GRACE (from Lat. gratia, favor). An expres sion frequently used in the Scripture and theolog ical discussion. Its distinctive meaning is the idea of free and unmerited favor. It is a benefit springing out of the liberality and free-hearted ness of the giver, and bestowed without any hope or expectation of reward. Applied to God in the New Testament and in theology, it denotes the free outpouring of His love to man; and when man, on the other hand, is said to be in a state of grace, it implies that he is in the enjoyment of this divine love and favor. Sala Paul draws a sharp contrast between grace and works as mutually excluding one another (Rom. xi. 6). Theologians have distinguished grace into com mon or general and special or particular. Com mon grace is employed to denote the love which God has to all His creatures, and the light of nature and of conscience which they all enjoy. Special grace is the outflow of the love of God for lost sinners, by which He brings them to repentance, and saves them. This special or saving grace is sometimes also divided in various ways, and spoken of as selecting, justifying, sanctifying grace; also, in respect of man, as im puted or inherent grace—the grace, that is, of Christ's righteousness imputed or reckoned to the account of those who believe on Him, and the grace of holy and pious dispositions wrought in the heart by the spirit of God. Grace is also
spoken of as efficacious and irresistible, and the relation in which the elect or believing people stand to God is represented as a covenant of grace, in contrast with the primitive relation which Adam bore to his Maker before the fall, which is called a covenant of works. These the ological distinctions are not to be found, at least in their more technical sense, in the New Testa ment. The charis of Saint Paul is not a logical distinction, but a spiritual fact. It is the loving aspect of God toward the sinner, toward all sin ners, whereby all who confess their sins have free access into His favor, and receive the 'adop tion of sons.'