Bible Verses About Grace explain one of the most important truths in Christianity: that God gives salvation and favour we could never earn. These passages show grace at work in forgiveness, in daily strength, and in the hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ. Read together, they show why grace is good news for everyone, whatever their past.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)
Paul teaches that we are saved by grace through faith, as God’s gift and not by our own works.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Romans 3:23-24 (KJV)
All have sinned, yet we are justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus.
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
Titus 2:11-12 (KJV)
God’s saving grace has appeared to all and also trains us to live soberly and godly.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 (KJV)
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
John 1:16-17 (KJV)
From Christ’s fulness we receive grace upon grace, for grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:20-21 (KJV)
Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, reigning through righteousness unto eternal life.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:9 (KJV)
The Lord told Paul His grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in weakness.
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
Romans 6:14 (KJV)
Sin need not rule over believers, because they are under grace rather than law.
And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
Romans 11:6 (KJV)
Paul explains that if salvation is by grace, it cannot also be earned by works.
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
2 Timothy 1:9 (KJV)
God saved and called us according to His own purpose and grace, given in Christ before time began.
That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Titus 3:7 (KJV)
Being justified by His grace, we become heirs with the hope of eternal life.
But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
James 4:6 (KJV)
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
1 Peter 5:10 (KJV)
The God of all grace will perfect, establish, strengthen and settle His people after suffering.
But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.
Acts 15:11 (KJV)
Peter affirms that Jews and Gentiles alike are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
Galatians 2:21 (KJV)
If righteousness came by the law, Paul argues, Christ would have died in vain.
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Ephesians 1:7 (KJV)
In Christ we have redemption and forgiveness according to the riches of His grace.
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:1-2 (KJV)
Justified by faith, we have peace with God and access by faith into this grace in which we stand.
Grace is God’s undeserved favour toward sinners. Romans 3:23-24 is honest that all have sinned, yet it says we are justified freely by His grace through Christ. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes the point plain: salvation is God’s gift, received through faith, not a reward for good works, so no one can boast.
The New Testament presents Jesus as the fullest expression of grace. John 1:14-17 describes Him as full of grace and truth, and says that from His fulness we receive grace upon grace. Paul’s own life is a clear example. Once a persecutor of the church, he writes in 1 Corinthians 15:10 that by the grace of God he is what he is.
Grace does not stop at forgiveness. Titus 2:11-12 teaches that grace trains believers to turn from ungodliness and live upright lives, and Romans 6:14 says sin no longer has dominion over those under grace. In weakness, 2 Corinthians 12:9 promises that God’s grace is sufficient. Grace, then, both saves us and carries us, day by day, until the hope described in Titus 3:7 is complete.
Ephesians 2:8-9’s statement that salvation comes “by grace… through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works” is Scripture’s clearest definition of grace as something given, not achieved.
2 Corinthians 12:9’s promise that God’s “grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” ties grace directly to human limitation, presenting weakness as the place grace becomes most visible, not something grace merely compensates for.
John 1:16’s description of receiving “grace for grace” suggests an ongoing, renewing supply rather than a single gift given once and then exhausted.
You might also turn to Bible Verses For Protection and Bible Verses About Prayer.
Each passage is quoted from the KJV, and Blue Letter Bible has the whole text if you want the surrounding chapter.
Two nearby collections worth opening next are Bible Verses About Being Thankful and Bible Verses About Strength and Hope.
Some of the same ground is covered in Bible Verses About Forgiveness and Healing and Bible Verses About Having Faith.
This subject overlaps with Bible Verses About Marriage and Love and with Bible Verses About Loss.
Bible Verses About Trusting God and Bible Verses For Grace are good companions to this page.
Bible Gateway makes it easy to compare a verse across several English translations.
To trace a verse through the rest of Scripture, the cross-references on Bible Hub are useful.
Grace, throughout Scripture, is consistently something given rather than earned — offered most clearly in exactly the places where a person has nothing left to offer in return.
These verses were never meant to sit on a page as decoration \u2014 they’re meant to shape how you actually respond the next time you keep failing at the very thing you promised yourself you’d fix.
You don’t need polished or formal language for it \u2014 an honest, plainly worded sentence is enough, something as simple as telling God directly to receive grace instead of running from it out of shame.
Grace did not first appear in the New Testament. In Genesis 6:8, set against a violent and corrupt generation, one man is singled out as having found grace in the LORD’s eyes. Noah is not described as earning God’s favour first. He received it, and his obedience in building the ark followed.
