grace Archives - Page 3 of 12

In two previous posts (Grace 1 and Grace 2) I have tried to emphasize that grace is absolutely free.

The objection that is always raised when I write about grace this way is this: Won’t people take advantage of this kind of grace?

The answer to that is “Of course they will!”

But grace that comes with restrictions to avoid being abused is no longer grace.

Romans 6:1 and Grace

Inevitably, whenever I speak or write about grace this way, someone objects that I am contradicting Paul who said in Romans 6:1 that we should not continue in sin so that grace may abound.

Whenever someone asks this question, I am always pleased, because it shows that they are finally beginning to understand grace.

In Romans 4–5, Paul has been writing about the radical, scandalous, outrageous grace that I have been presenting here as well. Note that Romans 6:1 is an objection to Paul’s teaching about grace. It is only because of what Paul has written that someone raises the objection that if what Paul is saying is true, why can’t people sin all they want?

Paul goes on to explain why people should not, but he never says they cannot. And nowhere does Paul say that if people continue to live in sin, they will come to the end of God’s grace, or will prove that they were never truly justified in the first place. No, Paul argues that if a person truly understands the love and grace of God, and what God has done for them in Jesus Christ, this knowledge will lead them to live free from sin, not to live in sin even more.

This is why I like to say that Romans 6:1 is actually the litmus test for anybody’s teaching on grace.

The Romans 6:1 Objection is the Natural Objection to Grace

If someone is teaching about the grace of God, and after they are done, nobody raises the objection that is raised in Romans 6:1, then the teaching on grace was not truly teaching grace.

A biblical explanation of grace will always lead people who have been paying attention to say, “But wait! If what you are saying is true, then why can’t I just go out and sin all I want?”

If you are teaching or writing about grace and you get this question, rejoice, for you have helped someone see the shocking, scandalous, and outrageous nature of God’s grace.

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Since Grace is Free, YES … You CAN just go sin all you want

By Jeremy Myers

206 Comments

I hold to radical, outrageous, shocking, scandalous, limitless grace. I believe there is no other kind of grace.

But whenever I teach or write about this sort of grace, it is almost guaranteed that someone will object by saying, “So are you saying that we can just go sin all we want?”

They are referring, of course, to the statement in Romans 6:1 where a person objects to Paul’s teaching about grace in exactly the same way. And Paul’s answer, of course, is “God forbid!”

Can I sin all I want?

In the past, I have responded similarly as Paul. I say “No, of course not!”

Then I go on to explain that just as obedience does nothing to help us earn or keep eternal life, sin does nothing to cause us to lose it or prove we never had it.

The reason God doesn’t want us to sin is because sin damages us.

(By the way, if you have a presentation of the Gospel which never gets the Romans 6:1 objection, then I submit to you that you are probably not teaching the same Gospel Paul was. If, after teaching about grace, no one says to you, “So are you saying I can just sin all i want?” then you probably have not taught grace. I call this question the Grace litmus test.)

But this past week I was talking to someone about grace, and they objected with the grace litmus test, and I don’t know what happened, but I sighed out of exasperation and decided to give a different answer than the one I had always given before.

The man said to me, “So are you saying I can just go sin all I want?”

And I smiled and said, “Yep. If that’s what you want to do, go right ahead.”

I got the “Deer in the headlights” look back from him. I think he had heard rumors that my type of theology existed, but he had never met anyone who was so willing to give him a license to sin as I had just done.

So yes, in a way, grace is a license to sin.

He started getting huffy with me, and tried to show that my response to him was different than what Paul said in Romans 6:1, and how therefore my understanding of grace different from that of Paul and so on…

But the more he preached at me the more convinced I became of what I had said out of exasperation.

Grace allows you to sin all you want … if that’s really what you want

If you really understand grace, and if you really understand God, and if you really understand God’s love for you, and after understanding all this, you really want to go sin, then be my guest, go right ahead.

Although grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust (Titus 2:12), grace also allows you to go sin all you want … if that is really what you want.

Let me put it another way.

If I told my daughters that I loved them completely, and that no matter what they did, I would always love them, forgive them, and be willing to die for them, and if, after I told them this, one of my daughters looked at me and said, “So I can just go stick my hand in the blender and you will still love me?” I would look at her a little strangely and say, “Well … yes … if that’s really want you want to do, go ahead. But know that if you do that, it’s going to be extremely painful. I will, of course, pull your hand out of the blender and rush you to the hospital to stop the bleeding and rescue what I can of your hand. But no matter what, I will still love you and cherish you as my daughter.”

