Let's Talk: What Does The Bible Say?
Grace is God’s Unmerited Favor
Through grace, God pardons sinners, bringing them into right relationship with Himself. When grace changes your relationship with God, He changes you.
Salvation by grace is God’s sovereign work consistent with an individual’s choice. While a person chooses to accept God’s grace, it is God who pursues people, imparts faith, provides salvation, and justifies sinners. It is God who brings saved sinners to full maturity through the work of the Holy Spirit. Grace is the glorious display of God’s goodness, demonstrating that He is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. Grace excludes boasting and promotes humility.
Grace is permanent. No true believers—those whom God has accepted in Christ and sanctified by His Spirit—will ever fall away from the state of grace but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation. When this happens, they “grieve” the Holy Spirit, bring reproach on the cause of Christ, and experience negative consequences; yet they shall always be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
Here are some truths about God’s grace from the Bible:
Genesis 12:1-3; Exodus 19:5-8; 1 Samuel 8:4-7,19-22; Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 31:31ff.; Matthew 16:18-19; 21:28-45; 24:22,31; 25:34; Luke 1:68-79; 2:29-32; 19:41-44; 24:44-48; John 1:12-14; 3:16; 5:24; 6:44-45,65; 10:27-29; 15:16; 17:6,12,17-18; Acts 20:32; Romans 5:9-10; 8:28-39; 10:12-15; 11:5-7,26-36; 1 Corinthians 1:1-2; 15:24-28; Ephesians 1:4-23; 2:1-10; 3:1-11; Colossians 1:12-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 2 Timothy 1:12; 2:10,19; Hebrews 11:39–12:2; James 1:12; 1 Peter 1:2-5,13; 2:4-10; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:19; 3:2.
