God’s Grace Made Simple
God’s Grace is the single most misunderstood concept in Christendom. This lesson explains exactly what God’s Grace is and what it does for the Christian in simple, understandable terms.
God is indeed gracious. 1 Peter 2:3 reads, ” If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” Grace is defined in Webster’s dictionary as ‘disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency’. God’s gracious nature compelled Him to act on behalf of mankind. This concept is not at all difficult when we apply it to ourselves. We have a disposition toward our families that compels us to favor them and to go out of our way to act on their behalf. God’s Grace is the exact same thing. It is His beneficial disposition toward us that compelled Him to go out of His way and act on our behalf. It is much easier to grasp the concept of Grace when one thinks of it as a characteristic of God. 
God, indeed, has a gracious characteristic. But His gracious nature, which compelled Him to act on our behalf, will not compel Him to act in contradiction with any of His other qualities:
God is Trustworthy: Also reliable and faithful, He is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). The Lord will never leave or forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6-8; Psalm 9:10; Hebrews 13:5). He alone is “is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does” (Psalm 145:13). We can absolutely trust in God’s Grace. However, under no circumstances could His Grace cause Him to be untrustworthy or unreliable.
God is impartial: Romans 2:11 “For there is no respect of persons with God.” In James chapter 2, verses 1-13, the inspired writer makes it clear that Christians must act impartially toward others. The gospel is equally and impartially applicable to all people (Galatians 3:26-29; Acts 15:9; Romans 10:11-13; Revelation 22:17). Favoritism is not in God’s nature, and it is likewise forbidden in a Christian’s behavior. God’s Grace will never compel Him to act with partiality toward anyone. To do so would cause God to be a respecter of one person over another, thus causing Him to be untrustworthy.
God is Just: God is perfectly and equally fair in His treatment of mankind. God shows no partiality (Acts 10:34). He perfectly executes vengeance against oppressors (2 Thessalonians 1:6; Romans 12:19). God is just in dealing out rewards: “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them” (Hebrews 6:10). He is equally just in dealing out punishments: “Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism” (Colossians 3:25). Every sin of man will receive a just recompense of reward (Hebrews 2:2-3). Justice and righteousness, which always work hand in hand, are the foundation of God’s throne (Psalm 89:14). God’s Grace can never be understood to cause Him to act in contradiction of His Just nature. To do so in any way would make Him unjust and, therefore, unreliable and untrustworthy.
God is Honest: He cannot lie. This characteristic of God is directly stated in Titus 1:2, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began…” Absolute honesty is the characteristic of God upon which we all must be able to have faith in. We can trust God’s Word to be true, in its totality, without reservation and die for the sake of the gospel, if need be, with full confidence that God will take care of us as He has stated. God’s honest nature also helps us to understand His gracious characteristics correctly. As wonderful as God’s Grace is, we can know with certainty that it can never compel Him to act in contradiction with His honest nature. Put simply, God’s Grace will never make Him a liar. We must be able to trust God, and if His Grace caused him to act in a manner inconsistent with His honest nature, He would be dishonest and, therefore, untrustworthy.
God has more characteristics that define who He is and how He operates, but the four listed above are sufficient to provide us with the parameters under which His Grace MUST operate. While God is indeed gracious, at the same time, He is absolutely trustworthy in that everything He said is reliable, and He will accomplish everything He said He would do. God is also incapable of telling a lie. Therefore, everything He said in His Word must be the truth. None of it can be left out or disregarded. God is absolutely fair and impartial in His dealings with humankind. And He is Just in all His expectations and actions with respect to no one. God is all these things at the same time, and none of them, irrespective of His other characteristics.
Many people in the religious world believe and teach that God’s Grace is unconditional and will usher them into eternal life on the merits of faith alone, without the need for obedience to His commands. If this is true, then Jesus lied in Matthew 7:21, where He was quoted as saying, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” This would mean that not only did Jesus make a false statement, there is a statement in God’s Word that is not true. God’s Grace cannot save without obedience to God and without causing Him to act in contradiction to His nature. God cannot be the God He claims to be if Grace can put one in the kingdom of heaven without obedience. God and His Word cannot be trusted if Grace can save without obedience. God is untrustworthy if Grace can save without obedience to His will. God’s Word, therefore God lied if Grace can save without obedience to God’s will. This one statement by Jesus alone in Matthew 7:21 is enough, in and of itself to utterly render the idea of salvation by Grace apart from obedience false.
The quote by Jesus in Matthew 7:21 is by no means the only statement within God’s Word that connects obedience with salvation. In Luke 13:3-5 Jesus directly made a connection between repentance and eternal life when He stated that “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish”. Grace cannot save apart from repentance without making Jesus a liar. Jesus said in John 3:5, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” God’s Grace, therefore, cannot put anyone in the kingdom of God apart from being born again of water and the Spirit without making Jesus a liar. God’s Grace cannot make His Son a liar.
Paul instructed saved Christians in the body of Christ to “Work out their own salvation” by obeying God in Philippians 2:12. Paul instructed saved Christians in the church in Rome to seek eternal life through “patient continuance in well doing” in Romans 2:7. Paul then went on to write in verses 8-10 ” But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.” Concerning God’s Grace, Paul went on to write in Romans 6:15, “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under Grace? God forbid. Rom 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Rom 6:17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Rom 6:18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” Paul made a direct connection between God’s Grace and obedience. Grace, therefore, cannot operate independently of one’s obedience. The two are inseparable in God’s Word.
Another way of looking at the connection in God’s Word between Grace and Obedience is by considering what Paul said to the Christians in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” and again in Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” If God’s Grace operated apart from obedience to God, then the works of disobedience would not keep one out of the kingdom of God, yet Paul said they would.
Advocates of salvation by God’s Grace apart from obedience frequently use Ephesians 2:8-9 to make the case for their belief. Paul there writes, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Paul goes on to make a direct connection between works and Grace in verse 10 when he writes, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
When we look at God’s Grace as a benevolent disposition He has toward us and take into consideration everything written in God’s Word concerning obedience, it is evident that being saved by Grace through faith and not of works does not mean being saved apart from obedience. God’s gracious disposition toward us compelled Him to act on our behalf. By Grace, God gave us free will, gave us His law so that we could know His expectations, gave us every opportunity throughout history to be obedient, and finally sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin, and then agreed to accept His Son’s torture and death at the hands of those He came to save, to serve as the death penalty for the sins of all humankind. There is no way humankind can pay for or deserve that gift by anything we could ever do. God graciously accomplished all these things for our benefit, irrespective of anything we could do. The things He did for us are manifestations of His gracious nature. We don’t deserve that. We cannot pay for that. We certainly cannot boast that our works had anything to do with that. “…While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…” (Romans 5:8). The gift of God in Ephesians 2:8-9 that works could not earn was not salvation. Rather, the gift was God’s gracious disposition toward us that compelled Him to do everything He did to make salvation possible.
Paul did not teach salvation through Grace apart from obedience. Rather, he taught salvation by Grace through faith that is manifested through our obedience to God. And He said as much in Romans 1:5: “By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name.” and again in Romans 16:26, “But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.”
