χάρις charis — grace, favour, gift, gratitude, attractiveness

The word

χάρις (charis) is one of the most-used theological words in the New Testament. It appears around 156 times — roughly 100 of those in the Pauline corpus. English translations almost universally render it as “grace” in the theologically weighted occurrences and as something else (favour, thanks, gift) elsewhere.

The English narrowing obscures what the Greek does in a single word.

Four lexical senses

BDAG s.v. charis gives four distinct senses, with separate sub-entries for each.

1. A winning quality — graciousness, attractiveness, charm

This is the older Hellenic sense, inherited from classical Greek. Charis names what makes a person, an object, or a word attractive — the quality that draws favour.

• Luke 4:22 (BSB): “All who were there spoke well of Him and marveled at the gracious words [literally: the words of the charis] that came from His lips.”

The crowd is responding to Jesus’s first sermon in Nazareth. The phrase logois tes charitos names the attractiveness of his speech — what later rhetoric would call its charm.

• Colossians 4:6 (BSB): “Let your speech always be gracious [en chariti], seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Paul instructs the Colossians to speak with charis — winsomeness, attractiveness, not abrasiveness.

2. A beneficent disposition — favour, grace, goodwill

The dominant theological sense. The disposition of a superior toward an inferior expressed as unmerited favour.

• Ephesians 2:8 (BSB): “For it is by grace [chariti] you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God.”
• Romans 5:15 (BSB): “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace [charis] and the gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.”
• Luke 2:40 (BSB): “And the Child grew and became strong; He was filled with wisdom, and the grace [charis] of God was upon Him.”

This is the sense around which the Reformation’s sola gratia was framed. The Hebrew counterpart is chen (חֵן) — favour shown by a superior to an inferior, as in “Noah found favour [chen] in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8).

3. A practical application — a gift, a benefit, an act of giving

The disposition expressed in action. Charis names the gift itself.

• 2 Corinthians 8:4 (BSB): “they urgently pleaded with us for the favour [charin] of taking part in this service to the saints.”

Here charis is the Jerusalem collection — a concrete act of giving that the Macedonian churches considered a privilege to participate in.

• 2 Corinthians 8:1 (BSB): “Now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace [charin] that God has given the churches of Macedonia.”

The “grace given the churches of Macedonia” is, in context, their generosity in giving — charis used for a concrete benefit.

4. Response to generosity — thanks, gratitude

The fourth sense is the appropriate response to having received charis. Greek treats giving and thanking as part of the same word group.

• 1 Corinthians 15:57 (BSB): “But thanks [charis] be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”
• Romans 6:17 (BSB): “But thanks [charis] be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.”
• Romans 7:25 (BSB): “Thanks [charis] be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The Greek phrase charis tō theō — “thanks be to God” — is built on the same word that elsewhere names divine grace. The interlock is deliberate: gratitude is the responsive form of grace.

The Luke 2:52 puzzle

“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in charis with God and man.” (Luke 2:52, BSB)

How should charis be translated here? “Favour” (the BSB and most modern translations) is one option; “grace” is another. The verse describes Jesus’s growing public reception during his childhood. Sense 1 (attractiveness, favourable reception by men) blends with sense 2 (favour with God) in a single Greek phrase. Translators must commit to one English word; the Greek does not.

The Mary problem at Luke 1:28

The angel greets Mary with the perfect-passive participle kecharitomene (κεχαριτωμένη) — formed from the verb charitoō, “to show grace to, to favour.” The participle is hard to translate because English does not naturally form perfect passives from “to favour.”

• KJV (1611): “Hail, thou that art highly favoured.”
• BSB: “Greetings, you who are highly favored!”
• Catholic tradition (via the Vulgate’s gratia plena): “full of grace.”

Both translations are defensible from the same Greek. The Vulgate’s gratia plena — Latin “full of grace” — is etymologically tighter to the noun charis embedded in the verb. The KJV’s “highly favoured” foregrounds the action of God’s favouring rather than the resulting state. Catholic Marian theology has drawn theological weight from the gratia plena rendering; Protestant traditions have generally preferred the KJV’s framing. Both are working from the same Greek word.

Charis and chen — the Hebrew background

The closest Old Testament counterpart is the Hebrew chen (חֵן). HALOT s.v. chen glosses it: “favour, grace; usually that shown by a superior to an inferior.”

• Genesis 6:8 (BSB): “Noah, however, found favour [chen] in the eyes of the LORD.”
• Exodus 33:17 (BSB): “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘I will do the very thing you have asked, because you have found favour [chen] in My sight, and I know you by name.’”
• Esther 2:17 (BSB): “And the king loved Esther more than any of the other women, and she found favour [chen] and kindness with him more than any of the other virgins.”

The relational dynamics of chen — petitioner before a superior who has the power to grant or withhold favour — carry into the New Testament charis. The Septuagint translates chen as charis throughout. The theological vocabulary of the New Testament builds on this Hebrew background.

What this means for reading the New Testament

When the same Greek word covers four distinct English senses, modern English readers can miss the unity the original held. Paul’s use of charis in his opening and closing greetings (“Grace and peace to you…”) is not boilerplate — it is invoking the full range of the word: God’s disposition toward the addressees, the gifts that flow from it, and the appropriate response of thanks. Greek-reading congregations heard all four senses at once. English readers tend to hear only one.

For the conceptual treatment of grace as a theological category — what it means doctrinally rather than lexically — see What does the Bible mean by “grace”?.