us think then of grace, not merely as an attitude of kindness on God's part, but as His great, active favour in furnishing us with every provision for our purest good.

Grace belongs to the New Testament, it came into the world when Jesus came, He was full of it and its fullness was brought to men in Him. It is God's favour to men, and it is infinite and unlimited. God could not have shown His favour to men in a more complete and perfect way than by the coming of His only-begotten Son into the world, this was the best and the greatest that He could do. No other than the Word could speak fully and finally for God, no other than the Son could tell the love that filled the Father's house; He came to do this, and that love in its wonderful activities on the behalf of men is the grace of which our verse speaks. It brought Jesus down to men when they were and as they were, and looked for no merit in them, only need; they needed Him, that was enough. That grace was the fullness of the Godhead working untiringly for the blessing of men.