Grace

What Is Grace?

Most people can tell you what grace does, but few can say what grace is.

Grace is uncreated (St. Gregory of Nyssa, 4th Century). The only uncreated is God. Grace, therefore, is God at work in us. Grace is not something we get from God. Grace is God working -- justification, sanctification, theosis, divinization, etc. -- in us. Grace is a very intimate thing. It draws us closer to God.

See this book, by James R. Payton Jr.

Grace as Justification

"We as Orthodox view forgiveness of sins, that is, grace only as the first step in the process of salvation." - Fr. James Bernstein, The Illumined Heart Podcast, May 22, 2008 (see Theosis)

Five Reflections of God

"Truth is the reflection of God's mind, Goodness of his character, and Beauty of his glory, as they are manifested in the world he has made.

"If that is true, then the Truth is that which deserves to be believed, the Beautiful that which deserves to be contemplated, and the Good that which deserves to be done, just because of what they are as reflections of God's essential nature.

"Now, here's a fourth element: Love. Truth is the reflection of God's mind, Beauty of his glory, Goodness of his character—and Love of his heart. The lovely is therefore that which deserves to be adored. All three of those former acts—belief, contemplation, and action—are therefore performed as the expression of our love. For the Father is the Source and Summation, and the Son the Embodiment and Incarnation, of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in their ultimate essence. We love him because he first loved us—in spite of the fact that we did not deserve to be loved.

"And that brings us to the fifth element, even more profound than Love and passing all understanding: God's unmerited favor to those who deserve the opposite, making Goodness, Truth, and Beauty available to them out of Love, God's riches at Christ's expense—Grace." - Donald T. Williams, Touchstone Magazine

Grace and the Holy Spirit Available to All

"Nay, rather, the Holy Spirit is not given from a measure but is poured out completely upon the believer. For if the day is born to all equally, and if the sun shines upon all with equal and similar light, how much more does Christ, the Sun and the true Day, bestow equally in his church the light of eternal life with equal measure! We see that the pledge of this equality is celebrated in Exodus, when the manna from heaven fell and, with a prefiguring of the future, showed the nourishment of heavenly bread and the food of the coming Christ. For there, without distinction either of sex or of age, a measure was collected for each equally." -- St. Cyprian, Letter 69.14

Grace working in us

"In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, when the foolish ones lacked oil, it was said: 'Go and buy in the market.' But when they had bought, the door of the bride-chamber was already shut and they could not get in. Some say that the lack of oil in the lamps of the foolish virgins means a lack of good deeds in their lifetime. Such an interpretation is not quite correct. Why should they be lacking in good deeds if they are called virgins, even though foolish ones? Virginity is the supreme virtue, an angelic state, and it could take the place of all other good works.

"I think that what they were lacking was the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. These virgins practiced the virtues, but in their spiritual ignorance they supposed that the Christian life consisted merely in doing good works. By doing a good deed they thought they were doing the work of God, but they little cared whether they acquired thereby the grace of God's Spirit. Such ways of life based merely on doing good without carefully testing whether they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, are mentioned in the Patristic books: 'There is another way which is deemed good at the beginning, but it ends at the bottom of hell.'" - St. Seraphim of Sarov (Conversation with Motovilov)

"Acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit also by practicing all the other virtues for Christ's sake. Trade spiritually with them; trade with those which give you the greatest profit. Accumulate capital from the superabundance of God's grace, deposit it in God's eternal bank which will bring you immaterial interest, not four or six percent, but one hundred percent for one spiritual ruble, and even infinitely more than that. For example, if prayer and watching give you more of God's grace, watch and pray; if fasting gives you much of the Spirit of God, fast; if almsgiving gives you more, give alms. Weigh every virtue done for Christ's sake in this manner." - St. Seraphim of Sarov (Conversation with Motovilov)

Grace Must Be Sought After

"When we say that human efforts cannot of themselves secure perfection without the aid of God, we thus insist that God's mercy and grace are bestowed only upon those who labor and exert themselves, and are granted to them who will and run, according to that which is sung in the person of God in the eighty-ninth Psalm: 'I have laid help upon one that is mighty, and have exalted one chosen out of My people' (Ps. 89:20). For we say, in accordance with our Savior's words, that it is given to them that ask, and opened to them that knock, and found by them that seek (cf. Mt. 7:7); but that the asking, the seeking, the knocking on our part are insufficient unless the mercy of God gives what we ask, and opens when we knock, and enables us to find when we seek. For He is at hand to bestow all these things, if only the opportunity is given to Him by our good will." -- St. John Cassian

Grace and Repentance

"Neither repentance avails without grace, nor grace without repentance; for repentance must first condemn sin, that grace may blot it out. So then John, who was a type of the law, came baptizing for repentance, while Christ came to offer grace." -- St. Ambrose