The word “grace” is often seen as the forgiveness we freely get when we become Christians, but it is a much richer term than that – and even the forgiveness aspect goes much deeper than we could ever have imagined.
What God has given us as Christians is better than just a clean slate. He broke the slate! Our sins are not remembered against us any more. That’s the promise of the New Covenant: “I will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).
Under the Old Covenant, the Jews had to perform animal sacrifices to deal with their sins, which was a picture of the sacrifice Jesus would one day make. But “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4) – it didn’t do anything permanent. It just covered their past sins, not their future ones. They still felt guilty when they sinned, and needed a new sacrifice again the next year. The cycle went on seemingly forever:
“The law ... can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins” (Hebrews 10:1-3).
In constrast, the death of Jesus had a permanent effect:
“By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:14)
Jesus’s death made you permanently perfect in God’s eyes. You may not always feel it, but you are “holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22). God chose you “before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:4). You can breathe a great big sigh of relief, because your sins will never be held against you. Jesus took them all, even your future sins.
It is genuinely free. That is, there is no price tag attached to it. We have no way of paying God back for his gift, and what is more, we are not even meant to try and do that. If someone gave you a priceless treasure, it would be inappropriate to try and pay them for it. Feeling guilty or obligated is not what they are hoping you will do either.
The appropriate response to a lavish, generous free gift is to receive it! The thing God is looking for is relationship. He wants us to enjoy the overwhelming love behind his gift, and voluntarily return to him in love. Relationships are based on free choices. He sets us free to love him back, or not, as we choose. But having been loved so much, we can’t help responding the same way: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
God never identifies you with your sins; he thinks you are his beautiful bride. “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5). He knows you through and through, and is fascinated by you (take a look at Psalm 139:1-4). The Accuser may whisper in your ear that you are not worthy of God’s love. But God says you are unaccusable and perfect in his eyes.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
We received this righteousness the moment we accepted Jesus: “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Romans 3:22). It is not taken away when we sin; in fact, the very time it applies is when we do sin. That’s when we need it the most!
In one sense, our acceptance before God does depend on performance – but not our own performance. Jesus performed perfectly for us, and we get credited with what he did. Our behaviour will never add to that or take away from that.
Think of it this way. We were completely lost and unable to help ourselves, so much so that the Bible describes us as being “dead” (Ephesians 2:1). That meant God had to do absolutely everything that was needed to restore us. Our salvation had to be a completely free gift; we weren’t in a position to do anything ourselves.
When we feel tempted to try and earn something from God by being good, or think that God may reject us for being bad, our focus has shifted away from righteousness as a gift. We are being tempted towards a form of self-righteousness.
Consider what Paul wrote about having a righteousness of his own as opposed to depending on God’s gift of righteousness. After listing all the accomplishments he could potentially boast about, he said:
“I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith” (Philippians3:8-9)
It is a wonderful relief not to depend on attaining a “a righteousness of your own.” Instead of focusing on yourself and your performance (and comparing yourself to other people too), you can just rest and be loved by God, and freely give away that love.
Some Christians are under the impression that their sins are only forgiven once they confess them – to the extent that they are afraid that if they were suddenly hit by a bus, they might go to hell if they didn’t confess their most recent sins.
This is not only untrue, it is flawed in several ways. It would mean that whenever we sin, God disowns us (contrary to 2 Timothy 2:13), abandons us (breaking his promise in Hebrews 13:5), un-adopts us as his children and revokes the love he lavished on us (1 John 3:1), un-chooses us from before we were born (Ephesians 1:4), withdraws our name from the book of life in which our names were written from the foundation of the world (Revelation 17:8), un-seals us with the Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13) ... and then when we confess our sins, re-adopts us, re-chooses us, re-writes our name in his book and the Holy Spirit pops back inside us and makes us his temple again.
God will never break any of his promises to us. He is not depending on us to maintain our standing before him by trying to stay clean, either by our good behaviour or by confessing sins. He has already made us clean for all time. “It is finished” (John 19:30); everything that needed to be done to make us right with him has already been done.
