Gospel of Grace (part 3)

Grace

What is Grace?

Ephesians 2:8 (GW)
God saved you through faith as an act of kindness. You had nothing to do with it. Being saved is a gift from God.

Ephesians 2:8 (MSG)
Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish!

The Greek word is Charis. It means favor, benefit and pleasure

I don’t know about you, but I have heard the word “grace” used hundreds even thousands of times, mostly in and around church. I can’t remember ever hearing this word outside of religious circles. Except when someone might ask someone to bless the food and they would say “Would you please say grace?”

I have heard that this word grace means “unmerited favor”. This definition primarily came from the Amplified translation of the Bible and seems to be in harmony with the Greek word Charis.

Ephesians 2:8 (AMP)
For it is by free grace (God’s unmerited favor) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation) through [your] faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [of your own doing, it came not through your own striving], but it is the gift of God;

Ok so what does unmerited favor mean? It sounds religious too. I don’t like to define a religious word with another religious word?

Un is a prefix that means to do the opposite or reverse of;

To deprive, remove or release from

Merit means to be worthy or entitled to a reward; to earn, deserve

In summary, unmerited means: not able to earn, deserve or be worthy of; So I ask “unworthy and undeserving of what?”  Favor!

What is favor?

Favor means friendly regard shown toward another by a superior.

Special privilege or right granted; act of kindness; token of love

Now together, we have a working non religious definition for grace: unworthy and undeserving to receive special privileges or rights given as an act of kindness or token of love by a superior.

I cannot earn God’s favor nor do I deserve it. But He still gives it to me anyway. That I did not and do not deserve the “favor” that God has shown toward me, this is the message of grace!

Romans 5:6 (Phillips NT)
And we can see that it was while we were powerless to help ourselves that Christ died for sinful men.

It says here that we were powerless to help ourselves. We could not save ourselves. We needed a savior. We needed someone to save us. The burden was too great to for us to bear alone. The price for our sin debt was too great for us to pay. We did not possess what was necessary to redeem us back to God.

And to top it off He chose to give us this thing called grace while we were still enemies with Him.

Romans 5:10 (NKJV)
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

He does not wait for us to be His friend before He offers us His grace.

Many have heard this verse “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Some have even memorized it and can give its address in the scriptures. (Romans 3:23)

But not as many have done the same with the verses before and after it? Let’s look at this portion of scripture in context.

Romans 3:21-26 (NKJV)
²¹ But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
²² even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;
²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
²⁴ being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
²⁵ whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
²⁶ to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Justified…what does that mean?

I prefer to say it this way… just-as-if-ied because that is what it means “just as if I’d” never sinned.

God did this to demonstrate HIS righteousness. See our righteousness is as filthy rags,

Isaiah 64:6 (NKJV)
But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.

But thank God our righteousness is no longer based on ourselves but on Jesus. The sole requirement is faith in Jesus…To all and for all who believe. It’s not about what we do, but about what HE did.