The Gift of Grace

T he couple came into my office ready to tell me why my view of grace and the Christian life was insufficient. “We must do more than just believe to get our salvation,” they argued.

“Not according to the Bible,” I suggested. “How much more would you need to do? And could you ever really know if you’d done enough?” I asked. It was a lively conversation!

When confronted with biblical grace, even Christians can get uncomfortable. Their defense against grace is often to insist on absolute commitment while using disparaging phrases like antinomian and cheap grace to describe a free salvation.

But God reminds us that faith alone, not good behavior, is how we get justified and experience right standing with Him. That’s it. That’s all that’s required. Salvation is a gift received by belief. Paul makes this perfectly clear in writing to the church at Ephesus (Eph. 2:8-9):

Works play no part in our salvation—not on the front end by our getting acceptable enough to receive it and not on the back end as a means of proving we have the real thing. This by-grace-through-faith salvation weakens any rationale for us to boast and claim we contributed to our salvation. Salvation is not of ourselves. It’s not of works. It is by grace. Of course, grace is not cheap; it’s better than cheap. It’s free! You don’t pay anything for it. Grace, itself, is a gift.

The Greek word for grace (charis) is closely connected with the concept of a gift and joy. Grace is a gift of undeserved favor given to us by God without the expectation of a payback. That’s because reimbursing God is impossible. Furthermore, insisting on a payback for the gift of grace violates the very nature of a gift.

Jesus never says to humanity, “I died to pay the price of your sin, now I’d like for you to pay your share; I’d like for you to split the cost with me.” No. That’s because Jesus is offering every person a gift, paid in full by Jesus Himself. And this salvation is freely received by faith.

The concept of a gift is not that complicated. A gift that requires a payment on the part of the recipient can no longer be considered a gift. A person paying for that gift would now be transacting a purchase from the giver who is now no longer the gift-giver but instead has become a retail merchant. But the gift can’t be bought; it’s not for sale. God’s generous love is demonstrated through the free gift of His grace.

If we are not embracing the clear perspective that grace is a gift, our understanding of who God is will be distorted. God gives us grace not because we can pay Him back but because we can’t. God gives us grace to show us He loves us no matter how bad we are. God gives us grace to remind us we can never outrun His pursuit of us. God gives us grace to accentuate our helplessness to save ourselves. God gives us grace to soften our judgment of others. God gives us grace so that we can experience the joy of connection with Him. God’s grace is a gift.

And “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15)