"We are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Rom. 3 v.24)
The word "GRACE" has often been explained as "God's Riches At Christ's Expense". While that's a great acronym, it's more like the definition of "propitiation" than it is of "grace".
Grace means "free gifts", and a king could give his gifts to whoever he pleased.
Grace went along with mercy, of course, as a king could also pardon whoever he pleased, and when we look at the original Greek word for grace, we find the word was used to describe how large city states in Greece would help out the weaker, poorer and struggling states. It means acting kindly toward someone who is weaker than you.
So, a much better definition of grace is:
"Being given good things that you don't deserve"
while a good definition of "mercy" is:
"Not being given bad things that you do deserve".
But let us take a look in the royal garden…
For how are we justified? Is it (a) by grace, (b) by Christ, (c) by faith, or (d) by works? Shall we ask the audience? Answers on your keypads please…
To discover the answer, let's take a look at this garden tableau, where there is a water butt, a hosepipe running from the water butt, a tap at the end of the pipe, and some flowers in the garden. The picture shows that the reservoir of God's grace runs through the channel of Christ's love. The tap is our faith, which we can turn on or off, up or down, and the flowers that grow are the good works of the Spirit-filled life.
So, grace is the means of our justification.
This tableau also shows that the good works are evidence of our faith. We are saved by faith alone, but the result of that faith is good works, so, if a person says he has faith but he doesn't do any good works, the evidence suggests that he is lying, and that he will therefore not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In his own mind he may convince himself he is saved, but Jesus may say otherwise (see, for example, Matt. 25:41-46; Luke 6:46) - so beware!
On the other hand, if a person does good works but has no faith, then he will have to be judged on those good works alone, but however many good works he has done, there will be times when he has let God down ("for all have sinned", Rom. 3:23) and therefore he too will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, because the slightest imperfection would prevent Heaven from really being Heaven, wouldn't it? It's not God being mean about it, it's just impossible! And that's why we need God's grace!
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