That is how we normally hear the term “grace” now: it depicts a benefit or gift given to an unfitting or helpless recipient—in Newton’s terms, a “wretch.” Is that what is meant by Paul? Did he endue ordinary words for gift with this special meaning? If so, how did charis and other gift-terms acquire the sense of an undeserved gift? And what difference did that make?
How did we go from it meaning gift to a worthy person to a gift to an unworthy Pierson?
