Abstract
The Johannine writings, especially the Gospel of John, represent a special group within the New Testament, with its own language and thought profile. Examination of the Johannine concept of divine grace cannot simply follow the term charis, coined by the apostle Paul, as it occurs in them only marginally.
By analysing the two appearances of the term, the first part of the study confirms that the term and its Pauline meaning were probably not unknown in the Johannine circle. Thereafter, however, the study has to proceed by searching for other terms and possibly also thought-structures that would express in the Johannine language the same or similar content as the Pauline speech about "grace".
The second part focuses on analogies to the Pauline expressions and examines the Johannine concept of faith, the statements based on contrast and exclusiveness, the function and meaning ascribed to the crucifixion of Christ, the sayings about righteousness, the paradoxical concept of the "new commandment" of love, and Johannine pneumatology with its specific notion of "the other Paraclete". Finally, the third part of the study points out two specifically Johannine notions with a similar function to the Pauline concept of grace: the concept of (real) life, coming to people from outside, similarly to light, and the concept of "seeing the kingdom of God" as the way of participating in it.