Grace is not a word readily found in the vocabulary of most Australians. If they connect it with religion, they will probably say that it is what some people say to thank God for their daily bread. If they do not connect it with religion, they may link it to high society or even to ballerinas who are, after all, meant to be charming and graceful. Sometimes it can be used ironically, as in Frank Hyde’s description of Noel Kelly’s scoring of a try in a Test match against England in the early 1960s as “as graceful as a cow on a bicycle”.

In the Bible, however, grace is used to describe God’s free, unmerited, and totally undeserved favour extended towards sinners in Jesus Christ His Son: “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8). The sinner is justified by faith, not works of the law (Rom. 3:20, 27, 28). Paul’s point is that human beings are so sinful that we cannot save ourselves. Our righteousness is insufficient before a righteous God. Faith refers to the empty hands held out by the sinner who receives Christ. He can do nothing to save himself; it is all a gift. Therefore, justification by faith is equiva­lent to saying that salvation is by grace, not works (Rom. 11:6; Eph. 2:8-9). However, for grace to be truly free and “gracious” — for grace to be gratis — it has to be electing grace (Rom. 9:11; 11:5).

All through Ephesians 1, Paul praises the glorious grace of the triune God (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14). It is the Father who predes­tines a people for Himself (Eph. 1:4-5); it is the Son who sheds His blood to redeem those people (Eph. 1:7); and it is the Spirit who seals them and guarantees their inheritance (Eph. 1:13-14).

This means that faith is not a work; it is not something that we supply in the scheme of salvation. It is not that God supplies the grace and we supply the faith, and together we are saved. We are to exercise faith, of course, but we can only exer­cise it if God gives us the power to do so. Why is this so? It is because of the radical nature of the Fall. The events of Genesis 3 do not just wound us but kill us spiritually and morally. We are born in sin (Ps. 51:5); there is madness in our hearts (Eccles. 9:3); our hearts are deceitful (Jer. 17:9); we are unable to do good (Jer. 13:23; Rom. 8:7­ 8); we are unable to believe Christ (John 6:44, 65; 1 Cor. 2:14); we are slaves to sin (John 8:34); our minds and hearts are darkened and hard (Eph. 4:17-19). Every part of us is affected (Rom. 3:13-18). In short, we are spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1-3; Col. 2:13). Thomas Boston portrayed the natural man as “a spiritual monster”.

Small wonder that we ought to sing with Josiah Conder:

‘Tis not that I did choose Thee,
For, Lord, that could not be;
This heart would still refuse Thee
Hadst Thou not chosen me.

We can dispense with Sankey’s hymn:

Christ is knocking at my sad heart;
Shall I let Him in?

It is true that we are commanded to repent (Acts 17:30) but it is equally true that only “as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). Left to ourselves, we do not seek God (Rom.3:11). In the Garden, after the Fall, it was God who sought Adam, and it was Adam who hid from God.

Christ says that he reveals the Father to whomever He chooses to reveal Him (Mt. 11:27). His disciples did not choose Him so much as He chose them (John 15:16). Many are called to saving faith in Christ, but few are chosen (Mt. 22:14). So overwhelming is this emphasis in Scripture that John Murray could write that “the denial of unconditional election strikes at the heart of the doctrine of the grace of God”.

What is a Christian? Augustine described a Christian as one who “was predestined by grace, and chosen by grace, by grace a pilgrim below, and by grace a citizen above”. For many, “elec­tion” sounds a harsh word, not related to the gospel whereas grace points to God’s great gift in sending His Son to die for sinners. In reality, grace must be God’s electing grace for it to be truly God’s free gift. What this means for us is summed up in the words of a woman who once told John Newton:

The Lord must have loved me before I was born or else He would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards.

That is free undeserved mercy in Christ; that is electing grace.