The wickedness of mankind would engulf the world and bring it to the verge of utter chaos and corruption. This work of the Spirit in restraining human sin is called “grace” because no one deserves it. That God inhibits their sin is an expression of mercy to those who deserve judgment. It is called “common” because it is universal. Both saved and unsaved, regenerate and unregenerate, are the recipients of this divine favor. 

Definition

Common grace, as an expression of the goodness of God, is every favor, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God; this includes the delay of wrath, the mitigation of our sin-natures, natural events that lead to prosperity, and all gifts that human use and enjoy naturally.

Summary

While humanity is totally depraved and deserving of God’s wrath, God mercifully postpones his destroying wrath and graciously blesses all men, even apart from salvation. This is called God’s common grace. Common grace includes all undeserved blessings that natural man receives from the hand of God: rain, sun, prosperity, health, happiness, natural capacities and gifts, sin being restrained from complete dominion, etc. The doctrine of common grace explains how a man can be totally depraved and yet still commit acts that are, in some sense, “good.” This common grace, however, falls short of salvific grace; all humans still need the saving work of the Spirit to reconcile them to God.

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 is 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. (For a discussion of common “goodness” or “love” vs. common “grace,” see John Frame, The Doctrine of God, 429–30.)

There can be no escaping the fact that the biblical portrait of humanity’s condition apart from God’s saving grace is beyond bleak; it is hopeless. The apostle Paul draws upon several OT texts to describe the plight of the human race apart from Christ:

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).

Theologians refer to this as 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 pervade and touch 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.

It is this tension that leads John Murray to ask a series of very insistent questions:

How is it that men who still lie under the wrath and curse of God and are heirs of hell enjoy so many good gifts at the hand of God? How is it that men who are not savingly renewed by the Spirit of God nevertheless exhibit so many qualities, gifts and accomplishments that promote the preservation, temporal happiness, cultural progress, social and economic improvement of themselves and of others? How is it that races and peoples that have been apparently untouched by the redemptive and regenerative influences of the gospel contribute so much to what we call human civilization? To put the question most comprehensively: how is it that this sin-cursed world enjoys so much favour and kindness at the hand of its holy and ever-blessed Creator? (“Common Grace,” in the Collected Writings of John Murray, II:93)

The answer to Murray’s question is found in a distinction the Bible draws between what we refer to as God’s special or saving grace, on the one hand, and his common, non-saving grace, on the other. God’s goodness extends to all of his creation, both material and human. But that goodness does not always have as its intended goal the redemption or salvation of those on whom it is showered. We here speak, then, of God’s “common” grace, a grace or expression of divine goodness and favor that is universal, hence common. All mankind are the recipients of this outpouring of God’s 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: A Guide to Understanding and Teaching Theology, 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 also Luke 16:25).

Defining Common Grace

Charles Hodge, 19th century Reformed theologian, believed that,

the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth, of holiness, and of life in all its forms, is present with every human mind, enforcing truth, restraining from evil, exciting to good, and imparting wisdom or strength, when, where, and in what measure seemeth to Him good … This is what in theology is called common grace (see Systematic Theology, II:667).

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. 

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