Salvation, Grace, and Faith: An Overview

Scripture focus

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.

Ephesians 2:8 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the chapter

Edwards treats salvation as one grand, lifelong work beginning in eternity and never finally finished, since it includes unending growth in union with God; conversion is only its first visible sign, launching justification and sanctification toward the endless goal of sharing in God's own life. This chapter's foundation, before Edwards's later chapters on conversion and sanctification, is his account of grace and faith as the basic principles animating every phase of that work.

“Common grace,” Edwards explained, is simply the Spirit heightening moral capacities every person already possesses by nature — conviction of sin, a stirred conscience, moral resolve — using “natural principles” common to saint and sinner alike. “Special grace,” by contrast, “causes the faculties to do that that they do not by nature”: it does not intensify what is already there but implants something genuinely new, chiefly a settled, supernatural love for God.

Edwards illustrated the difference with two vivid, loveless counterfeits of religion: the Gerasene demon, who addresses Christ with humble, worshipful words yet acts wholly “from fear of torment,” and a wife who shows her husband every outward respect “not at all from any love to him.” Impressive religious performance, however sincere or fearful, remains hollow without the one thing common grace can never supply — genuine, self-forgetful love for God and others.

Key points

• Edwards presents salvation as one unending work spanning eternity, of which conversion is only the first visible stage.
• “Common grace” heightens moral capacities already present in every human being by nature and is shared by saints and sinners alike.
• “Special” or saving grace differs “not only in degree, but in nature and kind” from common grace, implanting an entirely new capacity for love.
• Edwards's two illustrations — the fearful demon and the loveless wife — show that impressive religious performance without love is merely a counterfeit.
• Love, for Edwards, is the one mark that decisively distinguishes saving grace from even the most extensive natural or moral religion.

A line worth remembering

special grace causes the faculties to do that that they do not by nature

McClymond & McDermott The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, ch. 23

Related Scripture

• Titus 3:5
• Romans 3:24
• John 1:16
• Hebrews 11:6

For reflection and discussion

1. How does Edwards's distinction between common and special grace help explain why some outwardly religious people can lack genuine faith?
2. Why does Edwards insist that saving grace differs from common grace 'in nature and kind,' not merely in degree or intensity?
3. Edwards says love is the one thing 'wanting' in counterfeit religion — where might that test apply to your own spiritual life today?