Means of Grace - Lesson 1

What are the Means of Grace?

The Means of Grace are those things in our lives that God uses to give additional blessing. We are expected to participate in our sanctification and God calls us to make our lives holy and pleasing to Him. Consequently any means of facilitating the process would seem to be naturally attractive to us. However, our sin nature and the enemy of our souls may provide effective obstacles to what would be a natural pursuit for an otherwise rational being.

For example, if you were in a war you would naturally want to know what weapons were available to you and what practices would keep you safe and make you stronger. Only someone whose pride made them think they were fully equipped or who was distracted and maybe forgot they were in a war would neglect the pursuit of being “fully equipped” for every battle.

Everything we have as a blessing in our life is fundamentally undeserved. Grace means an undeserved blessing or gift from God. We are saved by Grace and perfected by Grace and yet God gives us some means or methods that will put us in a place to get more of what we don’t deserve. So while it isn’t rational to neglect these things we often do.



How many Means of Grace are there?

The Holy Spirit certainly uses many different things in our life to bless us and each time it is not because we deserve it. But in the context of making lists it is typical to list the Means of Grace with special reference to Fellowship in the Body of Christ. In short, most people relate them to the church.

Some people have limited their list to preaching, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Charles Hodge adds prayer to that list. However, Grudem has a longer list and I’ve combined some of his topics that seemed similar to me to make a different list. I think sometimes it depends on how short of a list you like and I’m sure that a person’s biases creep in. However, if we realize that all we are doing is forming a framework for thinking about these things then I think we won’t worry so much about having the right list as we will about finding those things God uses and ordering our lives to cooperate with God’s Grace.

I’ll also try to discuss both things found in fellowship with the Body of Christ and those things that are of private use. Of course things that are of private use such as prayer and bible study also have use in fellowship with other believers.

So my list has five topics and is as follows:
1) Teaching of the Word (including Evangelism and Bible Study)
2) Sacraments (Baptism and The Lord’s Supper)
3) Prayer and Worship (including Giving)
4) Church discipline
5) Fellowship (Including Spiritual gifts and Ministry to Individuals)

The Holy Spirit works within each of these activities to pour out Grace in our lives.

As an aside … technically Roman Catholics view the Means of Grace as means of salvation. So in the Roman Catholic view the means make a person more fit to receive justification. Remember that Scripture teaches that we are justified by Christ’s Blood once for all when we are first saved and so the Roman Catholic teaching is a tradition that developed as a departure from Scripture. In addition, the Roman Catholic view would restrict the Means to the Sacraments and limit them to the clergy. Another teaching that I find particularly odd is that technically the Roman Catholic doctrine is that the sacraments impart grace whether or not there is faith on the part of the minister or the recipient. We do not follow that teaching and teach that the person receiving Grace by these Means of Grace has their “lights on” and “somebody is at home”.


1. Teaching of the Word (including evangelism and Bible study). In the Scriptures that follow listen to what the Word says about the Word.

Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

1 Corinthians 1:22-24
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

James 1:18
Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

1 Peter 1:23
since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

2 Timothy 3:14-17
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Acts 20:32
And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Matthew 4:3-4
And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” (Quoted from Deuteronomy 8:3).

Deuteronomy 32:47
For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”

Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

2 Peter 1:19-21
And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 19:7-8
The law of the Lord is perfect,reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;

Isaiah 55:10
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Jeremiah 23:29
Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
Scripture calls the Word a sword (Ephesians 6:17) and says

Hebrews 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

The word is so important to the life of the Church that Scripture often refers to the growth of the Church as the growth of the Word (Acts 6:7; 12:24; 13:49). The importance of the Word can’t be overstated in keeping us from standing on the traditions of men and keeping us standing on the Rock.

Remember that these effects are not just effects from “official” preaching and teaching. These effects range across all the ways God’s word exists in the world today.

Evangelism is also associated with moves of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4 with vv. 14–36; 4:8, 31; 9:17 with v. 20; 13:9, 52). So evangelism is a means of grace for both those who minister and those who the Holy Spirit makes alive in salvation.