Biblical Language and the Church of Christ - Grace & Gift

If you ask an ordinary Church of Christ person if they believe we're saved by grace through faith it's almost certain they'll say yes. To the ears of a Protestant this is good news, and indicates they should be accepted among the Protestant denominations. 
Unfortunately this is the same problem you face when talking to the Mormons. A well coached LDS will readily admit that "Jesus is the Son of God and the only way to heaven" but press them hard and you'll find out that to them the words mean "Jesus is a god, and I'll be a god one day too" not "the eternal second person of the trinity."
In the same way the Church of Christ affirms the Biblical account of salvation as a gift, but they'll likely have a heterodox meaning behind their words. 

To them salvation by grace may be likened to a son going out to work in his fathers field. After a hard day's work the father gives the gift he promised and the son is rewarded. In less analogical terms we're first obedient to baptism and keeping our salvation through holiness, and afterward God gives us the gift of eternal life.

The problem with this is that it's not a gift at that point but a wage which is due. The farmer owes his son for the work he put in. 
They might give the rejoinder: but the farmer could have chosen to abstain from giving any gift at the beginning of the negotiation and didn't. Therefore the gift is of grace because God was under no obligation to provide salvation in the first place. He could have demanded obedience but then not incentivized man with heaven and remained perfectly just. The incentive is grace.

But the problem is that this is beside the point, and amounts to a kind of slight-of-hand. In the same way God could have abstained from making the world. And so what? Does the mere act of creation make Him gracious? Clearly not. The offer of salvation doesn't change the fact that God already did freely offer eternal life; to assert that an offer to earn your salvation is the same thing as the Protestant assertion that God predestined, called, renewed the nature of a man, and keeps them safe is an error. What the Church of Christer is ultimately asserting is that God owes him for his good works because God is under contract. That they try and swap the word wage for grace does not diminish that in their system man is keeping himself, getting the glory for himself, and doing the work.

Grace then must mean the Protestant understanding of Grace. It cannot mean that God is good because He keeps His end of the bargain. It must mean that He gets credit for the whole show, from beginning to end. And that indicates that the problem with standard Church of Christ runs much deeper than it initially appears.