The point of the New Testament teaching about grace is not to make us anxious but precisely the opposite, which means that if it is causing concern, we’ve probably misunderstood it. We are meant to be reassured…You were chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world, and secure in him you stand. Your salvation does not rely on your uncertain moods, or your confidence, or your progress. It is built on an entirely sold foundation – on Jesus Christ.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves (Ephesians 1:4-6).

God gives his grace to those who do not deserve it. That’s what makes it what it is – grace. It removes human pride, because there’s nothing in it that we can call our own except that which has been given to us. Even the decision for our salvation rests not with us, but with God.

This sounds like good news, and so it is. But is there a dark side to grace? Is God’s decision to bestow his favour on some undeserving sinners and not on others simply evidence that he acts on a whim? Does he simply decide on the basis of some random principle – a divine throw of the dice perhaps? Is ‘grace’ simply ‘luck’ masquerading under another name?

In which case: is God less a kind Father and more of tyrant? Why, if he can give his grace to some, does he not give his grace to all?

We shouldn’t fail to recognize that it is a question with a personal dimension, too. Some people – people we love – don’t respond to the gospel. Some did once, but sadly no longer do. What of them?

This is one of the most knotty problems in Christian theology, and it has led plenty of Christian theologians to propose a compromise on grace itself. The Bible clearly teaches that God chooses us ‘before the creation of the world’. How does he do that? If grace is not to seem arbitrary and unjust, then there must be some condition from the human side that triggers it. Perhaps there is something in us, be it ever so small, that God recognises as worthy of grace. Or perhaps he can see that we are trying as hard as we can. Or perhaps it is our membership of the institutional church that marks us out. Or perhaps (and this is quite an ingenious way of thinking about it) God looks down the length of human history and sees ahead of time who will respond to him, and so chooses those.

The problem with all of these answers is that they make grace something other than what it is: the free gift of God. It becomes reliant on something that we offer him, however small.

We are not the first to think about this. In fact – and I find this reassuring – the authors of the Bible wrestled with the very dilemma we are talking about, without giving us a cheap answer. In Romans 9 – 11, Paul asks with some agony ‘Why haven’t many Israelite people responded to the gospel?’

In response, we can summarise the Bible’s teaching in this way:

1) God’s offer of salvation is made to all people.

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