It never ends in a question mark.
Grace is the Father’s declaration of unequaled and unceasing kindness. It’s not a query about our worthiness or what we actually deserve. Grace rarely requires a comma, as though something other or better could be added. Our afterthoughts at best reveal what we have often failed to grasp.
If you can’t speak or write it without adding “but” or “yet” you haven’t understood the fullness of God’s generosity. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). An em dash—urgent and accelerating—typically expresses our hastiness and brokenness. There is no hurry or unseemly speed about the grace that changed and changes all our story.
Exclamation points are certainly allowed! We may make much of what God made glorious. Even in the apex of our praise we add nothing but gratitude to what Christ has done for us.
The punctuation still belongs to Him whom Scripture calls the “Word.” “The Word became 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”(Jn 1:14).
Grace requires no editing. Not now. Not ever.
So stay in it.
—Bill Knott