The language of grace so permeates the Bible and all traditions of Christian theology that to claim that salvation is by grace alone is, in itself, to claim very little at all. It does not distinguish Augustine from Pelagius, Thomas Aquinas from Gabriel Biel, Martin Luther from Desiderius Erasmus, or William Perkins from James Arminius. What distinguishes them is how grace is understood. There is therefore a need for definition, lest grace become merely an empty piece of theological rhetoric. Indeed, unlike “faith alone,” “grace alone” as a simple phrase is unlikely to provoke much controversy among anyone who claims the name Christian.1
This became apparent to me while watching the news program Morning Joe a few years ago. One of the guests that day was a well-known pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America, who was being interviewed about his new book on grace. This pastor spent around eight minutes talking about grace but never actually defined what it is and, crucially, never mentioned the name of Jesus Christ. Those lacking a theological background would have come away with the impression that grace was simply a divine sentiment, a decision or a tendency in God to overlook sin as an overindulgent parent might when dealing with a naughty child. Grace seemed to be nothing more than God turning a blind eye to human rebellion. It was as if grace were a free pass to do whatever one chooses.
As we shall see from looking at what the Bible teaches about grace and looking at how the greatest theologians of the Christian tradition have articulated it, grace is far more than a mere attitude or sentiment in God. God does not turn a blind eye to human rebellion. In fact, he tackles it head-on in the person and work of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible constantly connects grace to Christ, and the best theologians of the Christian faith have always made this connection central to their understanding and articulation of grace. To talk about grace is to talk about Christ. The pastor I listened to in that interview may have used the word “grace” several times, but the absence of any reference to Christ should be a clue that he was not talking about the biblical concept.
In this work, part of a series on the five solas of the Reformation, I will explore the notion of grace with an overview of grace as it is found in the Bible. Then, we will spend a significant time looking at grace as it has been articulated throughout church history, finishing with the Reformation. I’ve chosen to end the historical discussion with the Reformation not because I regard the Reformation as some peculiarly pristine golden age or as the zenith of church life. I do this because I believe the basic patterns of Protestant and evangelical understandings of grace are sufficiently developed in the Reformation to allow us to draw lessons for the present day.
In the first part of the book, we look at the biblical understanding of grace and the historical development of grace from Augustine through the Reformation.
Chapter 1 gets us started with an overview of the biblical references to, and teaching on, grace. It provides a brief but necessary grounding in the biblical understanding of grace. Grace is constituted by God’s action, supremely God’s action in Christ.
Chapters 2 and 3 begin our look at the historical understandings of grace, starting with Augustine. We look at his masterpiece, the Confessions, a work of reflective autobiography that contains what we might characterize as an intuitive understanding of sin and grace. It has proved to be a profoundly influential work, not only in Christian circles but also in the genre of psychological autobiography and the understanding of the self. In this volume we look at it in relation to Augustine’s view of sin and grace, and the controversy this triggered with the Welsh monk Pelagius and his followers. The Pelagian controversy, as it is now known, offered Augustine the opportunity to sharpen and elaborate his views of grace and to do so in a way that was to have unparalleled influence in the West. As Benjamin Warfield later claimed, the Reformation was the triumph of Augustine’s view of grace over his view of the church.
Chapter 4 is a look at the thought of Thomas Aquinas. While Aquinas’s thinking on grace was vast and complex, embracing his view of the sacraments, our focus here is on his general view of grace. Aquinas understood grace as that which brings the creature to glory, an end beyond the one for which he is fitted by mere nature and beyond his ability as a fallen creature. Aquinas is alien territory for many Protestants, but his understanding of grace is helpful, demonstrating that Augustinian understandings of God’s sovereignty were alive and well in the Middle Ages.
Chapters 5 and 6 address the time of the Reformation, and I pay particular attention to the clash between Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will and the views of Calvin, Heinrich Bullinger, and the Reformed confessions on predestination. Crucial to the Reformation is the way in which Augustinian views of grace and predestination were picked up by the Reformers to serve a new purpose: the assurance of salvation. This was, perhaps, the Reformation’s single most important experiential insight into the Christian faith. Chapter 6 also addresses the dissolution of the anti-Pelagian tradition of Protestantism with the arrival of Arminianism.
The second half of the book looks at grace and the church. Chapters 7 through 10 are devoted to the practical implications of a Reformation understanding of grace: the church and then the means of grace. Chapter 7 looks at the church as something God does, the new creation, an act of God’s grace toward us and not (as we often instinctively think of it) the response of human beings to God. Chapter 8 deals with the word preached as God’s means of accomplishing his purposes. Chapter 9 makes a case for taking the sacraments more seriously. And chapter 10 explains why prayer is also to be considered a means of God’s grace. The conclusion wraps things up, drawing some practical lessons from what we’ve learned throughout the book.
Grace is the heart of the Christian gospel. It is a doctrine that touches the very depths of human existence because it not only reveals to us the very heart of God but draws us back into that precious communion with him that was so tragically lost at the fall. It is my hope that this little book will help guide you not only into a better doctrinal understanding of the issue but also give you a more glorious vision of the God whom you worship.
1. For a treatment of sola fide, see Thomas R. Schreiner, Faith Alone—The Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015).