Two Notions of the Christian Life: Forgiving and Transforming Grace

Introduction I would like to reflect on two ways to speak of the Gospel of our salvation. The first is the more common way that has to do with justification by grace through faith. I call this Forgiving Grace. The second is in terms of understanding and bearing fruit. I call this Transforming Grace. (Martin Luther, known particularly for his theology of forgiving grace, nonetheless early on preached a similar message, ‘Two Kinds of Righteousness’.) Forgiving Grace So, first, let’s cover familiar territory and speak of justification by grace through faith. We Christians, particularly we Evangelicals, will very often describe the Christian life by speaking of God’s saving us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, our Saviour. When we explain what it means for Jesus to be our Saviour, we continue with saying that Jesus’ death on the cross was for our sins, a free gift from God to people still in their sins. We cannot earn our salvation. We are not ‘good enough’ for God to give us a pass. Instead, as Paul says in Ephesians 2.4-5, ‘God, being rich in mercy, because of the great mercy with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by...