Grace and Salvation

For Christianity, sin is the fundamental problem of human existence. But it is a problem solved by God’s grace, the love God gives freely to human beings despite their sin. In the Christian view, it is only through reliance on divine grace that salvation from sin becomes possible.

Christianity explains how salvation is made possible by using the language of sacrifice, a common Jewish practice in Jesus’s time. In the sacrificial ritual, the sins of the people were ritually placed on animals sacrificed as innocent victims for the transgressions of others. For Christians, Jesus’s death on the cross was the fulfillment of this sacrificial practice. It is with his crucifixion that the significance of the Christian teaching that Jesus Christ was both human and divine becomes clear. Jesus’s divinity allowed him to do for human beings what they could not do for themselves. As the sinless “lamb of God” (John 1:29), he alone could make the perfect atonement for sin that would allow sinners to be restored to their original relationship with God. As a human being, he could suffer the consequences of sin on behalf of humanity. In doing so, Christians say, Jesus fulfilled the words of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who spoke of the “suffering servant” of God: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Christians see in Christ’s suffering for the salvation of humanity the supreme proof of God’s grace:

God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

—1 John 4:8

Grace makes salvation possible, but it requires a human response in the form of faith.

For Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians, as well as for some Protestants, good works are an expression of faith, even a part of faith, for a faith that does not involve action is not faith at all. As the New Testament letter of James (2:26) puts it, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.” Most Protestants, in contrast, make a distinction between faith and good works. Because works, they believe, are not a part of faith, works do not contribute to salvation. In support of this view, Protestants cite New Testament passages such as Paul’s letter to the Romans (3:28), “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works.” For those who hold this view, good works are something one does because one has faith. The differences here are finely nuanced, but they have profound implications that are partly responsible for the separation of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions.

Christians admit that they are no closer to perfection than anyone else but are confident that faith allows them to “walk in a newness of life” (Romans 6:4) on a path that leads toward rather than away from God.