FK: You just happened to hit all the right buttons on one of my favorite subjects. :)
Isn't calling something a free gift an oxymoron?
How so? The definition of a gift is that it is "free." If we pay for something, it is recompense.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." -- Romans 5:15,16,18"But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
Technically, no. There is such a thing as a "conditional" gift. For example, a man gives a woman an engagement ring. It is a gift, but it is considered "conditional" on the woman actually going through with the wedding, not just her promise to get married. I am not certain, and Kolo can correct me, but I think most courts would give the ring back to the man if anything went wrong. That's not true in every case, though.
Anyway, in this light, when WM speaks of the "free gift" of grace, he makes a legitimate distinction because God does not give us that grace with any expectation of performance of anything from ourselves. It is truly free with no strings attached. (There are no takebacks on saving grace.) The nature of the grace certainly causes things to happen that God wants, but these things are not of ourselves.