On Mount Sinai, as He passed before Moses, God proclaimed His own name and called Himself “merciful and gracious, longsuffering” (Exodus 34:6). That self-description echoes through the rest of the Old Testament. Jonah later grumbled about that very quality, admitting in Jonah 4:2 that he ran because he expected God to be gracious and spare Nineveh.
Reading Bible verses about grace only in Paul’s letters can make grace seem like a new idea. The Old Testament shows it was always part of God’s character. The cross is not God changing His mind about sinners. It is the fullest display of the same gracious God who met Noah, Moses and even a reluctant prophet. Psalm 84:11 puts the two gifts side by side, grace and glory, both given by the LORD.
One of the most moving illustrations of grace in the Old Testament is the story of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9. He was the grandson of King Saul, David’s former enemy, and he was lame in both feet after an accident as a child. In that culture, a surviving heir of the old royal house had every reason to fear the new king.
Instead, David went looking for any survivor of Saul’s family so he could show kindness for the sake of his friend Jonathan (2 Samuel 9:1). He restored Saul’s land to Mephibosheth and gave him a permanent place at the royal table. The last verse of the chapter pairs two facts on purpose: he ate at the king’s table every day, and he was still lame in both feet (2 Samuel 9:13).
Reading 2 Samuel 9 beside other Bible verses about grace brings out a detail that is easy to miss. Mephibosheth called himself a “dead dog” in David’s presence. He brought nothing to the table except his need. The kindness was shown for the sake of someone else, his father Jonathan.
Many Christians see the same pattern in the Bible verses about grace in the New Testament. Believers are welcomed not because of their own worth, but for the sake of Christ, and they remain at the table even though their weaknesses have not disappeared.
Jesus rarely used the word grace in the Gospels, yet His parables show it vividly. Two in particular help explain what the Bible verses about grace in Paul’s letters mean in practice.
In Luke 15, a younger son wastes his inheritance and comes home hoping only to be a hired servant. His father spotted him while he was still far off, and Luke says the father “had compassion, and ran” to embrace and kiss him (Luke 15:20). The son’s rehearsed speech is interrupted by a robe, a ring and a feast. The father’s grace moved before the son could finish a word.
In Matthew 20, a landowner pays those who worked one hour the same wage as those who worked all day. The early workers complain. The owner answers that he has done them no wrong and asks whether his eye is evil because he is good (Matthew 20:15).
Among these Bible verses about grace, the parables are especially useful because they expose our reactions. Most of us like grace when we receive it and struggle with it when it is given to someone we think deserves less. Both stories also include an older or earlier character who has to decide whether to join the celebration.
Because grace is so central, it is easy to bend it in one direction or another. Scripture itself anticipates several of these mistakes.
In Romans 6:1-2 Paul anticipates someone asking whether we should keep sinning so grace can increase, and his answer is an emphatic no. Grace frees people from sin’s power. That freedom was never meant as a license to remain where we were. Rightly read, Bible verses about grace lead toward holiness, not away from it.
Not at all. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul says he worked harder than the other apostles, then immediately credits the grace of God that was with him. Paul saw no conflict between hard work and grace; what grace rules out is earning. Believers work hard because they have been given grace, not to obtain it.
The final instruction in Peter’s second letter is to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ (2 Peter 3:18). Grace is where the Christian life begins, but it is also the ground believers keep growing in.
Which Bible verses about grace help most when you fear you have gone too far? Romans 5:20 is often the answer: where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
Those who receive grace are called to show it. Paul wanted believers’ speech to be gracious and seasoned with salt (Colossians 4:6), and he asked them to choose words that build others up and give grace to whoever is listening (Ephesians 4:29). Grace is meant to shape ordinary conversations.
Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23-35 makes the point sharply. A servant forgiven a debt he could never repay goes out and seizes a fellow servant over a small amount. The master’s question is simple: should you not have had compassion, even as I had pity on you?
Bible verses about grace are not only doctrine to understand; they describe a way of treating people. For more on this connection, read the collection of Bible verses about grace and forgiveness, or explore Bible verses about God’s grace for more on His character.
Take time with these questions on your own or with a small group. Read Ephesians 2:1-10 first, since it gathers many of the Bible verses about grace into one passage.
Father, thank You that You are merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in goodness. I confess that I often try to earn what You freely give. Thank You that in Christ I am welcomed, forgiven and kept. When I fail again, help me run toward You rather than away from You. Let Your grace be sufficient in my weakness, and let my words and actions carry that same grace to the people around me. I ask all this in the name of Jesus, Amen.
