diff --git a/doc/statuscodes.md b/doc/statuscodes.md
index 1cd72df30ad4cfec034b88f24cf02ec75e0482c4..f2df9e00dec423919be9df8a79927d30c775b6ee 100644
--- a/doc/statuscodes.md
+++ b/doc/statuscodes.md
@@ -1,9 +1,20 @@
 # Status codes and their use in gRPC
 
-gRPC uses a set of well defined status codes as part of the RPC API. All RPCs started at a client return  a `status` object composed of an integer `code` and a string `message`. The server-side can choose the status it returns for a given RPC.
+gRPC uses a set of well defined status codes as part of the RPC API. All
+RPCs started at a client return  a `status` object composed of an integer
+`code` and a string `message`. The server-side can choose the status it
+returns for a given RPC.
 
-The gRPC client and server-side implementations may also generate and return `status` on their own when errors happen.  
-Only a subset of the pre-defined status codes are generated by the gRPC libraries. The following table lists these codes and summarizes the situations in which they are generated, either by the client or the server-side library implementation.
+The gRPC client and server-side implementations may also generate and
+return `status` on their own when errors happen.  Only a subset of
+the pre-defined status codes are generated by the gRPC libraries.  This
+allows applications to be sure that any other code it sees was actually
+returned by the application (although it is also possible for the
+server-side to return one of the codes generated by the gRPC libraries).
+
+The following table lists the codes that may be returned by the gRPC
+libraries (on either the client-side or server-side) and summarizes the
+situations in which they are generated.
 
 | Case        | Code           | Generated at Client or Server  |
 | ------------- |:-------------| :-----:|
@@ -26,7 +37,7 @@ Only a subset of the pre-defined status codes are generated by the gRPC librarie
 | Response cardinality violation (method requires exactly one response but server sent some other number of responses) | UNIMPLEMENTED | Client|
 | Error parsing response proto	| INTERNAL | Client|
 | Error parsing request proto	| INTERNAL | Server|
-
+| Sent or received message was larger than configured limit | RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED | Both |
 
 The following status codes are never generated by the library:
 - INVALID_ARGUMENT
diff --git a/src/core/lib/channel/message_size_filter.c b/src/core/lib/channel/message_size_filter.c
index c12fabb37c028f96d6ab9f79ab085d8638ea4164..c80b48ee13262c577c03b78813ce3216d989e2f2 100644
--- a/src/core/lib/channel/message_size_filter.c
+++ b/src/core/lib/channel/message_size_filter.c
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ static void recv_message_ready(grpc_exec_ctx* exec_ctx, void* user_data,
                  (*calld->recv_message)->length, calld->max_recv_size);
     grpc_error* new_error = grpc_error_set_int(
         GRPC_ERROR_CREATE_FROM_COPIED_STRING(message_string),
-        GRPC_ERROR_INT_GRPC_STATUS, GRPC_STATUS_INVALID_ARGUMENT);
+        GRPC_ERROR_INT_GRPC_STATUS, GRPC_STATUS_RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED);
     if (error == GRPC_ERROR_NONE) {
       error = new_error;
     } else {
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ static void start_transport_stream_op_batch(
         exec_ctx, op,
         grpc_error_set_int(GRPC_ERROR_CREATE_FROM_COPIED_STRING(message_string),
                            GRPC_ERROR_INT_GRPC_STATUS,
-                           GRPC_STATUS_INVALID_ARGUMENT));
+                           GRPC_STATUS_RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED));
     gpr_free(message_string);
     return;
   }
diff --git a/test/core/end2end/tests/max_message_length.c b/test/core/end2end/tests/max_message_length.c
index ab58d9f9a62aae2f21384c2f64df3e0a5fa60aed..a8b6f1f79a9c25b78b67faad6d334b35f1fe0fff 100644
--- a/test/core/end2end/tests/max_message_length.c
+++ b/test/core/end2end/tests/max_message_length.c
@@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ static void test_max_message_length_on_request(grpc_end2end_test_config config,
   GPR_ASSERT(was_cancelled == 1);
 
 done:
-  GPR_ASSERT(status == GRPC_STATUS_INVALID_ARGUMENT);
+  GPR_ASSERT(status == GRPC_STATUS_RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED);
   GPR_ASSERT(
       grpc_slice_str_cmp(
           details, send_limit
@@ -466,7 +466,7 @@ static void test_max_message_length_on_response(grpc_end2end_test_config config,
   GPR_ASSERT(0 ==
              grpc_slice_str_cmp(call_details.host, "foo.test.google.fr:1234"));
 
-  GPR_ASSERT(status == GRPC_STATUS_INVALID_ARGUMENT);
+  GPR_ASSERT(status == GRPC_STATUS_RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED);
   GPR_ASSERT(
       grpc_slice_str_cmp(
           details, send_limit