Saving Grace is the heart of the gospel, what I have termed, “the essential message of Christianity.” This is traditionally what distinguishes a believer from a non-believer, a Christian from a non-Christian. It’s summarized in a cute acronym for G.R.A.C.E. - God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.

Saving Grace is NOT

I used to think that grace was a uniquely Christian concept. I heard the anecdote where a group of religious scholars were debating on what made Christianity different from all other religions. As the group discussed the finer points of doctrine and practice, C.S. Lewis enters into the room and asks, “what is everyone talking about?” Upon hearing the supposed controversy, he triumphantly declares, “That’s easy. It’s grace.” I heard this story in my youth and accepted it without question. I remember feeling very special for being part of a unique religion.

I also listened to pastors like Tim Keller explain how all other religions were pragmatically the same. There were a set of rules, moral law, or standards that adherents had to live up to in order to merit God’s favor. For Islam, the five pillars, and for Judaism, it was the Ten Commandments and the prescriptive ritual regulations. And for every other religion, there was a similar body of things to do and things not to do.

I was also taught those who claimed no religion have an internal set of morality that they were trying to adhere to, whether they realized it or not!

Amid this backdrop, I encountered many different people and found this was not entirely true. The concept of God’s grace, that God forgives, accepts, and loves us, was prevalent across the board. However, there were nuances in the different faith traditions. With Islam, God’s magnanimous forgiveness was conditioned upon true repentance. With Judaism, grace was a part of God’s faithfulness and loving-kindness to his chosen people.

When I immersed myself in 12-step groups, people who claimed no particular religion often quoted this slogan, “but for the grace of God, go I.” This means that the sobriety and freedom an individual found was attributed to God as a free gift and not something earned or merited. When I spoke to atheists, they outright rejected their worldview was a type of religion or that they, on some unconscious level, believed that a god existed.

Since my Christian upbringing went counter to my live interactions and real-life experience, I needed to go back to the Bible to understand what truly distinguished Christianity from other religions, innate spirituality, or competing worldviews.

Saving Grace IS

Pivotal to Saving Grace is the verse, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith; and this not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2: 8,9). The pastor teaching systematic theology asked the class, “In this verse, ‘and this not of yourselves,’ what is the this referring to?” We stumbled around for an answer until the pastor resolved the uncomfortable tension of our collective ignorance.

He said that the this is a reference to faith – that having faith was the gift. In my Christian walk so far, I saw that my having faith was some type of belief or action in which I participated that made the difference between being a Christian or a non-Christian, being saved or unsaved. Here, I was being asked to take a closer look at the foundation of my own religion.

Having faith in Jesus as my Savior was not some ultimate commandment to replace the others. Having faith couldn’t be a work. It had to be something else. But what?

Becoming a Christian required a complete paradigm change in understanding how God relates to me. Under the paradigm of works-based righteousness, repentance and faith were works, something that I could claim as my action, something that I could accomplish. The test is whether it is something that I can boast about – can I take credit for it? If the answer was yes, I was not grasping the essential message of Christianity.

As I studied further, the concept of righteousness was not being morally righteous. It was having a right relationship with God. The word that Paul uses to explain his revelation was a legal term. It was God’s “not guilty” verdict over the accused. Because it was a legal standing, I was not innocent nor morally improved. Quite the opposite. I was guilty of the crime, but the legal declaration of “not guilty” superseded this fact.

Theologian Karl Barth calls this God’s imputed righteousness. The paradigm change is that God has labeled us morally righteous so that we can have a right relationship with God and others.

Saving Grace is a surrender that God, apart from my intrinsic value or self-assessment on my defects, has declared me worthy of every blessing He has for me, including eternal life. It is an acceptance that God, apart from my resume of moral accomplishments or self-condemnation of my crimes, has wiped the slate completely clean and replaced it with Jesus’ ledger of perfect moral righteousness.

I’ve articulated “having faith” as surrender and acceptance to contrast the modern connotation of adhering to a set of beliefs. One more word to drive this point home is trust. Trust is a funny word because I can claim to trust all that I want, but whether that trust is genuine depends on my actions.

There’s a scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indiana Jones must cross a chasm to find the cup Jesus used the night before his death. To do so in faith, he cannot rely on an internal belief alone. Indiana Jones takes a step forward and puts his full weight into his front foot over the chasm. In so doing, he discovers that there was an invisible bridge. His action leads to knowledge, which is then incorporated so that he put one step in front of the other. However, there is that first step of surrender, acceptance, and trust which describes the gift of faith that is active in saving grace.

