Reimagining Grace: Have We Got It ALL Wrong in the Past?

Grace is one of the most misunderstood and yet most beautiful concepts in Christian theology. For centuries, Christians have struggled to define it, tame it, systematize it—even weaponize it. But beneath the dogma, the debates, and the doctrinal lines drawn in the sand lies a truth deeper and more profound than any system has fully grasped. Grace is not primarily about merit or lack thereof. It is not merely a divine transaction or a cosmic balancing act of justice and mercy. Grace is God’s eternal favor—an unshakeable, ever-present reality rooted in the fundamental nature of God as Love. And when we grasp that, everything changes.

In the earliest layers of Christianity, grace (charis) was seen as God’s undeserved kindness—His benevolent will to heal and restore creation through Christ. But that idea soon became tangled in arguments about who deserved grace, who was chosen for it, and what kind of hoops one had to jump through to receive it.

Augustine—brilliant, tormented, influential—framed grace through the lens of human depravity and divine election. We are powerless, he argued, and only an overpowering act of grace can save us. God chooses some, but not all. Grace is irresistible for the elect and irrelevant to the rest. The Western church inherited this vision, laying the groundwork for medieval sacraments and later Reformation debates.

Then came the Reformers. Martin Luther, burned by a system that turned grace into a reward for good works, declared sola gratia—grace alone. Salvation is not a cooperative enterprise, he said, but a gift, received by faith. Calvin doubled down, teaching that grace is effective only for the chosen few. John Wesley answered that grace is available to all, but not forced. It comes before faith—prevenient grace, awakening the heart—but must be freely embraced.

Each view contains a truth—but also a shadow. If grace is reserved only for the elect, then God’s love is partial and diminished. If grace is transactional, given only once certain conditions are met, then it ceases to be grace at all. And if grace is merely a legal acquittal, our souls remain untouched by its healing, transformative power.

But what if grace is something so expansive, so universal, so lovingly woven into the fabric of existence that no doctrine could rightly contain it? What if grace isn’t unmerited favor—but simply favor? Always and already present. What if we’ve been trying to earn something we already possess?

This is where my understanding diverges from traditional views and roots itself in what I believe is the heart of the gospel: Grace is God’s foundational disposition toward all creation. It isn’t earned by faith or obedience, nor is it withheld because of sin or doubt. Grace is God’s perpetual “yes” to humanity, a love so deep and ever-present that no lifetime, no dimension of experience, and no degree of forgetfulness can erase its imprint.

Grace isn’t about getting God to love us. It is the realization that God has never not loved us. Trusting in grace is not an act of persuading God—it is the awakening of our own consciousness to what is always true. The more we trust in the God who is love, the more we allow the fear-based illusions of separation, punishment, and unworthiness to dissolve. This kind of grace doesn’t merely acquit—it awakens, restores, and reunites.

Consider the flow of human spiritual evolution: across lifetimes, belief systems, and cultures, there has been one constant thread—humanity’s yearning to be seen, loved, and united with something bigger than itself. We have called that something by many names—God, Source, Christ, Sophia, the Ground of Being—but the signature of grace is the same: love wins.

Not some love, for some people, in some lifetime. But love that is saturating reality at its deepest level, drawing every soul back into the fullness of God. In this view, grace is not a scarcity to be distributed by clergy or a cosmic checkbox ticking off the worthy. Grace is the heartbeat of God moving through all creation.

This also means that grace is not negated by failure or multiplied by obedience. It is not reactive—it is generative. It does not require belief to be true, but belief awakens us to its truth. Sin, then, is not moral failure—it is amnesia. And grace is the memory of our origin: we came from love, we are held by love, and we will return to love.

Christian history has given us many partial visions of grace—Augustine’s penetrating seriousness, Calvin’s majestic sovereignty, Wesley’s universal invitation. But the growing, global mystical tradition—found in Christian universalism, esoteric Christianity, and even in interfaith exploration—reminds us that the deepest truth is not just that grace saves us from sin. Grace dissolves the illusion that we were ever separate from God in the first place.

The final word of grace is not “you are forgiven,” but “you were never forsaken.” Not “be good so God will accept you,” but “rest, because God has already embraced you.” Not “do not fear judgment,” but “there is nothing to fear.”

Because grace, in its purest form, is not a doctrine. It is a presence. And when fully realized, it brings us home.