This is what Paul means in Romans 6 when he responds with “God Forbid!” He is not saying, “No, you cannot!” but rather, “Why would you want to?”

You see, sin doesn’t stop God from loving us, nor does it stop God from doing everything He can to rescue us from the devastating and destructive consequences of sin. Sin definitely doesn’t prove that we were never His son or daughter to begin with.

No, sin hurts us. It cuts us. It ruins us. Sin destroys our relationships, our health, our finances, our marriages, our jobs, our longevity, our emotions, our psyche.

Asking the question “So I can just go sin all I want?” simply shows that you do not fully understand the love of God, the grace of God, or even God Himself! It also reveals that you do not understand the devastating and destructive consequences of sin.

Asking the question, “So I can just go sin all I want?” reveals that you don’t understand how painful sin can be.

Asking the question “So I can just go sin all I want?” is like asking, “So I can take this knife and stab it into my leg?” … Yes, if that is really what you want to do, go right ahead.

Want to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

Outrageous Scandalous Grace – the only kind there is

By Jeremy Myers

55 Comments

Grace is the key to everything.

And I am not referring to the week-kneed, limp, powerless, feeble grace that you find in most Christian theology today, but the shocking, outrageous, scandalous, indiscriminate, senseless, irrational, unfair, irreligious, ridiculous, absurd, offensive, infinite grace which Jesus exhibited during His life.

The only people who really object to this kind of grace are the religious people who think that their behavior merits them some sort of special privilege or position with God and are offended that the so-called “sinners” are put on equal footing with them before God. But that is exactly what God’s grace does.

By grace, God loves all, forgives all, and accepts all, with no conditions, no strings attached, no fine print, no qualifications, no limits, and no ongoing requirements.

The grace of God is so outlandish and foreign to every human way of thinking and living, I believe that it is absolutely impossible for any human being to place too much emphasis on grace.

But what is grace?

Grace is often defined as God’s unmerited favor, or, in everyday terminology, God giving us something good that we do not deserve.

Grace is different from mercy, which could be defined as God not giving us something bad that we do deserve.

I do not think that there is too much disagreement in many Christian circles on the definition of grace, and so I do not want to spend too much time trying to defend a specific definition of grace.

What we do see, however, is that certain groups try to limit, restrict, or modify grace so that it is not as shocking or scandalous as it first appears.

The Crucifixion was not a Condition of Grace

One way that many use to limit the extent and effectiveness of grace is to connect it with the crucifixion of Jesus. It is not uncommon to hear sermons or read books where it is claimed that it is only because Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world that God can now show grace toward people.

If Jesus had not died, we are told, then God could not have extended His grace toward sinners.

But once again, such an idea strips grace of all its meaning and power.

Grace, by definition, is unmerited.

There is nothing that can be done (or not done) to earn or merit or deserve grace. If God could not extend grace unless someone died (whether it was us or Jesus), then God’s grace is not grace at all, but is a transaction.

The extension of God’s grace toward humanity was not preconditioned upon the death of Jesus on the cross. Grace does not demand payment in any way, shape, or form. Grace is not the act of God paying the debt of sin by sacrificing His own Son on the cross as our substitute. Grace has always been extended by God simply on the basis of His love.

Grace would still be extended even if Jesus never died on the cross.

The death of Jesus on the cross was because of God’s grace; not the grounds for it.

It is this fundamental flaw in modern theology’s understanding of grace that has caused so much trouble in many other areas of theology as well. But once we see that God gives grace for no other reason than because God is gracious, it is only then that we begin to understand the true nature of grace.

So don’t limit God’s grace by thinking that God could only extend it by sacrificing Jesus to pay the debt of our sin. That’s not grace.

Want to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

Jonah 1:3 –Slapping God in the Face

By Jeremy Myers

The Text of Jonah 1:3

But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

In this discussion of Jonah 1:3 we look at:

What it means for Jonah to flee to Tarshish instead of go to Nineveh
The significance of the term “the presence of the Lord”
What the story is telling us by the repeated use of the word “down”

Resources:

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God’s Offer of Eternal Life is not Easy to Believe

By Jeremy Myers

35 Comments

God’s offer of eternal life is simple … but it is not easy to believe.

The simple offer of eternal life in the Gospel is that God gives eternal life to anyone who simply believes in Jesus Christ for it.

