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Eph. 2:8-9 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Grace: The word grace when used in the theological sense means; the
unmerited love and favor of God toward mankind. Notice the two key factors in the definition. 1) It is unmerited, i.e. not based on anything to do with the recipient’s worthiness. 2) It is universally offered to all mankind. Titus 2:11 - “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world þ that He gave His only begotten Son U, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
§ Throughout Church history, distinctions within the concept of Grace have been defined, dissected and analyzed. As new concepts and theories were introduced into the Church the use of the term Grace and it’s meaning has become somewhat clouded and can be confusing. So let’s review some of the major concepts and distinctions.
Common Grace: God’s general care and provision for His entire
creation and for all of its creatures, His evenhanded dealing with all men. Matt 5:45 – “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise ® on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain Û on the just and on the unjust.”
Prevenient Grace: This is the grace of God that is active in the hearts of
all men. It precedes salvation. It is the work of the Holy Spirit ÿ, which enables lost and rebellious men to see their lost condition and to recognize the power of God to save.
Prevenient Grace enlightens, empowers, quickens and assists the heart of man to respond to God, but it does not force anyone to respond or to repent. It can be suppressed and ignored.
Heb 3:7-8- So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear OHis voice, do not harden your hearts Y as you did in the rebellion”
Ps 27:8 – “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.”
Rom 1:19-20 – “what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
Rev 3:20: (Jesus says) “Here I am! I stand at the door ¼ and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”
Sufficient Grace: This term is used to describe the concept of the fully
capable Grace of God, which is able to do all that it was intended to do, including provide for the salvation of all men. But it does not always accomplish what God has enabled it to do because, God’s has designed and ordained that men have actual free will which means that God’s Grace can be resisted and refused.
Acts 7:51 - "You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.” Also Lk.7:30.
Ezek 18:32 - For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!”
Lam 3:33 – “For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to the children of men.”
1 Tim 2:3-4 – “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Combined with; James 4:17 - “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” And; James 1:13-14 – Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.
Efficacious Grace: This concept is that God overrules any resistance to
His will and forces His grace upon the unwilling. He invades and alters the heart, causing His purpose to be inevitably fulfilled. This very concept is a contradiction in terms. Nothing that is forced upon an unwilling individual can be gracious. It may be salutary, but it can not be gracious. Grace requires consideration, thoughtfulness and the willing cooperation of both parties.
The problem with theological error is that it always gives rise to more error in an attempt to justify itself. A major heresy that has been birthed out of this confused concept is the teaching that God withholds His grace from most of mankind for no other reason than He is God and He can do as He pleases, He is sovereign. This is a perversion of what the actual sovereignty of God means. God has sovereignly ordained that all men be given the free choice to receive His grace or to reject it.
In a real sense God’s Grace is actually always efficacious. Not in the perverted way described, but in a truly gracious way. His will is that all men must choose for themselves whether to receive or reject His grace, and He has ordained that their choice be honored. The efficacious grace of God can be positive or negative. It provides for mercy or for righteous judgement.
Irresistible Grace: This phrase is another misnomer, an oxymoron. It is
very similar to the previous error, but it has its own unique ramifications.
The proposition is that anyone who is exposed to God’s grace must willingly receive it because it is irresistible. This idea frustrates any and all evangelical presentation of the gospel and removes the power of salvation from the word of God. All personal responsibility for repentance before God is removed.
Rom. 1:16 – “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.”
This paradoxical phrase, irresistible grace, and the dreadful implications it places upon the character of God, is part of the convoluted web of confusion that has come to be known as the five points of Calvinism, the TULIP principles.
Each petal on this deadly flower leads to a step away from the true grace of God and is built upon a preceding error. This one, the “I” principle steps off into absurdity from the previous abomination, the “L” of Limited Atonement, which is an outright lie and is in direct contradiction to the clear teaching of the word of God.
Heb 2:9 – “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
The atonement of Christ is not limited in its capacity in any way. He died to save all men and He is able to do so. He offers forgiveness to everyone, but He will not force His loving grace upon anyone.
1 Tim 2:5-6 - “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men.”
John 6:51 – “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
1 John 2:2 – “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Actual Grace: The concept of actual grace comes down to us from
the Roman Catholic Church. The idea is that God in His marvelous grace provides for His children special grace during times of particular difficulty in order to perform a particular act or to endure a particularly difficult trial.
2 Cor 12:9 -"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
The modern understanding of this aspect of God’s grace is that God will provide His grace when it is needed, He does not give you tomorrow’s grace today, but when you need it He will supply it.
Cooperating Grace: From classical theology, the concept that God in
His gracious dealings with His child, that being a person already saved, works with him in order to strengthen his faith. God allows the individual to take the lead and then He cooperates with him to encourage him.
Jdgs.6:36-40 – Gideon’s fleece is an example of God’s forbearance and grace.
Matt 14:28-29 – And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." So He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.
Sanctifying Grace: In Roman Catholic teaching, it is a supernatural and
permanently infused quality into a soul, which enables the soul to
exercise the supernatural the virtues of faith hope and charity.