Praying through Bible verses about grace this way, slowly and honestly, often does more good than reading many of them quickly.
Paul wrote in Greek, and the word he reached for again and again was charis. In everyday Greek it could mean a favor done gladly, a kindness with no invoice attached, even the pleasing quality of a person who is good company. Our English word gracious keeps a little of that. When a Greek speaker heard charis, they were not thinking of a doctrine. They were thinking of a gift received at someone else’s expense and goodwill.
That ordinary background makes Ephesians 2:8 land harder. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Paul takes a word people used for a generous host and applies it to the biggest rescue imaginable. The same word also gave us the greeting at the start of most of his letters. He opened with grace the way we say hello, which tells you how central it was to him.
Worth noticing too is the link between charis and the word for joy, chara, and the word for thanks, eucharistia. Receiving a gift tends to produce gladness and then gratitude, and the language itself seems to know that. If grace in your mind has become a stiff, churchy term, try picturing a table somebody else paid for. You were invited, you did not earn a seat, and the right response is simply to sit down and say thank you.
Saul of Tarsus was not a lost sheep wandering toward the fold. He was on his way to arrest Christians, with letters from the high priest in his bag (Acts 9). A light knocked him to the ground, a voice asked why he was hurting Jesus, and he spent three days blind in a stranger’s house in Damascus, not eating and not drinking. Whatever he had been sure of, he was no longer sure.
Years later he never told that story as an achievement. When he listed his history, he said he had persecuted the church of God, and then added that he was what he was by the grace of God. Titus 3:7 and Galatians 2:21 sound like they come from a man who had counted the cost of earning his way and found the account empty. He had been more religiously careful than almost anyone, and it had made him dangerous.
I find that story steadying when someone tells me they have done too much to be forgiven. Paul is Exhibit A that the door is wider than we guess. It is also a caution for the person who feels morally tidy. Careful living is good, but it is not the thing that lifts anyone into God’s favor. Both the sinner and the scrupulous are invited on the same terms.
Some people hear “saved by grace” and quietly conclude that how they live does not matter. Paul saw that coming. Right after Ephesians 2:8-9 he wrote, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10). Grace is the cause. Good works are the result, like fruit on a tree rather than rent paid to a landlord.
Look at how Titus 2:11-12 puts it. The grace that brings salvation also teaches us to say no to ungodliness and to live soberly and righteously. Teaches is a classroom word. Grace turns out to be a patient instructor as well as a pardon, and it does not shout. A mother who loves her son does not stop correcting him because she has forgiven him for the broken window.
So if you keep stumbling over the same habit, do not conclude that grace has run out. Ask what it is trying to teach you, and who in your life could help you practice. That might be a friend who prays with you on Thursdays or a pastor who asks one honest question. Change usually comes slowly, in small repeated steps, and God stays with the learner the whole time.
Picture a hospital corridor at two in the morning, the vending machine humming, a family on plastic chairs trying not to look at the clock. Nobody there is thinking about theology. Yet this is where verses like 2 Corinthians 12:9 get tested: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Notice what the verse does not say. It does not say the trouble will vanish by morning. Paul had asked three times for his thorn to be removed, and the answer was that grace would be enough to carry him. Sometimes the help God gives is a person to sit with, a nurse who is unusually kind, a sudden steadiness that cannot be explained. Those small mercies are easy to miss when you are exhausted.
If you are in a season like that, be gentle with yourself. You do not have to feel strong, and you do not have to have the right words. Pray a sentence or two, let someone bring you a coffee, and accept the help offered. Where the situation involves your own health or a long grief, speak with a doctor or counselor as well, since practical care and trust in God go hand in hand. Grace is often delivered through ordinary hands.
Nearby topics worth a look: Bible Verses For God's Grace, Bible Verses About God's Grace, Bible Verses For Grace and Forgiveness, Bible Verses About Grace and Forgiveness and Bible Verses For Grace.
If you want to dig further, Blue Letter Bible, Bible Gateway and Bible Hub are good places to start.
Grace is God's undeserved favour toward sinners. Romans 3:23-24 is honest that all have sinned, yet it says we are justified freely by His grace through Christ.
This page brings together 24 King James Version references about grace, drawn from 15 different books of the Bible.
Yes. The verses about grace gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Genesis 6:8 and Romans 3:23.
Romans 3:23 is one of the verses about grace referenced in this collection, alongside Ephesians 2:8.
Yes, the verses referenced on this page, including Romans 3:23, are quoted according to the King James Version (KJV), and are suitable for daily reading, memorization, or devotional use.
