All people have not been worthy clients and so do not deserve his favor. Rather, as ungrateful recipients of creation, they deserve his wrath. Yet, God has responded by generously offering all people his patronage. He acted to benefit us because he could. He offers us a charis: the life of his Son. Paul describes it as a patron’s gift, because we the clients are not worthy or deserving. Paul is using the ancient system of patronage to stress—in ways ancient people readily understood—that God gives us this gift on the basis that he wants to benefit us because he can.