In Protestant theology, it refers to the transforming power of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Sanctifying grace provides a believer with the ability to live the Christian life. The presence of the Fruit of the Spirit in a life is a direct result of sanctifying grace.
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Faith: Like grace, the word faith has been the subject of many varied
interpretations and applications throughout Church history. It is always best to begin any investigation of truth with an examination of what Jesus had to say about the subject.
Matt. 8:10 – “When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”
Matt. 8:13 – "Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you."
Matt 9:22 – But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well."
à These and many other passages make it clear that Jesus saw
faith as personal belief.
Personal Faith: In the broadest sense of the word, faith is belief in
anything. Every concept or idea that is accepted as true requires faith, personal, individual acceptance of and intellectual agreement with the truth-value of a proposition or a fact.
For example, nothing regarding the origin of the universe or of this world or of life itself can be proven absolutely, beyond any doubt. It can not be proven through the use of the senses or through irresistible logic. Neither from a non-theistic perspective nor from a theistic one. All belief regarding origins must be taken by faith. The secular scientific community has been playing a shell game with the gullible public for decades by promoting operation science as proof for their theories concerning origin science.
Operation science is what you can demonstrate through repeated experiments in a laboratory. Origin science is the speculative theoretical explanation for how things began. They are not the same things at all. No one can reproduce the origins of anything.
What’s more, even operation science is ultimately only based on probability. No one can prove that future results will not vary from all that has gone before. An assumption of faith must be made that things will continue as they have during our observation period. This is known as the uniformitarian theory, and it is not provable.
This is the fallacy of the Modernist, the Empiricist, and the Naturalist. The formal name for this tactic in the discipline of logic is “The Fallacy of Incomplete Information”.
This fact of incomplete information permeates all of human investigation. The so-called “Scientific Community” is fond of painting the “Religious Community” with the broad brush of “blind faith” i.e. unsubstantiated belief. The fact is however that all systems of belief are based on incomplete knowledge and require faith. This truth demonstrates another logical fallacy that is perpetrated upon society by the modern scholastic naturalistic community, and that is “The Fallacy of Suppressed Information”. They hypocritically point a finger of scorn and credulity at others while hiding the fact that they themselves are resting completely upon the same foundations of faith as those that they wish to criticize.
When we speak of faith in religious terms, again, we must turn to Jesus for our definition. As we have seen, faith is personal. It is individual and it is necessary if one is to receive God’s blessings.
Matt 9:29 - "According to your faith will it be done to you."
Heb 11:6 – “without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”
Alien Faith: Here we have another contradiction in terms. The teaching
Is that man has no faith of his own and therefore God must infuse, implant and inject a foreign faith into a man in order to enable him to believe.
Just a casual objective reading of what Jesus had to say regarding the need for personal faith should put an end to this confusion. But like all error this one is based on a misunderstanding of an actual truth. Like all good things, Jas.1:17, faith does come from God, as do life, love and hope.
Rom. 12:3 – “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”
As this passage says, God does give every man a measure of faith. But in addition to the universal gift of faith there is a special supernatural gift of faith that is given to some as God Himself chooses.
1 Cor 12:4,8,9,11 – “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. --- But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: --- for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, --- But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”
The supernatural gift of faith is not given to an individual because he doesn’t have any faith at all, it is given to one who has already demonstrated personal faith in God and who is indwelt by His Holy Spirit.
Explicit Faith: This refers to a self-conscious assent to a truth, which is
understood clearly enough to be distinguished from other truths and other propositions. Explicit faith does not require a complete and comprehensive understanding of a truth, but a competent apprehension of it.
John 4:19 - "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet.”
Implicit Faith - This refers to an acceptance of the principles and
Propositions, i.e. truths, put forth by an authority figure such as the formal Church even though one has no knowledge of what those truths are. It is an assent to the authority of the Church and implicitly to whatever it teaches, without question.
Obviously this is a dangerous practice and can lead to all kinds of problems, as we clearly see in our world today as reflected in the actions of radical Muslims.
Commendable biblical faith requires personal investigation and verification through the revealed word of God.
Acts 17:11-12 – “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
Living Faith / Fides Viva: This is what is called “Saving Faith.” It is the
faith that is demonstrated in a life through action. It is more than just intellectual assent to facts. It is trust and complete reliance upon the truth believed.
James 2:14-21 – “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe--and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?”
Works: It is impossible to understand the grace of God and the nature
and function of faith without a clear understanding of what works are and are not in the biblical context.
As James pointed out, it is possible to have faith with no works. Conversely, we know that it is possible to have religiously motivated works without faith in Jesus Christ. Both conditions fall short of the biblical definition of saving faith.
James 2:26 - For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Faith is not works. Works are not faith. Good works follow real faith.
Eph. 2:8-9 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Eph. 2:10 – “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Receiving grace as a gift is not works. Receiving grace through exercising personal faith is not work.
Rom. 4:4-5 - Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,
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