The actual reason for confessing sins is that this is a relationship. Keeping things in the light and being open with God is just what you do with someone you love and trust. There is never a need for us to hide anything from God. At all times we can “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We can “approach God with freedom and confidence” (Ephesians 3:12), knowing that we will be loved, embraced and accepted.
What about 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”? In the context, John is confronting false believers who claim to be without sin (verses 8 and 10). As Christians, we have already been cleansed and purified by the death of Jesus, once and for all. See this commentary for a full explanation of 1 John 1.
Ken Blue says that you don’t sin for the same reason that you don’t put your lips in a meat grinder: it’s painful and disfiguring!
There is healing and restoration available for when we make a mess of things, but ultimately sin is a pale substitute for what we were really created for: the “life to the full” that Jesus came to give us (John 10:10).
As a Christian, you are a new person (2 Corinthians 5:17). God has placed in your heart a new set of desires: to hate what is evil, and love the same kinds of things that he loves. When you sin now, you are acting out of character; it is against the grain of the new person he has made you. You might be temporarily entangled sometimes (Hebrews 12:1), but he will always restore you and lift you up again.
Romans 6:14 says, “Sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace” – which is not a command, but a wonderful promise and a statement of fact: sin cannot master you, since God’s grace is much more powerful. (Which is just one of many differences between grace and law: the law leaves you powerless in the face of sin).
What sin does not do, however, is separate us from God. Before Jesus came, sin was indeed what caused the separation between us and God (Isaiah 59:2). But that is exactly why Jesus died: to reconcile us to God (Romans 5:10) and restore that broken relationship. Now nothing will separate us ever again.
Nevertheless, Paul didn’t say something like, “This is all a loss, God is going to give up on you if you don’t straighten up and do better.” Instead he reminded them of God’s faithfulness and how much he had given them:
“You do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:7-8)
And he reasoned with them in the light of who they really were in Christ:
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!” (1 Corinthians 6:15)
The situation in Galatia, however, was very different. The Galatians had been somehow tricked into believing that they still needed to follow the law of the Old Covenant in order to please God. Paul’s reaction (after calling them idiots in 3:1) was that if they approach God that way, “Christ will be of no value to you at all” (Galatians 5:2) and “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace” (verse 4).
The phrase “falling away” is sometimes used about people who drift away from God, but here in Galatians it refers to someone starting to relate to God through religious rules and laws: “being good” as a way of getting God to like them. The effect of doing this is that Jesus became of “no value” to them; they were losing their salvation by trying to live up to a certain standard, rather than depending on Jesus’ death as their only source of righteousness.
Although the law is good in its own way (Romans 7:16), its demand for a perfect, sinless life is a heavy burden. Peter referred to the law as “a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10) – as opposed to Jesus’ light and easy yoke (Matthew 11:30).
In introducing the law to Israel, Moses told them: “If we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness” (Deuteronomy 6:25). So far so good; it sounded like keeping the law could make you righteous and acceptable to God. But there is a catch, as Paul points out:
“All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law’ ” (Galatians 3:10)
The catch is that you have to keep the whole law, all the time, without fail – or you have broken it. It is not a test with a 50% pass mark; the standard is 100%. And no one has ever met that perfect standard except Jesus, and so everyone who attempts to approach God via the law is cursed.
Which is the whole point. The law’s actual purpose is to bring us out of denial. It shows us that, yes, we really do have a problem – and what’s more, there is no way for we ourselves to solve that problem.
