What is Grace?

 

Child:     'What's for dinner?'
Parent:   'I paid for it and it'll do you good!'

It doesn't really answer the question, does it? There are many misunderstandings and misconceptions when it comes to understanding what God's grace is. They don't really answer the question either:

- The unmerited/ undeserved/ unearned favour/ blessing of God.
- God's Riches/Resources At Christ's Expense.
- A result of the cross.
- To do with the forgiveness of sins.
- Mercy is not getting what we deserve, ie, punishment. Grace is getting what we don't deserve, ie, blessing.

What I want is a definition of what grace actually is. Most of the definitions we have seem to be a shortcut to try to say how we receive grace and what benefit it is to us. 

There are four Bible verses that show these definitions are far from correct.

Jesus had God's grace

'The child was growing, and was becoming strong in spirit, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.' Luke 2:40

'The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.' John 1:14

If Grace is God's undeserved favour and Jesus had grace then are we going to say that Jesus didn't deserve God's favour? Are we saying Jesus received God's grace at His own expense or that He needed to have sins forgiven? That doesn't make any sense at all.

You have to be humble to receive God's grace

'But He gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”' James 4:6

We can't say grace is in every way unearned when the bible tells us that we do something to receive it, humble ourselves.

You can fall from God's grace

'You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.' Gal 5:4

Again, we can't say grace is in every way unearned when the Bible tells us that we can fall from it by doing something. Surely, we have to stop doing that something in order to receive God's grace?

It has always puzzled me that we define grace as unearned and then say we have to believe, unbelievers are not under God's grace! 

What is grace?

To find the answer we have to trawl through the scriptures that talk about grace to see what they say. It might be useful if I give you the answer now so that as we go through you can see how the scriptures support it.

I once heard a group of theologians talking about Jesus as God and man. They couldn't get their collective heads around how Jesus could be a man and still perform miracles. The answer is simple. Jesus emptied himself of His divinity and became fully human. The miracles that Jesus performed were performed according to His Father's instructions and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, why would Jesus, being God, need the Holy Spirit?

'If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then God’s Kingdom has come upon you.' Mat 12:27-28 

'Jesus therefore answered them, “Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing. For whatever things He does, these the Son also does likewise.' John 5:13

'I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous; because I don’t seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me.' John 5:30

"Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross." Phil 2:5-8

This was a specific ministry that the Holy Spirit performed, it was the ministry of Christ. In the Old Testament, there were four key ministries - the judge, the priest with the high priest, the prophet and the king. The Christ as a ministry was all four combined, judge, high priest, prophet and king. But more, we have heard the term, king of kings, well the Christ was the judge of judges, prophet of prophets, the high priest of high priests and the king of the kings. His ministry was not just the four combined as if equal to them. The Christ was to be the pinnacle of each, where each ministry in the Old Testament was a mere foreshadowing of the true ministry to come.

Jesus' followers are also to carry on the ministry of Christ. We have to understand that although Jesus was/is the Christ, the ministry of Christ goes further than what Jesus did in human form. We can see this in the following verses:

'But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.' 1 Pet 2:9

'Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?' 1 Cor 6:3

'Follow after love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. . . The one who prophesies speaks to people for their edification, exhortation, and consolation' 1 Cor 14:1&3 (New Testament prophecy is not simply telling of future events. It is speaking to build one another up.) 

To my understanding, when the New Testament writers are speaking of grace they are speaking of the Holy Spirit revealing Christ in us and through us. The word that grace is translated from is the Greek word 'Charis.' This word means 'gift'. Now, we are not talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit (although they are part of it). We are talking about God giving us His Spirit and the Spirit's ministry of Christ as a gift.

As we go through we will see the Bible talks about grace as the empowering presence of God making us who God wants us to be in order to do what God wants us to do.

That may leave us with a question regarding falling from grace and God resisting the proud. We have to make a distinction. God's Spirit will never leave you. But the effectiveness of the Spirit's ministry in us can be helped or hindered by what we are trying to do.

If we are trying to do things our way rather than God's way, then we are working against Him. God will not fight with us. We must first humble ourselves and accept what God wants to do in us and through us.

Imagine someone eating several bars of chocolate a day and going to a health farm to lose weight. They may say, 'I will eat the food they give me and do the exercises, but I'm still going to eat my chocolate every day!' If the health farm people knew this they would resist that person. God does know everything about us. We cannot hide things from Him. We only kid ourselves. We effectively need to go to God and say, 'Please help me with my chocolate addiction.'

Grace is a presence

We have already seen grace as a presence in the verses telling us that grace was on Jesus and that He was full of grace. This is exactly how the writers talk about the Holy Spirit.

Grace as the power of God

In this next verse, we see grace and power being used interchangeably. Also, notice this is the 'power of Christ':

'He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.' 2 Cor 12:9

When Barnabus went to see the hand of the Lord at work, what is described is God's grace: 

'The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. The report concerning them came to the ears of the assembly which was in Jerusalem. They sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch, who, when he had come, and had seen the grace of God, was glad. He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they should remain near to the Lord.' Acts 11:21-23

We can see from this that grace can be used interchangeably with 'The hand of the Lord.' This would be used to mean power and more specifically an outworking. In other words, grace is not simply something we have. Grace can be seen in the same way as ministry. I have often felt that ministry is what God does through us regardless of what we think we are doing! A good example of this in Jesus' own life is the healing of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. Jesus was moving through a crowd to the house of the synagogue ruler when the woman reached out and touched him. At that moment she was healed. (Luke 8:41-56)

'With great power, the apostles gave their testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Great grace was on them all.' Acts 4:33

'For God didn’t give us a Spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.' 2 Tim 1:7

Grace makes us who God wants us to be
and equips us to do what he wants us to do

'But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.' 1 Cor 15:10

'For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we would live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age;' Titus 2:11-12

Summing up

We have seen that the Bible describes God's grace in terms of the empowering presence of God making us who he wants us to be in order to do what he wants us to do. 

Here's the thing, the Holy Spirit can also be seen to have the same definition. But not just the Holy Spirit in general. The specific ministry of the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ in us and through us to the world. It would be odd to have both the ministry of the Holy Spirit and grace being described in the same way.

 

All of the definitions I gave at the start are fine in understanding how we receive grace, but they do not tell us what it actually is. It is true that we do not deserve God's grace. It is true that it is God's Riches "for us" At Christ's expense. It is true that we receive grace as a result of the cross. But what we receive is the Holy Spirit who wants to make us more like Jesus and carry on Jesus' work on earth.

I have heard many Christians give a statement of what it is to be a Christian. I have seen quite a few Church mission statements. They are all some variation of revealing Christ in us and through us to the world.

 

Even the term Christian was a term of mockery aimed at the early church, it meant, 'little Christ.' But the early church adopted it.

If we were under 'the undeserved blessing of God' that would lead us to think we just sit and see what God gives us.

Think about Paul's common greeting of 'Grace to you.' What would it mean to say, 'God's unmerited favour to you?' Surely they already have that. And surely that is somewhat self-indulgent. The focus is Jesus, not us. I mean, remember the Sunday School Joke - 'What's small, furry, has a long bushy tail, climbs trees and hides its nuts in winter.' The answer is, 'It sounds like a squirrel but the answer has to be Jesus!' Everything is focused around Christ, not us. We are not here for our benefit, favour or blessing. If it was all about what's best for us, God would take us to be with Himself the moment we believe.

 

Therefore, It makes more sense to say, 'God's empowering presence to you to reveal Christ in you and through you to the world.' No wonder they shortened it to 'Grace to you!'