A campus minister approached me with a concern last week. He was very troubled about a teaching that is making rounds online about the grace of God. Some new Christians in church are being indoctrinated with a different kind of gospel that preaches that
– there is no hell. Everybody is going to heaven because of the grace of God. This comes from the teachings of universalist preachers like Rob Bell, Carlton Pearson and a number of emergent churches in the states.
– the grace of God means I don’t need to repent of my sin. God has already forgiven me.
– and to further push this doctrine of grace, they actually teach that it is okay to sin, it is okay to get drunk, it is okay to have premarital sex. It does not matter what sin that is because let me quote verbatim “Jesus is happy with you” and you have been forgiven.
With such distorted and twisted teachings of Scripture and the gospel, I felt it is high time I blog about this controversial subject called the GRACE OF GOD.
Romans 6:14-23 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
The apostle Paul knew that some people might distort the gospel thus he had to address this subject which interestingly is making rounds in the internet. Paul was saying , “Now that I have experience the grace of God does it give me the license to sin? BY NO MEANS!!! ( I could hear Paul shouting hear)
Why???
Because you are no longer a slave to sin. What is a slave? A slave is controlled by someone. You are under a master. Before Christ we were a slave to sin. As a slave to sin it is natural and second nature for me to sin. The Bible says we OFFER ourselves to SIN.
“Whatever controls us is our lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by acceptance. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our lives.” – Rebecca Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker
17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
Did you see the difference? Slave to sin but now we are slaves of righteousness.
Are you a slave to the power of sin? Or are you a slave to righteousness?It is a description of who you are NOW. You have been changed from the INSIDE OUT.
Convicted of sin? No more. Sin has no power over me. The Holy Spirit does not convict me of sin anymore, He convicts me of my righteousness. This is not who you are already.
I am convicted of righteousness!!!
When I am tempted to lose my temper…. I am righteous in Christ.
When I am tempted to lust… I am righteous in Christ
When I am tempted to cheat… I am righteous in Christ.
It is no linger my nature to sin. It is now my nature to live in righteousness because the grace of God enables me.
We can put it this way: the man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself and no longer looking to himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. He does not look at what he is now. He does not even look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and rests on that alone. He has ceased to say, “Ah yes, I used to commit terrible sins but I have done this and that.” He stops saying that. If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith. Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, “Yes I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin, yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ and God has put that to my account.”
– Martyn Lloyd Jones
How does this look now that I am righteous in Christ.
21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The result of the gospel is that we are transformed by HIS grace. His grace does not make me want to sin more but His grace convicts me of who I am in Christ. And here is the wonderful news of the gospel and God’s grace.
There might be times that I will fall in sin but I already know that I am loved and accepted by God. I obey not to be accepted but I am accepted that is why I obey.
The gospel is this:
We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.