Simple, right?

But not easy to believe.

It is not easy to believe that God’s free gift of eternal life is by grace from first to last.

True grace is something completely foreign to the way life works or to the way most people think. Humans are unaccustomed to grace. We are told almost from birth that nothing is ever free, that there is always a hidden catch, and that we should always read the fine print.

So when the gospel is presented to us and we are told that eternal life is the absolutely free gift of God to anyone who receives it by faith in Jesus, and that there is nothing we need to do or even can do to earn it or keep it, most people start a get a little suspicious.

They start to look for the fine print.

They start to search for the catch.

The free offer of eternal life seems too good to be true.

So we go looking for the fine print, the footnotes, or the hidden conditions.

Sadly, there are far too many Christians who are more than willing to provide the fine print and explain the catch.

“Oh yes,” they say. “Eternal life is free, but you have to love God in return and obey what He says in Scripture in order to prove you have it.”

Others say, “Well, you need to understand, if you truly are a Christian, your life will have the good works to back up your claim. If you don’t have the good works, then this means you are not truly a Christian.”

Then there is this argument: “Eternal life is free, but before you can receive it, you have to fix up your life, seek after God, repent of your sin, submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, prepare your heart for faith, and pray the sinner’s prayer.”

To all these sorts of teachings, and countless similar ideas, the gospel in Scripture says “No! Eternal life is a free gift of God.”

Eternal life is by God’s grace from first to last.

There are no works needed to gain eternal life, keep eternal life, or prove you have eternal life.

Eternal life does not require you to reform your life, repent of your sin, submit to the Lordship of Jesus, get baptized, seek God, or pray a prayer.

Just receive eternal life as a free gift from God by believing in Jesus for it. That’s it!

It’s that simple … but it’s not easy to believe

This is why the free offer of eternal life is a problem for most people.

It sounds too good to be true.

It sounds too radical.

It sounds like it’s taking grace too far.

Since the gospel of grace is opposite to the way the rest of life works, many people have great trouble accepting it.

So almost without fail, when people first begin to grasp the implications of the freeness of God’s grace in the offer of eternal life—that God gives eternal life to anyone who simply and only believes in Jesus for it—they begin to ask questions.

One of the most frequent questions is this: “So if eternal life is free and all I have to do is believe in Jesus to get it, does this mean I can go sin all I want?”

A man recently posed the question to me this way, “Are you saying that I can believe in Jesus for eternal life, but I can still sleep around, and steal from people, and even murder anyone I want to, but I still get to go to heaven when I die? I don’t have to stop sinning? I don’t have to read the Bible? I don’t have to go to church?”

While many Christians would answer “No” to these questions, my answer is always, “Yes!”

No ifs, ands, or buts.

Without qualification.

Absent of all fine print, footnotes, or hidden conditions.

Yes, I know.

If I say that grace allows you to go sin all you want, you now are beginning to wonder if I am a false teacher who promotes licentious living.

You have probably heard rumors that teachers like me exist, but have rarely (if ever) encountered one in public.

Pastors often preach against “those grace teachers,” but few people have ever really met one.

This is because most so-called “grace teachers” still include a lot of “ifs, ands, or buts” in their teachings about grace. So the true “grace teacher” is viewed as a bit of a legend, sort like leprechauns and elves.

But I have now exposed myself as one of those mythical monsters that people are warned about by their pastors. Even still, you might be thinking I do not mean what I say.

But I do.

Since grace is free, you can go sin all you want.

I will explain this idea more in future blog posts, but if you absolutely must know NOW what I mean, take my course on the gospel. It explains all this (and more) in great detail.

Want to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

Romans 6:1 is the Litmus Test for Grace

Romans 6:1 and Grace

The Romans 6:1 Objection is the Natural Objection to Grace

Since Grace is Free, YES … You CAN just go sin all you want

Can I sin all I want?

Grace allows you to sin all you want … if that’s really what you want

Outrageous Scandalous Grace – the only kind there is

But what is grace?

The Crucifixion was not a Condition of Grace

Jonah 1:3 –Slapping God in the Face

The Text of Jonah 1:3

In this discussion of Jonah 1:3 we look at:

Resources:

Downloadable Podcast Resources

Do you like learning about the Bible online?

God’s Offer of Eternal Life is not Easy to Believe

The free offer of eternal life seems too good to be true.

It’s that simple … but it’s not easy to believe

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