Hi Ak4,
Kat pointed you to this paper, Ray has already done the explanation, below is a small excerpt.Saved By Grace Thru Faith Excerpt from: http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5417.msg43145.html#msg43145What I wanted to do today…. I’m starting to get into it now, though all this other stuff is good. What is grace? He saves us by grace, what is it?
Basically grace means gratuitous, okay. In Spanish we say gracias. What does that mean? Thank you. Grace means gracious, it’s gratuitous, a favor, it’s a gift, it’s free, gracias, okay. But it doesn’t end there with just being gracious, favor, gift and so on.
How in a theological way, do we apply the word grace, when we say we are saved by grace? What does that mean, we are saved by grace? How does it save us? What is the connection there, between being saved by the word grace? How does the word save us? Well if the word grace means gratuitous or free, then we could say we are freely saved or it means a favor or gift. We are saved as a gift from God. It’s a gift from God, He saves us. That is true, but let’s ask this question….. look in Luke, this is speaking of Jesus Christ.
Luke 2:40 And the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom: and the GRACE of God was upon Him.
What does that mean? If grace is what saves us from our sins, if that’s the big thing and that is what is taught in the church, you know we’re saved from our sins, we’re saved from death, we’re saved by grace.
It saves us ‘from’ something doesn’t it? If you are saved…. if someone is drowning in the ocean and you save him, you saved him from drowning in the ocean. If a fireman saves somebody in a burning house, they saved him from being burned in the house, right.
If we are saved by grace, what is it saving us from? What did Christ need to be saved from? Did He need to be pardoned for anything? Did grace cover His sins or something? No.
Well there is another aspect of grace. You know we have all these words, gracious, graciousness, gratuitous, liberal, benefit, favor, gift, joy, pleasure, thanks, all of these are words.
george.