VULNERABLE MISSION

ECONOMY OF GRACE
understanding is that, while it includes God’s incarnational “dispensing” in Jesus Christ,
this view of grace also helps us make sense of a major, often overlooked, dimension of
that work, namely God’s self-investment into each of his people as individuals and in the
community called the “body of Christ.”
Simply put, this is the grace for which we are saved—to become the embodiment and
revelation of God. A classic description of this dimension of grace follows closely on the
text quoted above: “For we are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works
which God prepared in advance for us to walk in” (Eph 2:10). 10
This statement beginning with “for” seems jarring in light of what follows until we see
the broader sense of grace in view. Works per se are not the antithesis of grace. Rather,
it is human works—works of human initiative and strength in which we could boast—that
have no place in the salvation of God. The works God has predesigned for us to do
are precisely an expression of that grace—a theme that will continue to be developed
through Ephesians.
This dimension of grace, the grace for which we are saved, is given specific shape in the
next chapter where the unique calling of Paul is described as his grace: “Though I am
less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given to me: to proclaim to the
Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the economy of
this mystery” (Eph 3:8–9).
This is Paul’s standard way of describing the work to which he has been uniquely called
by God: “to me this grace has been given.” 11 Paul routinely uses “grace” as a synonym
for God’s calling on his life, his divinely appointed vocation. But in Paul’s thought such
a grace belongs to every believer. As Ephesians continues, this dimension of grace as
vocation moves to the center of the argument. “And yet, to each one of us a grace has
been given according to the distributed gifting of Christ” (4:7).
The “and yet” that begins this statement marks the shift in chapter four between the
unity that characterizes our calling—“one Lord, one Faith, one baptism”—and the diversity
of that calling—“to each one a grace.” To “walk worthy of the calling to which you
have been called” (4:1) entails an embrace of both the unity we share in Christ (the grace
by which we have been saved) and the diversity of our respective gifting and assignments
in the household of God (the grace for which we are saved). 12
In this sense of vocation, then, grace is the measured dispensing of God’s purpose and
power into every unique person of God’s family household. Although this understanding
of grace has been somewhat muted in the Western church, it is clearly seen elsewhere
in Paul, in Peter’s writing, and in the commentary of the church since the first century. 13
And as we will see, it is developed more fully in the verses that follow.
10 This theme of the works in which we should “walk,” runs through the letter and is developed as it pertains
to our vocation (4:1) and conduct in God’s household, e.g., 2:3; 4:17; 5:2, 15.
11 Cf. Gal 1:15; 2:9; Rom 1:5;12:2; 15:15–16; 1 Cor 3:10; 15:10.
12 On this point it is helpful to notice the distinction Paul appears to draw between grace (charis) as vocation
and gifts (charisma) as supporting or corollary equipment to a grace: “And we have different gifts (charisma) according
to the grace (charis) given to us.” Rom 12:6; cf. 1 Cor 1:4–7.
13 Cf. Rom 12:3–8, 1 Pet 4:10. So, for example, Augustine: “Therefore in Him who is our head let there
appear to be the very fountain of grace, whence, according to the measure of every man, He diffuses Himself
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