Paul and the Power of Grace

by John M.G. Barclay

This gift of God is, and remains always, incongruous—a gift created out of human nothingness and received in trust. But it is designed to produce obedient lives that, by a transformative heart-inscription performed by the Spirit, produce what is pleasing to God. This grace justifies the ungodly but its purpose is not to leave them that way. In this sense, the grace of God is unconditioned (given in the absence of merit or worth) but not unconditional, if by that we mean without expectation of alteration in the recipients of the gift. It is free in the sense that it is without prior conditions; and it remains always a miraculous, unconditioned gift, forged out of human incapacity. But it is not free (or “cheap”) in the sense that it expects no transformative result.

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