“No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” (Romans 3:20)
“I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.” (Romans 7:7-8)
“The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20)
What the law does, if we let it, is lead us away from any hope in gaining a righteousness of our own through our own good behaviour, and to Jesus instead as our Saviour and “our righteousness”:
“Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (Romans 10:14)
“What the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son” (Romans 8:3)
As Christians we are not under law any more, but under grace. The New Testament uses strong language to emphasise this: we are dead to the law, released from the law, and under a New Covenant that completely replaces the Old one, without any overlap:
“So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4)
“We have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6)
“By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13)
“The law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian” (Galatians 3:24-25)
Even though the law is eternal (Matthew 5:18), we no longer look to it to find out how to live. The idea of letting go of the law may be challenging; after all, it reflects God’s perfection and beauty. But at the same time, remember that it kills (2 Corinthians 3:6), condemns (2 Corinthians 3:9) and brings wrath (Romans 4:15). We were always on its wrong side. But Jesus is the opposite of all that: he gives us life to the full, tells us we are never condemned, and saves us from God’s wrath completely and forever. Jesus fufilled the law (Matthew 5:17) so that we would never have to suffer its curses.
And now we have something far superior: living by the Spirit, in a relationship of love and freedom with God. The law never empowered us, just left us on our own. Under the New Covenant of grace, we have new life inside us that loves the same things that God loves. In addition, we have received God’s extravagent and infinite love, and love him in return; “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This also changes things dramatically. As someone has said, you will do things for love you would never do out of duty.
“Love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10)
It is not possible to combine the Old and New Covenant, or to mix law and grace. What inevitably happens when someone introduces law to a group of Christians as a way of pleasing God is some form of spiritual abuse. A distorted version of the law can be a great tool for getting people to do things through guilt and manipulation, because “God says you have to do this.” But human beings made in the image of God were never meant to be treated that way.
Giving us this freedom is one of the reasons Jesus died: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free“ (Galatians 5:1). That’s a very interesting way to put it! The reason Jesus set us free ... was so that we would be free.
We are not the people we were created to be unless we are free. Eagles were made to fly and horses were made to run; we were made to have genuine freedom and choices. Being 100% accepted by God is a big part of that freedom. If you know that you will be loved and accepted no matter what, that creates a wonderful environment where you are free to take risks, even if you mess up sometimes.
The world views freedom in a rather self-centred way: “I can do what I like”. But the New Testament gives some good clues about what true freedom looks like:
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13)
“Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God” (1 Peter 2:16)
The most free person to ever walk the earth was Jesus, the perfect man. He was clear about his identity as the rightful ruler of the world, but he used his freedom to give away incredible love:
“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet” (John 13:3-5)
Being free means that whatever love we give away, it is always voluntary. As a free person in Christ, we do not have to do anything. But we have a longing to express the life that he has placed inside us, and to enjoy the “life to the full” that Jesus came to give us (John 10:10). We have been loved, and we want to express love in return (1 John 4:19). To imitate Jesus and his love is to be truly human, and who we were created to be.
Grace means that it’s OK to be wherever we are right now. God would still love us the same even if we never changed. But we want to grow and be all we are created to be; we want more. The new life God has given us longs to be expressed and made manifest.
The wonderful thing is, grace includes even more than God’s forgiveness and acceptance. Take a look at the following verses:
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10)
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8)
An aspect of grace is God’s power – not just abstract power, but God himself coming alongside and helping us.
We have each been given grace that fits perfectly with who we are and our individual calling:
“We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us” (Romans 12:6)
“To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it” (Ephesians 4:7).
To come at it from a different angle, Jesus lives inside us and works through us by the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t leave us alone to try and figure out how to live; we do this whole thing together, in partnership with him. Which is much better than just having a list of rules to follow!
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28)
It is common for human beings to arrange themselves into hierarchies, with the most important, gifted or knowledgable person at the top. But it is not so in the kingdom of God or under grace. Jesus said, in contrast to the Pharisees (who loved titles of honour), “You are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.” (Matthew 23:8). As someone has said, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. We are all equally in need of a Saviour, and are all equally children of God (the highest position there is, apart from God himself).
There is one mediator between God and men – Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). There was never meant to be anyone else between us and God. We have a direct relationship with him, which is what Jesus died to restore. If a leader says we must submit to them and do what they say without question (because questioning is “rebellious”), that leader is not representing God at all. Submission in the church is mutual, not hierarchical:
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).
