Of Grace and License

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? (Romans 6:1)

There is one recurring argument by many believers (sadly, ministers) when we challenge sin in the church or individual believers. Many are quick to push the argument that we are fronting a salvation by works doctrine. The implication is that if I challenge believers to deal with sin I am saying that Christ did nothing for our salvation or at best that what He did is not sufficient to guarantee it.

Some have become so offended by my constant brushes with sin in the Christian camp that they have come short of saying that those who challenge sin and inspire holiness are not saved. I suspect they fear to say so because they have not found any verse to even remotely support their position.

I hope I will be allowed to hit back at those accusers. But it is not for the sake of defending my position. I want people to stop fooling themselves with a comfortable yet Christless salvation when they think that grace covers immaturity and spiritual folly. Our mouths can be so full of grace and we end up in hell. Our lives can overflow with the miraculous and prophetic and we still miss the road to heaven. Otherwise explain what I call the most sobering and probably my most quoted verses in the Bible, Matthew 7: 21 – 23?

Do you realize that the driving theme of 1 Corinthians is sin and immaturity? Just read it soberly. Do you also realize that the recurring theme of Christ’s sermons was a falling short of God’s standards (which is what sin really is) and a showing of what those standards are (which is where righteousness or holiness leads)?

Get me a book in the New Testament that does not mention sin or address it in one way or the other. Just show me a book that does not address sin in the Bible and we can start talking.

Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. (2Corinthians 7: 9, 10)

It is a fallacy to think that confronting sin demeans grace. If that is the truth then Christ was as removed from grace as the evil one. Otherwise tell me why He called people brood of vipers, white washed tombs and even told them that they were of their father the devil. Why did He address His closest disciple as satan (get behind me satan)?

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: (Hebrews 12:14)

If without holiness no man can see God, how can we even imagine that God does not care for what we do since grace has covered it all? Isn’t it deception to preach all these good things to people and neglect that holiness which is their key to seeing God?

For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)

Is it in order to look the other side when sin is thriving under our spiritual care all in the name of Christ’s finished work? Are we leading people to heaven if we are not dealing with the obstacles to that destination?

But I want us to look at two main reasons that doctrine thrives. They are spiritual ignorance and immaturity. These are people guided by the externals. In other words they use the external to evaluate the internal. They use the material to evaluate the spiritual. And they use the temporal to evaluate the eternal.

What do I mean?

A miracle worker must be very spiritual according to their assessment irrespective of his character. He could be sleeping around with prostitutes yet in his performances release enough miracles and our spiritual infants will call him anointed.

I will just give one verse in response and probably add another one for effect.

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)

To God starting well does not mean ending well. Another thing grace will tell us is that the gifting is not dependent on our performance and therefore performance has absolutely nothing to do with our relationship with Christ. A miracle is God doing His thing to draw people to Himself.

But there is another thing they overlook. The miraculous is not limited to God. Christ Himself warned us that there will be deceiving miracles from the other side.

For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. (Mark 13:22)

Could you be using someone sourcing his miracles from the other side as an example of grace?

The second thing I will mention is that there is a standard Jesus set for establishing who His servants were. And it kills the argument of these empty grace advocates.

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. (Matthew 7: 14 – 18)

Look at this also

And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. (Revelation 13: 12 – 14)

This is what Christ meant when He talked about fruit. Prophecies and miracles are a poor guide as they don’t all come from God. Running after miracles can very easily take us to the other source. Remember that even Pharaoh’s sorcerers were able to reproduce several miracles that Moses did?

Immaturity is simply the lack of capacity to accurately assess available facts to come to the right conclusion. A child can be kidnapped by being offered a very small and worthless tinklet. It might love the most worthless uncle or aunt because they bring sweet things and despise the one who spends their time guiding them since in their eyes he wastes their play time and offers nothing of value.

And it is not much different in the spiritual realm. A pastor who drives a big car may have stolen church money or coerced the church to buy it. But he is being looked at as a successful pastor simply because successful corporate magnates drive similar ones. A heretic with a mega church is treated as successful because of all these people he is leading to hell.

