I had a spirited conversation with a younger pastor on the contemporary Church’s (and the contemporary Christian’s) view of the grace of God. His view, and I fully concur, is that many Christians, particularly younger adult Christians (he is a young adult, himself), see grace like a well-to-do father’s credit card.
You can just keep on charging because there is no “credit limit.” One’s conduct (i.e., one’s sin) is immaterial because you’ve believed in Jesus. So, you can live how you please. Such is the result of the downgrade we’ve been discussing over several blogposts-essays. If you are just joining the conversation, then you may wish to back up and start here.
Today, the idea is that you can sleep with your boyfriend or girlfriend so long as you’re “monogamous” because you are “under grace.” Because of “grace,” God overlooks the fact that you’re not married. Not!
In many ways, this understanding characterizes many in today’s church. In today’s church, pretty much anything goes because God’s grace is “greater than all your sin.” That’s pretty much a perversion of that old song and the grace of God.
I’ve been watching the documentary on the collapse of Hillsong Church (worldwide) and the destabilization of its denomination in Australia and New Zealand (Hillsong is an Assemblies of God Church). While the documentary is a soft hit-piece on Christianity, one of the most striking and undeniable features of the documentary—aside from the immorality of Hillsong’s leadership from day one—was its leadership’s brazen blindness to its own sinful logic.
When a married man (i.e., pastor) groped a young woman and she complained and asked for help. Hillsong’s founder explained that this was a stupid mistake. In his words, a young married man who was a little too drunk did something dumb. And so the young man was not fired. The victim of this young man’s sexual abuse was shamed as if it were her fault. She sought help. She was punished while the young married man was promoted. In their words, this man was shown grace instead of the door. Instead, Hillsong blamed the victim!
Blatant injustices aside, let’s return to Hillsong’s logic. A ‘young married man’ who was “a little too drunk” “did something dumb.” What does “a little too drunk” mean? Biblically speaking, is there an acceptable level of drunkenness (cf Ephesians 5:18)? What about the qualifications for pastors in 1 Timothy 3? And then there’s the “a young married man...” terminology. What does that mean? Would it have been acceptable if he was a “young single man?” Are a man’s unwanted advances (of any kind) ever acceptable foisted upon a woman? What does “dumb” or “stupid” mean in a case like this? What does “mistake” mean? And what about his adultery? And grace? What is grace?
If you don’t understand grace, then you don’t understand sin. If you don’t understand sin, then you can’t understand grace. The calls into question one’s understanding of the gospel itself.
When you cheapen grace, you cheapen Christ’s agonies on the cross for your sin. If you want to understand the downgrade’s version of grace look no further than 1 Corinthians 5: 1-8, which begins with “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans...” Paul confronts an early version of “cheap grace” head-on. And, yes, there are pagans that behave with greater moral sensibility than some Christians. The Hillsong documentary cogently illustrates this.
Grace, as the old acrostic goes, is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.” The sinner receives grace when she turns from her sin in repentance and faith and surrenders her will to Christ. After this begins the long march home to one’s heavenly home involving spiritual growth (progressive sanctification). The saved sinner struggles and strives for personal holiness according to the word of God. As it says in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, this involves putting off the old and putting on the new. And when you fail, God shows mercy (grace) because Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to your account as you struggle and strive to please God.
Grace is not a license to sin. God is not your daddy who has given you a credit card that gives you a license to sin. For those who live like grace is a license to sin, you do well to dwell over the words of Christ in Matthew 7:21-23:
Matt. 7:21-3 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Don’t cheapen the grace of God. Don’t be among the many who cheapen the grace of God on judgment day. Don’t presume upon the grace of God—it indicates a misunderstanding of the Gospel. And as Jesus points out in the passage above, that is something you cannot afford.