Grace upon grace.
What a lovely turn of phrase that is. The gospel writer, John, really knew his stuff, didn’t he? Now, if only we knew what it meant. What exactly is this grace of God that we hear so much about in the Christian community?
Christian theologians have spent much of the last two thousand years trying to define it. Saint Augustine said that grace is the unmerited love and favor which God makes available to all human beings.1 Martin Luther believed that God’s grace was God’s mercy and forgiveness that is given freely to human beings without any merit whatsoever. Thomas Aquinas said that grace was any gift freely given with no thought of reciprocation. This included mercy and forgiveness but was not limited to it.
Paul Tillich called it simply “reconciliation.”
John Wesley n…