Practically speaking, a genuine trust action is both a private self-admittance and a public affirmation that a person has chosen to accept Jesus as their Savior. This is why a “sinner’s prayer,” response to an altar call, or water baptism often mark a person’s turning point. For those who were immersed in Christian community from birth, it’s difficult to identify an event or line that marks a transition from non-Christian to Christian. Every believer’s story is unique and this slow maturing and emergence of faith in Jesus is also categorized as Saving Grace.

Saving Grace is CONFUSING

I had to hear the essential message of Christianity dozens of times before I understood it. When I pose the question about the essential message to people who have been Christian for decades, many were unable to answer it with real coherence. Some atheists were better able to describe the confusing and paradoxically message of Christianity with more accuracy. They reject it for those reasons, but at least they grasp how there’s something about it that is illogical and even offensive.

If this concept is a little confusing and uncomfortable, then it is an indication that you are on the right track. If not, then it’s indication that I’m not being clear. So, allow me to confuse you even more!

Christians can point to many actions of this surrender, acceptance, and trust without having the internal paradigm transformation in relating to God. Because the actions demonstrate whether an internal change has occurred, there is an emphasis on the right actions. However, it’s typical for all of the actions to originate from the works-based mentality rather than a gift-based mentality of relating to God. People claim “having faith” as a work and then point to church attendance, being a good moral person, and even having certain political stances as the marks of the internal change.

Here are some tests to help you figure out whether you understand Saving Grace. A natural conclusion to understanding this good news is that a person can “sin” as much as they want. Paul asks the rhetorical question, “Are we to continue to sin so that grace may increase?" (Romans 6:1) His understanding takes the whole moral law out of the equation with regards to our relationship with God. If anything, God wiping our sins away only demonstrates God’s generosity toward us, and in some way magnifies what a great person He is. Paul answers his own question, “Certainly not!” in the next verse, but if we do not at least momentarily reach a conclusion of licentiousness (we can do whatever we want), I question whether we have heard the essential message of Christianity.

The book of Jude, a small but crucial letter, is devoted to curbing licentiousness that had infiltrated the church. I believe this underscores how a true grasp of the gospel message gets right up to the line of abandoning all moral standards to the point it needs to be reined in.

Another test is being able to contrast the gospel with “God accepts us because He loves us” or “God forgives us because we repent” message from other religions.

Remember earlier when Paul explained that “God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.” The author of John writes that the Holy Spirit “convicts the world of its sin.” (John 16:8) These verses taken together demonstrate that even the act of turning away from our sin and turning to God is a gift, not something that we can claim credit for. Even Islam believes that God forgives if we repent.

Also, consider an insight from my college days. In college, my small group leader asked our group about the role of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The message is that Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and that is why we are forgiven. “If this is true,” he challenged, “then why repent and try to change our behavior?” The question was piercing. He pressed the point, “can God choose to forgive some sins because of Jesus’ sacrifice and other because we repented?” The conclusion was that the repentance is independent to our being forgiven by God. Forgiveness is 100% based on this sacrifice. Changed behavior is an outgrowth God’s kindness.

What about love? Yes, God loves us, but love is not the basis for a restored relationship. There was a slow awareness of this truth for me as well. Tim Keller explained that it was out of God’s love for us that He sent Jesus to earth to die on our behalf. But the basis for forgiveness was God’s justice, not His love.

He pointed to 1 John 1:9 which states, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Because Jesus’ death wiped out our debt, God cannot exact payment for cancelled debt. Put another way, it would violate an implicit double jeopardy clause in God’s justice system. If we’ve already been tried and convicted of a crime, we can’t be tried again for that same crime.

The “At Christ’s Expense” part of the G.R.A.C.E. acronym is activated and sets the Christian message apart from others. The idea that God’s love is unconditional has so permeated into Western culture as a given that it’s difficult to communicate how Christianity is different. When I speak, I now say that God’s love is unconditional and guaranteed to help articulate the essential message. The basis of forgiveness is not God’s love, nor faith as the ultimate commandment, nor repentance as another action that earns God’s favor.

The essential message of Christianity is that both faith and repentance, come not from ourselves, but from God. Everything is God’s work, and none of it is from human works. The ability to have a relationship with God stems from what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

Consider the scene in the movie Back to the Future where Doc Brown explains time travel to Marty McFly. He opens up the time machine and shows him the Flux Capacitor and declares, "This is what makes time travel possible.”

If you can picture the cross instead of the Flux Capacitor, this is what “makes a relationship with God possible” whether it is here on earth or as a transport to heaven. Jesus’ historical actions here on earth, which is a reflection of Jesus’ actions that transcend space and time, is what allows for every human being to have a connection with God. I believe this is the truth whether a person believes it or not.

Receiving Saving Grace means to surrender, accept, trust, and take action in this confusing new paradigm.