Christians use the word “grace” so often that it’s easy to forget that someone unfamiliar with Christianity may not know what we mean by it.
Imagine a friend asked you what Christians mean by grace, but you couldn’t use the word itself in your explanation.
How would you describe it in everyday language?
Grace= undeserved mercy.
I was going to respond, but @Who-me answered way better than I was about to. At its core, undeserved mercy describes a situation where someone is given pure, unearned kindness instead of the penalty or consequence they actually deserve.
Justice is getting what you deserve.
Mercy is not getting the punishment you deserve.
Grace (Undeserved Mercy) goes a step further. It means not only being spared from the penalty you earned, but receiving a lavish gift or total favor in its place. In everyday terms, it is an act of freely given forgiveness and generosity extended to someone who has done nothing to earn it and has no right to demand it.
Peter
As others have said, I think “undeserved mercy” sums it up pretty well. The version I have heard more often is “undeserved favor.”
It also reminds me of a Tim Keller quote: “The gospel [God’s grace] is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
Grace is God’s free, unearned acceptance that he uses to rescue his people through Jesus, @ellenvera.
I knew a woman who visited the man in prison who, while driving intoxicated, killed her only daughter. She knew this man in no other way except as the selfish one who took from her the one she loved the most. She visited him to see if she could help him in any way. This man deserved only unfettered wrath from the woman, but received only unmerited favor.
Grace is the only English word, completely insufficient, yet like a subtle passing scent, or a gentle whisper, pleads to remind us of the magnanimous passion of God.
…that which saved a wretch like me.
KP
When we speak about “grace” in the Bible, it is worth asking what the concept meant within the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish world before importing later theological definitions into the text. The principal Hebrew word associated with “grace” is חֵן (ḥēn), which carries the ideas of favor, graciousness, acceptance, or goodwill. It comes from the verb חָנַן (ḥānan), meaning “to be gracious,” “to show favor,” or “to have mercy.” A common biblical expression is מָצָא חֵן בְּעֵינֵי (māṣāʾ ḥēn bəʿênê), literally “to find favor in the eyes of.” We see this in Genesis 6:8, where “Noah found grace [ḥēn] in the eyes of YHWH.” This is important because the Hebrew concept should first be understood on its own terms rather than beginning with a later systematic definition of grace.
Jewish interpretation also connects this idea with other important Hebrew concepts, particularly חֶסֶד (ḥesed), רַחֲמִים (raḥămîm), and חָנַן (ḥānan). Ḥesed can refer to steadfast love, loving-kindness, covenant loyalty, and mercy. Raḥămîm refers to compassion or tender mercy, while ḥānan describes the action of showing favor or being gracious. These concepts overlap but are not simply interchangeable. God’s grace in the Hebrew Scriptures is therefore not merely an abstract theological category. It is seen in God’s merciful disposition, His favor, His covenant faithfulness, His compassion, His forgiveness, and His willingness to act graciously toward people.
Exodus 34:6–7 is particularly important because it gives one of the great biblical descriptions of God’s character: “YHWH, YHWH, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Notice that God’s grace and mercy are presented together with His steadfast love, faithfulness, and justice. The biblical picture therefore does not set grace against God’s righteousness as though God must either be gracious or righteous. His graciousness is part of who He is, while His justice remains equally real.
Genesis 6:8 is also worth examining closely. Noah “found grace” or “favor” in the eyes of YHWH, but the very next verse describes Noah as “a righteous man” and “blameless” in his generation, one who “walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). Jewish commentators have discussed the relationship between Noah’s finding grace and his righteousness in different ways. Ibn Ezra, for example, associates the ḥēn Noah received with God’s mercy toward him, while other Jewish interpreters give greater attention to Noah’s character and conduct. The text itself therefore gives us no reason to reduce grace to a simplistic formula in which God’s favor and human response are placed in absolute opposition.
There is another important point for Christians studying the New Testament. The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, frequently translates חֵן (ḥēn) with χάρις (charis), the same Greek word commonly translated “grace” in the New Testament. Genesis 6:8, for example, has Noah finding χάριν, “grace/favor,” before the Lord. This means that when we encounter χάρις in the New Testament, we should not immediately assume that Paul or the other New Testament writers are introducing an entirely new concept. We need to investigate the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint, and the Jewish conceptual world in which the New Testament writers lived.
This is especially important when studying Paul. Rather than beginning with a later theological definition of “grace” and then forcing every occurrence of χάρις into that definition, we should ask what Paul inherited from the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish tradition and how he develops those concepts within his own argument. We should examine passages such as Genesis 6:8, Exodus 33:12–19, Exodus 34:6–7, Numbers 6:24–26, Psalm 103, Jonah 4:2, and Isaiah 30:18, and then compare the Hebrew terminology with the Septuagint and Paul’s Greek.
