What is Grace? Part 1 – The Spiritual

Grace is one of those beautiful words that no one seems to be able to define.

I don’t think you have to be a Christian to begin to understand grace; I don’t think you can be a Christian without some understanding of this. Here is a summary of how I see the grace of God as an aspect of divine love, so that you can understand why I believe we need more grace in our lives with ourselves and one another.

In religious circles, folks talk about the Grace of God — some can even quote a verse or two — but often their actions reveal that they don’t understand it. In general society, we might talk about someone being a gracious host or that they have a graceful manner.

The online Oxford English Dictionary has the most comprehensive definitions, which I’ll abbreviate below:

1 – Smoothness and elegance of movement.
2 – Courteous good will. An attractively polite manner of behaving.
3 – (in Christian belief) the free and unmerited favour of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. A divinely given talent or blessing. The condition or fact of being favoured by someone.
4 – A period officially allowed for payment of a sum due or for compliance with a law or condition, especially an extended period granted as a special favour. As in ‘a two-month grace period’
5 – A short prayer of thanks said before or after a meal.

Clear as mud?

I’m going to tackle this in two parts, as I hope you will take the time to ponder each one.

The Spiritual sense of Grace as God’s Love

Books have been written, and theologians have wrestled with the meaning of God’s grace for centuries. I have no intention of duplicating their efforts, although I may refer to some of them.

As a teen, I learned the appropriate verses in my Lutheran confirmation classes:

“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24).

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

As is so often the case, the Word (Bible) said one thing, but the message heard and received was another. For example:

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Note that whereas Paul was emphasizing that salvation was a gift, free and unearned, the message received was that believers must do good works. And if good works (by any particular church’s definition) aren’t there, you must not be a Christian.

This is not a minor point.

From the beginnings of the Christian movement, there was tension between the free gift versus following the rules – the Law.

The whole book of Romans is a thesis against living by the Law instead of by Grace. For those not so familiar with his story, Paul was a top scholar and a champion of his faith as a Jew. He wore the right clothes, said the right words, did the right things that a man of his background, education and religion should. And is wasn’t enough.

And then he found grace.

For me it was three years of Confirmation, two more years of Bible School, getting all the right theological training, but too much of the wrong message: you’re not good enough. God wants more. There was the right way to dress; which concerts should you go to – or not. Who to marry. What kind of ministry or career? The proper way to worship. The more I thought I was doing the right thing (I was going to be a missionary), the more unhappy I became. Maybe I wasn’t spiritual enough.

I continued to struggle for another decade or so until I hit bottom. Finally, borrowing an analogy from an old friend from years before, I said, “OK, God, I can’t take it anymore. I give up. I can’t hang on with my pliers. You’re going to have to hold on to me with your vice grips.”

He did. In some very unexpected ways.

I’ll go into more detail when I talk about grace with others, but the two points I want to emphasize here are:

First: God (or the Spiritual, if you prefer) reveals himself* to us every day — in our surroundings, in people, in our experiences — there for anyone to see with open eyes. A tiny flower. A child’s smile. A glorious sunset. A sky full of stars. A friend’s touch. A beautiful artwork.

Second: It’s done. Finished. Consider Philip Yancy’s definition of grace in his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace? In the chapter titled, “The New Math of Grace” he says:

“Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more—no spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries and divinity schools, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less—no amount of racism or pride or pornography or adultery or even murder. Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.” (italics his)

I paraphrase this as: There is nothing I can do to make God love me more. There is nothing I can do to make God love me less. Grace.

I tell myself this every day. When I mess up, when I feel down, when I’m full of myself, when things are good.

Grace is God’s love, wrapped around me like a blanket swaddled around a rescued flood victim. No scolding, no “I told you so,” no judgement, no name calling or snide remarks. Just warm, solid, unshakeable, immovable love.

When I began to realize this as truth, to own it and make it a part of me, there was a tectonic shift in my soul. No, life didn’t turn around immediately. I still struggle with old thinking. I still find myself jumping on the never-ending squirrel cage as one professor described it. I have to jump off and go back to the foundation stone. God loves me. Jesus paid the price for me. There is nothing I can do to change that love.

In reply to a post on Medium, where the author felt he was having to deconstruct his spiritual life from an old set of rules and norms, and start again, I wrote:

‘You will continue to deconstruct, build and deconstruct to build again. That’s OK. Jesus is the only one who can and did say, “It is finished.” And that, my friend, is enough.’

*I am a product of my generation, and am most comfortable with the male pronoun for God. This is not meant to dismiss the many times God is revealed via feminine imagery. Had English a valid pronoun that wasn’t gender-based, I’d happily use it. But I despise s/he and he/she, and in this case ‘they’ carries a totally different connotation.