When people think of the Christian faith, the word “grace” often comes to mind. This is certainly important word. But what does it mean? This week’s blog explores the Biblical concept of “grace.”
Defining the word
How would you define “grace” in the Scriptures? We might have our own definitions of grace, but we must listen to what God says in Scripture to get a fuller understanding and picture of God’s grace. To know more fully know God’s grace, we must begin with God as the source of grace.
A great place to see God’s grace defined and fleshed out is in Exodus 34:6-7:
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
These verses come after the golden calf incident, God’s judgment in response to this, and Moses’ intercession and his request to see God’s glory (check out Exodus 32-34 for the full story.) What kind of “God” is the Lord, Yahweh, described as? Yahweh, which is the personal covenant name of God in the Old Testament, is a “compassionate and gracious God.” The word there for “gracious” is an adjective and the typical word for grace hanun (hanan: “to be gracious”) and mostly used in descriptions of God.
Take note of all the different descriptors used of God here. Each divine attribute overlaps and helps us to interpret what it means for God to be “gracious” toward us. God’s grace includes His compassion, patience and faithfulness to us. (You can also check out the priestly blessing of God’s people in Numbers 6:24-26 for another picture of God’s grace.) Often, Christians think of God’s grace as being synonymous with forgiveness of sins. It is that, but it also so much more.
Grace – Gift and Quality
Do you think of grace more as a noun or as a verb? Grace in the Old Testament and New Testament is understood both as a gift and a quality. “Grace” is not a possession or commodity but a relational posture – between humans and between God and humans. Grace impacts us as we receive it but it can also describe something that we can become.
The key idea is that God’s grace highlights for us the need to change, saves us, and then gives us the power to pull it off. For me, there is no clear passage for this truth than Ephesians 2:8-10:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
According to Paul in these verses, we cannot save ourselves (“not a result of works”). While we are not saved by “good works,” God saves for them. Thus, God’s saving grace in Christ not only saves us but also shapes us. We could also go to 1 Peter 4:10-11 to see how God’s grace is what empowers us to serve others in Christ’s name. There are many Scriptures we could go to in our pursuit of grasping the grace-shaped life.
God’s grace embraces us and invites us to embrace grace. One goal of our walk with Christ is to more embrace grace more fully – receiving it, being transformed by it, and living by it.
Blessings,
Dean Bobar
Year in the Bible 