So, in the biblical and Jewish context, grace is fundamentally associated with God’s gracious favor, mercy, compassion, steadfast love, and covenant faithfulness. It certainly involves God’s initiative and generosity, but we should be cautious about reducing the biblical concept to a later theological slogan such as “unmerited favor” without first examining how the Scriptures themselves use the language. The best approach is to allow the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint, the Jewish background, and finally the New Testament writers to establish the meaning from the text itself.
That is particularly important when discussing Paul. Before asking, “What does my theological system say grace means?” we should ask, “What did Paul mean by χάρις, what did he inherit from the Hebrew Scriptures, and how does that meaning function within his immediate argument?” Context really is king.
2 cents.
J.
חן. מגזרת רחמים וממנו תחנה ומשקלו קץ ושניהם מפעלי הכפל וטעם מציאות חן כמו לא חסה עליך עין (יחז’ טז ה),
GRACE. Chen (grace) means mercy. From it we get the word techinnah (supplication). Chen follows the paradigm of ketz (end); both have roots whose second and third letters are the same. The meaning of found grace (mercy or pity) in the eyes of the Lord is like No eye pitied thee (Ezek. 16:5).
For those interested in reading Scripture from a Jewish perspective and through an Eastern lens, this may be helpful. Our Scriptures emerged from a thoroughly Jewish context, so understanding the language, culture, worldview, and thought patterns of the biblical authors can greatly enrich our reading of the text. It can also help us avoid imposing later Western theological categories onto passages that were originally written within a Jewish context.
2 cents.
J.
I would also call grace as unmerited favor.
In Greek the word we translate as “grace” is charis. And it is intimately connected with idea of generosity, gift-giving, and goodwill.
It is the superlative loving-kindness, goodwill, generosity, and over-abundance of God’s own pleasurable disposition extended outward–to give freely, fully, and without demand.
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the eponymous son demands his inheritance early and goes on to squander it and ends up living among filthy animals like an animal. What is often not communicated well enough is that when the son demanded the inheritance, he was effectively telling his father, “You’re dead to me”, the son disowned, betrayed, and threw away the entire life he had with his father. Then wasted every good thing the father had given him. And then ends up not only with nothing, but less than nothing–living like a pig (let’s not forget that the prodigal son would be understood by the original readers as Jewish, a Jewish man left to dwell in the most impure way conceivable). When the prodigal son decides to go home, he knows he has nothing, that none of his apologies can do anything–his betrayal was too great, his squandered life too immense, he does not expect to return as a son. He intends to come and beg and plead for his father to take him in as a slave, because life as a slave in his father’s house would be immeasurably better than the life he now found himself in.
As he approaches the father’s house, while still a ways off, the father sees him coming just over the horizon. The father doesn’t hesitate. The father acts, immediately, recklessly, running and rushing to meet his precious child, and though his son is covered in mud and pig filth, the father doesn’t care, the father doesn’t see the filth, the father doesn’t notice the smell, the father doesn’t care about anything, but rejoices and weeps and sheds tears, declaring, “My son who was dead, is alive again!” And has the servants go and fetch the best clothes for his son, he has the son decked out in the best and is given the best feast. A feast so great that there may never have ever been one like it in the household.
That’s grace.
Greetings in the Lord,ellenvera
I would tell my friend that it is God’s free gift to us through Jesus and all that Jesus did for us by laying down His life. Then I would explain it further, by saying
It’s God giving us Salvation, Forgiveness, Unconditional Love, and His unmerited favor which we did not nor cannot earn, it is God’s free gift to us through Jesus and it can only be received by faith through believing.
Here are the Scriptures I would give so my friend could check it out for themself.
John 1:17
Ephesians 2:8-9
Romans 3:24
Romans 11:6
Titus 2:11-12 & 3:7
Hebrews 4:16
2 Timothy 2:1
2 Peter 3:18
I would give my friend the assignment of looking up these Scriptures with encouragement to pray and ask God to open their eyes of understanding in Jesus name.
Blessings to you and your household in Jesus name
Greetings @Lynne67. I hope all is well. And Amen!
Peter
I agree with everything said about God’s free gift. However I must say thast in all god’s grace-giving, he also is not mocked. A woman told me she could not receive God’s forgiveness of a sexual sin that she has continued to do for a lifetime even with many confessions of it and times of asking for forgiveness. She knew what she did each time and kept on and on doing what God told her was wrong, and took the temporary comfort of that sin even while asking for forgiveness. Was she not mocking God? I did not have much hope for her receiving the forgiveness she asked for while blatantly sinning, even though she continued to ask for it.
Galatians 6:7–8 — “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
1 John 1:9 — “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Romans 6:1–2 — “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”
Romans 6:12–14 — “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
Romans 6:15–16 — “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. 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?”
Proverbs 28:13 — “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”
Isaiah 55:7 — “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
Psalm 32:5 — “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”
Hebrews 10:26–27 — “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.”
Titus 2:11–12 — “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.”
1 John 3:6–9 — “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
Shalom @peaceful23
J.