This post is part of my series Blogging Calvinism in which I blog my thoughts and reaction to Chosen for Life: The Case for Divine Election by Sam Storms.

In chapter six Storms focuses on the grace of God. He says, “To say that something is done by grace is simply to say that it is done by God.” (77) I understand his point but I think he is being too specific here. A little later he will quote three men who define grace. One of those is also too specific. The quote by Louis Berkhof offered the best general notion of grace: “the free bestowal of kindness on one who has no claim to it.” (79)

Storms is trying to establish early on that grace cannot be grace if it rests in any way on human effort. I agree – but I would want to clarify a few things. For instance, he says that “to inject any human effort or contribution whatsoever is to reject divine grace.” Agreed, but I still believe that one can reject a gift of grace without diminishing the gracious nature of that gift. If God were to freely and graciously give something to me (say, a home in the Bahamas) and I rejected it that would not make his act any less an act of grace. His act being grace does not rest on how I will respond to it. On the other hand, if God told me he would give me a home in the Bahamas if I promised to call myself by his name, that would be grace mixed with human effort or contribution. It is really the latter that is in view in this chapter.

After discussing the goodness, mercy, and grace of God Storms assembles a list of ten characteristics from Scripture about God’s grace. I will list them all and will have comments on several of them.

1. Grace presupposes sin and guilt.
   I have gone back and forth on this point. On the one hand I would say grace is grace whether or not the recipient is unrighteous. If one righteous person does something good for another righteous person independent of that person’s righteousness I think we could still speak of that as an act of grace. I would argue that common grace is given to those who are sinful and guilty but it does not presuppose sin and guilt. Saving grace, on the other hand, presupposes sin and guilt for there would be no saving grace if there were nothing to save. Also, our sin and guilt certainly magnify God’s grace. His grace shines all the more gloriously when we see just how undeserving (or ill-deserving! see next point) we are.
2. Grace sees sinners as ill-deserving, not simply undeserving.
   This was a great point that will help to clarify things later. We do not stand somehow morally neutral before God. We stand as those guilty of sin and worthy of the judgment of God. God’s grace is given to people who deserve the opposite of grace.
3. “Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit… grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the face of human demerit.”
   I thought this was very compelling. The non-Calvinist notion is that God’s saving grace is extended to all who live and individuals must respond to that grace to be saved. On death a person loses the opportunity to receive saving grace, the possibility of the gift of salvation is removed from them. This means something about the grace of salvation is contingent on something on the human condition. The offer of grace is based on whether or not it is “too late” for us.
   Furthermore, if “being elect” is itself to be described as an act of God’s grace then how can any part of it rest on a human response to the gift of salvation? As I argued before I believe grace is grace regardless of how we respond to it. But can something be spoken of as grace if our response is required? If God elects me based on how I respond to his gift of salvation (the foreknowledge view of predestination) then his election of me is not an act of grace. The initial gift was by grace, the election was by what I did.
4. “Grace cannot incur a debt.”
5. “With respect to justification, grace stands opposed to works… with respect to sanctification, grace is the source of works.”
   While our justification is by grace through faith alone with nothing to do with works, our sanctification is by grace alone to produce works. Another thought, it is the grace of God that enables people to do good, it is not the right choice of people that opens the doors to God’s grace.

6. “This grace that saves is eternal because it is manifested in the historical appearance of Christ.”
   His grace has always been. It is eternal. Before the ages he had this grace for us. But it is on the cross, through Jesus Christ, that grace has been carried out.
7. “This grace is free.”
8. “Grace is sovereign.”
   One cannot speak of God as being unjust if all people do not equally receive grace in the same way. The very fact that it is grace means justice can never make any demand of it. Justice can and does make a demand of us, however, and an amazing thing about God’s grace is how it satisfies his justice.

   Would God be unjust to sovereignly save some and not others? Can God be just if he extends grace to some that he does not to others? But grace is always something free, something unmerited. Justice can demand nothing of it. Grace, on the other hand, can answer the demands of justice. God would be unjust to leave sin unpunished. God would not be unjust to exercise saving grace for some rather than for all, human notions of fairness notwithstanding.

9. “Grace is… the foundation of the means of… our election, our regeneration, our redemption, our justification…”
   Tied to what precedes, each of these things have no basis on a human act or response. But the Bible does demand a response – faith. Storms will touch on this some more in the next point but I am still hoping to see a fuller treatment of whether or not faith itself is a gift. He has talked about it some already but I’d like to see more.
10. Free does not always mean unconditional. Saving grace is unconditional, other graces might be conditional.
    Storms lists quite a few passages demonstrating this. He recognizes that this might seem to undermine everything already said about grace, but quoting Piper he says, “When God’s grace is promised based on a condition, that condition is also a work of God’s grace…” and “God graciously enables the conditions that he requires.” (82) On that last quote I would want to ask Piper if he meant that God enables the condition or if God brings it about (a similar question – does God allow or does God cause suffering?). Enabling something to happen is no guarantee that it will happen. At any rate, the argument behind this point sounds good but I am still waiting to see more Scripture to back it up. (Psalm 18 might be used to demonstrate this, but I’m saving that discussion for another time.)

The chapter closes with Storms drawing all the pieces together. Along the way we find the following statement regarding the non-Calvinist view: “By establishing the condition for election as faith, God is thereby obligated to elect all those who, by means of their now purportedly free wills, believe in the gospel of Christ.” – this is just what I was talking about earlier. This does not deny the necessity of grace, but it would seem to include in our salvation things that are not by grace. All the things leading up to salvation could be spoken of as being by grace – Christ himself, a life long enough to hear and respond to the gospel, friends and family who share the gospel, etc – but at the last the individual is saved not just by an act of God’s grace but by grace followed by a condition that he has merited.

I am now just about halfway through the chapters. In the next five chapters Storms will deal with various Scripture references that touch on sovereign election. I will probably try to pick up the pace on these chapters so my next five posts should be shorter and should go up faster.