Around Woodland Hills, whenever we ask how to explain something regarding our relationship with Christ, one of the first concepts we turn to is covenant relationship. Therefore, we would explain grace by setting it in the context of a covenant-love relationship. Of course, many people in our culture today don’t understand covenant relationship very well either! But we believe that ALL people are wired by God to hunger for unconditional love, and this is the basis for covenant relationship. And ALL people know what it is like to have their hopes for unconditional love fall short of their expectations — in other words, all people have been hurt by people who should have shown them other-oriented, self-sacrificial love. From these common experiences, we can explain “grace” to people.
In its biblical-covenantal context, grace has two dimensions. The New Testament concept of grace is the combination of “mercy” plus “power.” The mercy aspect is active forgiveness. Although we as humans are called to a covenant-love relationship with God and others, we instead often act out of self-centeredness resulting in sin, which hurts people and damages our love relationship with God and others. The mercy aspect of grace is God’s offer of forgiveness-for-free, simply offered out of his self-sacrificial heart of love for us.
But grace doesn’t stop there! Grace is also “power,” which we see when the New Testament frequently connects grace, power and the Holy Spirit. When God’s grace comes to us, it doesn’t merely bring forgiveness for past choices of self-centeredness and sin, but it also empowers us to begin to live and love differently in the future, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
To refer to Jesus’ words in Mark 1:15, the presence of the Holy Spirit empowers us to live a life characterized by faith and repentance. As the apostle Paul says in Romans 2:4, it is the kindness of God that moves us to repentance! God can forgive us for free. But until we respond in repentance, we are unable to share in the agape-love relationship that he wants with us.
To use an example from human life: someone could deeply hurt you, and you could instantly forgive them. But unless they “repent” of their hurtful behavior they won’t be able to enjoy a healed relationship with you. It’s the same situation for us and God. And so, like most things relating to the Kingdom, grace can be best understood as a dimension of agape-love relationship with God and others.