What do we use to assess what we call success or spirituality? What do we use to argue our beliefs?

I will never push a position that is not guided by the scriptures. And I do not want to argue with someone who uses commonsense and externals to argue their position. Do not push your argument if it does not have the complete support of the scriptures. Even your experience will be trashed if it comes to my argument without the proper backing of scripture.

And I will not stop confronting sin, even if it so offends you. Just go to the Bible to look for stones to throw back at me.

And I appreciate grace, probably more than you do. And grace keeps me from sin. In fact grace creates in me an allergy of sorts for sin. Sample this.

And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. (1John 2: 3 – 4)

And

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:21)

Then

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not…. (1John 2:1a) 

The presence of commandments means that they can be kept as well as broken. Fronting a grace that overlooks those commandments is in effect nullifying that grace and being a teacher of rebellion as were the prophets of Jeremiah’s time. And we know they were judged very harshly and directly by God Himself.

Christ calls us from bondage to freedom, but not the freedom to do our own thing. Look at this.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11: 28 – 30)

He takes the burdensome yoke that we had but does not let us go free wherever we want. He gives us His yoke that is lighter, convenient, fulfilling. We are therefore free from doing wickedness and bound into doing righteousness. By the way that was the argument Christ was handling when He told the Jews that the devil was their father.

Being yoked to Christ offers greater freedom than any other freedom.

Let me give an example. A young person feels that they are grown up and therefore free to do adult things. They therefore resort to experimenting with sex that they were warned against all their life.

The exhilaration they get after experiencing that freedom may be compared with heaven in their narrow experience. But is that freedom?

A few years later that freedom becomes bondage worse than the confines of a prison cell. Even assuming they do not contract deadly STDs or cause or get pregnant, they have opened themselves up to a deadly pastime that will destroy their whole life because they have demolished the materials that make the foundation of a stable marriage and life. Worse still is that the experimenting will rarely stop when they get married, meaning that infidelity can almost be guaranteed. What kind of setting will they have for raising children?

Mark you I have taken the safest route, no diseases, no jealousies and fighting to be the only one, no discoveries of cheating which are all an assured consequence of sexual experimenting (in the Bible called fornication).

Compare them with this young one yoked to Christ and is therefore free from that experimentation because he is yoked to Christ’s commandments. These free youth may laugh at this yoked one like I was laughed at a lot in my youth for taking that yoke too seriously that I ran away from the ‘fun’ things and concentrated on the ‘dull’ life of walking with Christ (in their eyes). Yet many of them are now dead or look much older and the ones around now look at me with respect as they have come to see the reality of who really was free.

That is what Christ meant when He said we will know them by their fruit as fruit takes time to be produced.

But let me get to the weakest point of these free to do anything grace proponents. My experiences with them paint them as the ones with the least grace to offer. In other words they will judge others very harshly if they disappoint them – and they are very easily disappointed. What I am saying is that they do not mind people walking in sin, unless it touches them. Then they become porcupines.

They simply do not have any capacity to deal with what they profess. I have heard this statement many times from them. I will never deal with so and so for the disappointment they caused. Their grace is as narrow as their theology.

The one who knows grace as Christ offers it extends the same grace positively to others. He will never trash anyone as he is cognizant of the fact that the same grace is available for all. The drug addict, the alcoholic, the prostitute will find acceptance so that they can access the same grace. And the backslider especially will find that grace being extended so that he can be restored.

You see it is impossible to restore someone unless there is a standard one has fallen short of. The restoration is therefore a working toward that standard. And we also cannot talk about sin without a standard. That is the main problem with this doctrine I am refuting.

Of course growth is also not practical without a standard. There must be a goal one aims at. This explains why proponents of that doctrine have issues with Bible reading and study, especially challenging people toward that as there is no standard for growth or anything else.

I will close by quoting probably the only verses they quote, but add the verse that follows it.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2: 8 – 10)

Then

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Philippians 2: 12, 13)