INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS GRACE?
Grace is the gift of God by which he extends mercy, loving-kindness, and salvation to people. God's grace enables him to confront human indifference and rebellion with his unlimited capacity to forgive and to bless. God is gracious in action. The doctrine of divine grace underlies the thought of both the Old Testament and New Testament. However, the Old Testament merely anticipates and prepares for the full expression of grace that is revealed in the New Testament.
GRACE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Early in the narrative of the Old Testament, God reveals himself as a "God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6, RSV). As a result, it becomes possible for undeserving humans to approach him with the prayer, "If now I have found favor [or grace] in thy sight, O Lord ..." (Exodus 34:9, RSV).
Through his grace, God transforms our separation from him into a state of undeserved acceptance that opens the way for reconciliation and redemption. Divine grace was already at work in the Garden of Eden when God responded to the Fall of his Creation with the promise of redemption (Genesis 3:15) and care rather than with abandonment or destruction. God's call to Abraham was an extension of grace to him.
The blessings God offered to Abraham's descendants would be instrumental in bringing about a universal blessing to "all the families of the earth" (Genesis 12:2-3). This blessing finds expression in a God-given covenant, the object of which is to extend God's grace to the whole human race. In a solemn confirmation of the promise to Abraham, God affirmed, "My covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. . . . And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant" (Genesis 17:4, 7, RSV).
Because of grace, this promise was applicable to all Abraham's offspring-not only to his racial descendants, the Jews, but also to his spiritual descendants, believers from all nations (Romans 4:16). It was God's plan for redeeming all believers, from all nations. In extending his grace to Abraham, God was establishing the beginnings of the church, the community of grace. The specific blessing of Abraham and his receiving of God's grace provides a model for the selection of individuals used by God in the history of redemption. In the gracious dealings of God with Israel, God was laying the basis for his outreach of grace to the universal church.
God's gracious interventions in the old covenant (before Jesus) were intended to reveal the role of the church in his plan for redeeming the world. The prophets of the old covenant were not merely serving themselves, or their contemporaries, but the church (1 Peter 1:10-12).
The institutions of the old covenant held only a temporary form of God's grace. The ultimate expression of that grace came in the new covenant when Jesus accomplished his work (Hebrews 8:6-7). Consequently, the old covenant became obsolete and was replaced by a new covenant that displayed the full manifestation of God's grace. The tension between law and grace is obvious from this perspective. Like the election of the nation of Israel, the law was a temporary measure that prepared for the grace that was to come by faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:23-29; Hebrews 10:1).
GRACE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The concept of grace (God's active involvement on behalf of his people) receives a sharper focus in the New Testament. Divine grace becomes embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus demonstrates visibly the dynamic nature of God's grace, and his ministry fulfills the promises of grace for everyone, found in the old covenant (John 1:14, 17).
God's grace revealed in Jesus Christ makes it possible for God to forgive sin and to gather sinners into the church, the new covenant community. During his ministry, Jesus repeatedly pronounced the words of forgiveness to a great number of sinners and ministered to a variety of desperate human needs. Through teachings such as the prodigal son and the search for the lost sheep, Jesus made it clear that he had come to seek and save those who were lost. Ultimately it was his death on the cross that enabled sinners who repent to access God's forgiving and restorative grace. This simple truth is described as the doctrine of justification by faith through grace (Romans 3:23).
According to this teaching, Jesus substituted himself for us by dying so that we could be declared "not guilty." As a result, repentant believers enter into God's eternal plan of grace, which enables them to participate in the purifying work of the Spirit of God. God's grace bestows on believers undeserved benefits that enrich their lives and unite them together in the church, the body of Christ. Grace awards them a new status as children of God, members of the household of God, so that they relate to him as to their heavenly Father (Galatians 4:4-6). Because of this, they become members of a community where race, class, and gender distinctions are irrelevant. All have become equal inheritors of God's long-ago promise to Abraham (Galatians 3:28-29).
The Holy Spirit then graciously energizes believers with a variety of spiritual gifts that benefit the body of Christ, the church (Romans 12:6-8). In eternity the church will demonstrate, by its very existence, the immeasurable riches of God's grace in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:6).
Finally, God's grace manifested in Jesus Christ makes it possible for God to cause believers to reflect his grace in their character and relationships. The condition for receiving God's grace is humility (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). Such humility before God enables believers to practice humility with other people. From a position of grace, they can set aside selfishness and conceit in order to treat others with an attitude of servanthood (Ephesians 5:21), and in a spirit of forgiveness (Matthew 18:23-35), so that even their communication can demonstrate divine grace (Colossians 4:6). The essential meaning of grace in the Bible refers to the nature of God's character to exercise goodwill toward his creatures. This nature finds its supreme expression in Jesus Christ.
By its very definition, this grace is fully accessible to all humans with no other condition than a desire to repent and receive it (Titus 2:11-12). As a result, alienation from God becomes access to his otherwise unapproachable majesty. His grace becomes available to meet human need (Hebrews 4:16). The tragic alternative to receiving God's grace is to remain in hopeless alienation or to pursue futile attempts to earn God's favor (Romans 1:21).
Christ represents the fulfillment, the embodiment, and the dispenser of divine grace. In fact, the early Christians freely referred to God's grace as "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." This grace was conceived as being so basic to their existence that they combined the traditional greeting of shalom ("peace") with a reference to the grace of Jesus Christ. This is the reason for the basic greeting formula found in almost every book of the New Testament, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all" (2 Thessalonians 3:18).