charis

Semantic range

1. 1graciousness, attractiveness (the classical sense)
2. 2favour shown by a superior to an inferior
3. 3the unearned enabling power and pardon of God
4. 4thanks — the response a gift calls for (hence eucharistia)

In the Greco-Roman world charis named the whole system of patronage: a benefactor's gift, the favour it expressed, and the loyalty it obliged in return. Paul takes the word and breaks half of it — the gift remains, the obligation to repay is abolished (Romans 4:4; Ephesians 2:8–9) — while keeping the expectation that a gift changes the recipient.

Latter-day Saint teaching insists on both halves. Nephi's much-argued line, "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23), is best read with the Hebrew sense of "after" as "apart from" or "notwithstanding" — grace is not what tops up an exhausted effort. The Bible Dictionary entry for Grace, published with the Church's edition of the scriptures, defines it as "divine means of help or strength" and "an enabling power," and Elder David A. Bednar and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf have both preached it in those terms.

Grace in the Restoration is therefore not only pardon but power: strength beyond one's own to do what one could not otherwise do (see Ether 12:27; Philippians 4:13).

Where it appears

• Ephesians 2:8–9"By grace are ye saved through faith... not of works, lest any man should boast."
• 2 Nephi 25:23The Book of Mormon's formulation, and the one most often misread.
• Ether 12:27Grace as the power that makes weak things strong.

See also

• חֶסֶדḥesed
• δικαιόωdikaioō
• πίστιςpistis