If you’re a Christian, you probably think of the gospel when you hear the word grace. You think of Christ, the crucifixion, and the forgiveness of sins. You think of receiving the gift of eternal life even though you deserve eternal death.
That’s what theologians sometimes call special grace. It’s the grace received only by those who have faith in Christ. It’s the heart of Christianity.
So what’s common grace? Maybe you’ve heard the term. It refers to grace—God’s favor toward those who deserve his disfavor. But it’s common. It’s God’s grace toward everyone. It doesn’t offer forgiveness of sins or eternal life, but if you’ve ever wondered why the sun rises every day and why stable societies exist in a world broken by sin, common grace is the answer.
Grace in the Garden
Sometimes people talk about God being gracious to Adam and Eve from the very beginning. God, of course, is always good and loving. Human existence is a gift. God didn’t need to create us.
But grace isn’t just a synonym for God’s goodness, kindness, and love. Grace refers to something more specific: God’s favor toward those who deserve condemnation. God shows his grace when he blesses those who deserve to be cursed, when he gives life to those who deserve death. So, there couldn’t have been grace before Adam and Eve sinned because there was nothing to forgive. No punishment was deserved.
Yet there’s grace in the garden. After Adam and Eve sin, God doesn’t execute them. He curses the serpent and the ground (Gen. 3:14–19). He says growing food and giving birth will become painful and hard. But there will be food and children will be born. God sustains the human race, even though “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).
Instead of cursing Adam and Eve, God says a seed of the woman will be born who will destroy the serpent— the enemy of God and human beings (Gen. 3:15). This shows the relationship between common grace and special, redemptive grace. God sustains the world so that “at that right time” (Rom. 5:6), he can send his Son—the promised “seed of the woman”—to save his chosen people.
The Common Grace Covenant
Outside Eden, Adam and Eve have children (Gen. 4:1–2). When one of their children, Cain, kills his brother, Abel, God curses Cain but allows him to live (Gen. 4:11). In fact, he protects him from those who will want to kill him (Gen. 4:15). Cain and his offspring then begin to build cities and human culture (Gen. 4:17-22). Abel, who had pleased God, is dead, but his killer lives and even prospers. The story never shows Cain repenting. No atonement is made for his sin. God allows Cain to live because of his common grace. God has his own plans—his justice is delayed but not forgotten.
Judgment comes two chapters later. By this time, the human population has exploded, but “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). So God eradicates the human race (Gen. 7:21–23).
“Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark” (Gen. 7:23). Noah alone had found “favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8). He received saving grace. And this special grace leads to God’s covenant of common grace (Gen. 8:20–9:17). After the flood, God promises—unconditionally—that “never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Gen. 9:11). He makes this covenant with “every living creature” and “all future generations” (Gen. 9:12).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that God the Father “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Why does God do this? Because he promised he would: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22). God promised to uphold the natural order that sustains human life.
God’s covenant with Noah is the covenant of common grace.
Common Grace And the Gospel
The apostle Peter writes about those who ask, mockingly, why Christ still hasn’t come:
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. —2 Pet. 3:5–7
Peter connects the world before the flood to the present world, which awaits the final judgment. As God delayed justice for Abel, so he now sustains a world “stored up for fire.” Justice for “all the oppressions that are done under the sun” (Eccles. 4:1) will come.
But this age of common grace is also the age of special grace. God delays his return so that the gospel can spread and bring forgiveness to all who believe it. Peter continues, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
The Promised Seed lived a perfect life, fulfilling the law in our place, and was crucified to pay for our sins. By faith, we look to his coming and the new creation, our eternal home “whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). On that day, there will be no more common grace because there will be no more sin.
This is an excerpt from Core Christianity’s resource, What Is Common Grace? It is available for FREE here: Free Core Download.
