GRACE.

Biblical Teaching (§ 1).

The Church Fathers (§ 2).

Medieval Doctrine (§ 3).

Luther and Melanchthon (§ 4).

The Reformed Church (§ 5).

In the language of religion grace is the spontaneous, unmerited manifestation of divine love upon which rests the redemption of the sinner. Of the respective Hebrew expressions, hen has the general meaning of favor, while hesedh belongs specially to the sphere of religion and ethics, and denotes divine as well as human love. The term charis in the New Testament represents both conceptions, but is used preponderatingly of God's disposition. Manifestation of love is mercy (Heb. rahamim, Gk. eleos) in so far as it relieves need and misery; grace, in so far as it does not consider the unworthiness of the receiver as an obstacle.

1. Biblical Teaching

The people of Israel founded their election upon God's grace, which has no end (Isa. liv. 8-10). The Gospel of Jesus is a testimony of the pardoning and saving love of God, although the word "grace" is not used. The time of grace, promised by Isaiah, was fulfilled in Jesus, who manifested himself as the mediator of saving grace. Salvation in the kingdom of God was represented by Jesus repeatedly as the reward of corresponding conduct (Luke vi. 35, xvi. 9; Matt. v. 11 sqq., xix. 29); although at the same time every legal claim of man upon God (Luke xvii. 10) and all proportion between human achievement and divine gift are denied (Matt. xx. 1-16). John attests the fulness of grace which is to be found in Jesus (John i. 14, 16) and places charis in antithesis to nomos (verse 17); but for him the conception of love preponderates. For Paul, however, grace is the fundamental concept of the Gospel. It is God's free favor toward sinners, effecting their salvation in Christ. It is entirely spontaneous, and excludes all relation of debt or merit. It is mediated by redemption; its result is righteousness (Rom. v. 21) or forgiveness of sins (Eph. i. 7), and its aim is eternal life (Rom. v. 21). For Paul, grace is in the first place God's personal disposition; but it is also God's effective activity in Christ as it realizes itself in actual deeds (Eph. ii. 5; Titus ii. 11); and, finally, he understands by it the share of the individual in salvation as it is seized in faith (Rom. xii. 3; II Cor. xii. 9). Paul never regards grace as a general power separable from the person of Christ and his historical activity; it is always a "grace in Christ" (II Tim. ii. 1).