The truth of God’s common grace is driven home when we ask how it is that people who lie under the wrath of God experience so many good gifts at the hand of God. How do we account for the extraordinary gifts, talents, and accomplishments of those who are unregenerate? How is it that so many unbelievers contribute so much to human flourishing, cultural advancement, and scientific discovery?

We should acknowledge from the outset that the adjective “common” does not appear in the Bible as a modifier of the noun “grace.” But we are justified in making use of it in view of how God’s dealings with non-Christian people are portrayed for us in Scripture. Our task will be to determine in what sense, if any at all, the grace of God is given to or is operative in the lives of those who persist throughout life in unbelief and rebellion against God.

(1) The biblical portrait of humanity’s condition apart from God’s saving grace is beyond bleak; it is hopeless. The apostle Paul writes:

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12).

This is the truth of total depravity. The latter term does not mean that every person is as bad as he/she could possibly be. It simply means that moral depravity and willful spiritual darkness pervades and touches the totality of their being: mind, heart, soul, spirit, body, affections, and will. Some who misunderstand what is meant by “total depravity” find it difficult to embrace for the simple reason that it conflicts with what they see in the world and what they experience in their relationships with other people. There are quite a few extremely evil people in society. However, most of us have close friends and relatives who are not Christians but who are, what we would feel justified in calling, “good” people. They are honest, civil, generous, loving, and show little if any sign of being “totally depraved.” We enjoy their presence and would vouch for their character.

(2) The truth of God’s common grace is driven home when we ask how it is that people who lie under the wrath of God experience so many good gifts at the hand of God. How do we account for the extraordinary gifts, talents, and accomplishments of those who are unregenerate? How is it that so many unbelievers contribute so much to human flourishing, cultural advancement, and scientific discovery?

(3) All mankind are the recipients of the outpouring of God’s common grace, but not all experience it in the same degree or in the same manner. Our use of the term “common,” as Gregg Allison points out, “does not mean ‘in the same measure for all’ but ‘universal,’ extended to everyone. Neither does it mean ‘mundane,’ though common grace is often taken for granted and detached from its source, who is God. It is anything but dull and ordinary, as seen in bountiful fields, medical advancements, artistic genius, loving families, global initiatives against human trafficking, and much more” (50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith, 206).

Consider, for example, the common grace of God as seen in Genesis 39:5 where God is said to have “blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake.” At Lystra, Paul declares that God “did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). Jesus himself said that God “makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). The Father is described as being “kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:35; see Luke 16:25).

(4) How, then, should we define “common grace”? Abraham Kuyper defines common grace as

“that act of God by which negatively He curbs the operations of Satan, death, and sin, and by which positively He creates an intermediate state for this cosmos, as well as for our human race, which is and continues to be deeply and radically sinful, but in which sin cannot work out its end” (Principles of Sacred Theology, 279).

John Murray defines common grace as “every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God” (“Common Grace,” in Collected Writings, II:96).”

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