The reason to submit to leaders is not because they have a right to make decisions for us, or are more special or closer to God than we are. It is simply logical and reasonable; why sabotage someone who is aiming to serve and help you? As Paul writes:
“Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority ... Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you” (Hebrews 13:7)
There is every reason to support and bless and follow leaders who are following God. But true authority does not come from a position; it comes from truth. If a leader diverges away from the gospel, or is abusive or lording their position over others (see 1 Peter 5:3), then we are not obligated to follow them and are free to either confront them (according to Matthew 18:15-17) and/or leave such an unhealthy church environment.
There are plenty of opportunities to show love to each other in the church, not least of which is forgiving the uncaring ways we sometimes treat each other:
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32)
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13)
No one deserves forgiveness; that’s the whole point. You can only forgive something that is a genuine wrong. It may seem like an injustice for someone to get away with their sin against us unpunished, but that is the very thing God has given us, lavishly and unreservedly. God asks us to pass on that free grace to those who have done nothing to deserve it.
Being a channel of grace to others opens you up to receiving even more grace from God. As someone once said, if you don’t demand “an eye for an eye,” maybe God will end up giving you two or three eyes!
Justice is not a bad thing, and on the last day God will sweep away all of the injustice in the world. But that is his job, not ours (see Romans 12:17-19). We have received mercy, and the most life giving thing we can do for others is to pass on that same mercy. Not because of any obligation, but as dearly loved children imitating the generous love God has poured out on us (Ephesians 5:1-2). We get to be part of what he is doing in this world: bringing love and grace where it expects nothing but harshness and condemnation.
God says in Isaiah 55:8, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” The context is that he offers to “freely pardon” (vs 7). Grace is unexpected and surprising – not what people expect at all. It is scandalously over-generous; we are not just forgiven, but we are raised to the highest place imaginable as co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). Having so much grace dumped on us means that we can afford to give it away to other people too. We never lose out in the end by giving away God’s grace.
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9, GWT)
God is looking forward to our reaction when we see the fullness of his grace to us when Jesus returns. We will be given new bodies like Jesus’ glorious body (Philippians 3:21). We be face to face with God (Revelation 22:4), knowing him fully as we are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). We will have eternal joy in his presence (Psalm 16:11). There will be no more tears or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4). We will reign with him (2 Timothy 2:12), sharing his throne (Revelation 3:21).
God will receive glory through the grace he has shown us:
“God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6-7)
And he will reward his children for the ways they showed love to him:
“The Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:27)
“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does” (Ephesians 6:7-8)
“He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God” (1 Corinthians 4:5)
The rewards he gives us are yet another act of grace. No one can earn anything from God; everything is a free gift. God just wants to praise and shower love on his children when we stand before his throne. It is a “judgement” in the sense of evaluating our life and actions, but because our sins are already 100% dealt with, the focus is on the things he treasures that we did for him out of voluntary love. In particular, the secret things that perhaps we ourselves have forgotten. Note that the things “hidden in darkness” in 1 Corinthians 4:5 (see above) result in praise from God.
We may sometimes think, “What have I ever done that God values?” But our way of showing love to God need not be dramatic. “If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42).
We see imperfect glimpses of the depths of God’s love and grace here on earth, but one day we will see it fully unveiled. And we will be overwhelmed. Like the elders around the throne, we will lay down our crowns (Revelation 4:10) and declare that all the glory is his. Amazingly though, Jesus’ intention is to share his glory with us:
“If we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Romans 8:17)
“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).
Not to minimise our suffering (every one of our tears is precious to God), but the pain we experience in this present world is relatively brief in the light of eternity:
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
“Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)
Jesus has gained for us more than we could have hoped for or dared to imagine, and it is all for free. If it seems like too much, then that’s the whole point! God’s grace is extravagent and unlimited, and there is always more available.
In the fall it seemed like we lost everything, without hope of ever being restored again. Through Jesus our hope is restored – and we get back all that we lost, plus a whole lot more.
Questions or comments to:
davidfisher@australiaonline.net.au
Writing --
Home