By Grace Alone: Finding Freedom and Purging Legalism from Your Life by Derek Prince

Author:Derek Prince
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: REL012120, REL012070, REL012040
ISBN: 9781441262660
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2013-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

Grace Defined

Let’s begin with a definition of grace. This definition is accepted by many Bible scholars, but certainly does not exhaust the full meaning: Grace is the free, unmerited favor of God toward the undeserving and the ill-deserving.

Notice, first of all, that grace is free. Grace cannot be earned; it cannot be worked for. Also, please notice that grace is not only toward those who are undeserving but even to those who are ill-deserving. In other words, even when we deserve judgment and wrath, God, out of His grace, offers us good. The word favor is an alternative word for grace. Especially in the Old Testament, both words are used almost interchangeably.

Grace is one of the key concepts of the whole Bible. The unfolding of grace begins in the Old Testament and is brought to completeness with the revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. In the New Testament, the Greek word for grace occurs 155 times, mainly in the epistles.

The normal New Testament salutation among Christians was “Grace and peace. . . .” Sometimes they added “mercy” and said, “Grace, mercy and peace. . . .” It is implied by this salutation that if you want peace, you must have grace first. The only way we can have true peace is out of the grace of God.

Almost all New Testament epistles (or letters) begin and end with grace. Their salutation is usually something like “Grace and peace be to you”; and most of them end with “the grace of God be with you,” “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you” or simply “grace be with you.” This is significant because the epistles essentially deal with working out the truth of the Gospel in daily living. The manner in which these letters open and close makes it clear that in order to work out the truth of the Gospel, we must begin and end with the grace of God. If we do not start and finish with God’s grace, Christian living is not possible on the level that the New Testament outlines.

Let’s look briefly at the original words for grace used in the Greek of the New Testament and in the Hebrew of the Old Testament.

The Greek word for grace is charis. This word also appears in another form in the word charisma. Charisma is the word that is used for the gifts of the Holy Spirit and for various other manifestations. Charisma means “grace made manifest or made specific.” Charis is “grace, in general”; charisma is the specific manifestation of that grace in someone’s life.

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