The Science of Grace

Published on by dpatrickcollins1 Comment

No matter who you are, before you judge the wickedness of others, you had better remember this: you are also without excuse, for you too are guilty of the same kind of things! [and so] you condemn yourself.

Romans 2:1-2 (TPT)

It has been a long time since I realized the gospel is beautiful. It is like a Christmas present from a friend I am sure I have deeply offended. Except that the friend is God Himself, and the offense is not imagined but real. But he has sent me a Christmas gift anyway, the most extravagant gift I could imagine.

There is however a science to all of this, and my lack of understanding of the precision involved in the science of grace is what has prevented me from seeing how beautiful it is.

God is the author of all we see in nature, and one of the things we see in nature is a God whose way of dealing with the world is precise and, if I may use the term, unforgiving. Gravity, for example, does not care if you have good reason to step off a cliff. Neither does a hot stove if you touch it. The consequence of these things are unyielding, and the same is true when we violate the principles of God’s moral law.

The apostle Paul declares in the very passage I have quoted, “We know God’s judgment falls upon those who practice [any form of wickedness].” So we cannot escape the consequence of sin any more than we can escape the consequence of stepping off a cliff or touching a hot stove. It is science. We may not like it and think it is unkind of God to have created the world this way if we wish, but in the end it does not matter. It is how the world is. (And between us and God, God probably gets to decide how his world should be.)

Now because of the Cross, we are no longer under the law. But I mention the precise and unforgiving nature of God’s law because God’s grace is equally precise and, in a way, equally unforgiving. Not unforgiving in the sense God is withholding forgiveness, of course, but in the sense that there are precise rules that govern his grace. For example, God’s grace must be received as a gift. If you attempt to earn it, you will fail to open it. And if you prevent others from opening it, you will prevent yourself from opening it, also. Religious performance and judgment will deny you the grace God has otherwise freely made available to you.

We may think Jesus going to the Cross was God’s way of saying he no longer cares about sin – or anything for that matter. That God is not really a rule-follower after all. But this idea is really a reflection of our modern age, not God. We think nothing really matters and God feels the same way. But the Cross demonstrates the very opposite of this. It is evidence God cares so much about sin that he sent his only Son to die in our place. It was an exchange in conformance with his precise and unforgiving nature – unforgiving in the sense sin had to be punished. As Romans puts it, “There was only one possible way for God to give away his righteousness and still be true to both his justice and his mercy—to offer up his own Son.”

I mention this because if we think the Cross is about God not caring about stuff, we will think he does not really care about religious striving or judgment either. In fact, we will think God really does not care about much of anything that we do, that the main take-away of the Cross is that he loves us and is not too concerned with what we with our lives. And so we spend our days stepping off cliffs of judgment or touching hot stoves of religious striving, wondering why our lives are filled with so much pain, not reflecting the fullness of all he has promised. Of course he still loves us, but by our actions and attitude, we are alienating ourselves from his grace.1

But once we understand the precise nature of God’s grace, we are able to see his gift for the beautiful thing it is. It is, after all, a gift. But more than that, it is an invitation to leave the heaviness and destruction of a life of stepping off cliffs and touching stoves, and instead to step into a life of Christmas presents every day, not only for us but for everyone. It opens up all sorts of possibilities, for we are truly blameless before him. And if he has not spared his own Son, will he not now give us all things?2

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  1. Galatians 5 ↩︎
  2. Romans 8:32 ↩︎

God’s Cause and Our Choices

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And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. . . .
You do not have because you do not ask God.

Romans 8:28, James 4:2-3

God causes all things to work together for our good. But this does not necessarily mean what we experience in this life is the very best God intended for us, for the simple reason our choices have consequences.

For example, we know from God’s Word that we do not have because we do not ask. What God intends for us is all that we might have, but us choosing not to ask will result in us having far less than he intended. Likewise, God intends for us to bear much fruit and have the fullness of joy by remaining in Jesus by obeying his commands. But if we choose not to remain in Jesus by obeying his commands, we will experience little or no fruit and even less joy. God also intends to experience his peace the transcends all understanding by not being anxious for anything and presenting our request to him instead. But if we choose to present our requests to him and be anxious instead, his peace will not guard our hearts and minds. Our choices have the ability to thwart God’s perfect will for our lives.

In what sense, then, does God cause all things to work together for our good? The answer is that God causes all things in our lives to maximize our opportunity to choose the very best he has for us. He is actively orchestrating every circumstance in life to bring us to the point of choosing the good. In this sense, God is causing all things to work together for our good.

The fact God’s very best is not guaranteed and requires our participation may be sobering, but it is also comforting. For we can know even in our poor choices, he is actively working for our good, seeking to turn our lives around to align with his objectives and design as he conforms us to the image of his own Son. Whatever our situation, he is always for us, wasting nothing.

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Making Sense of Suffering

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In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)

Our church has begun a series on suffering and it has gotten me thinking about the tension that lies at the heart of the Christian faith. On one hand, God is profoundly good, a goodness we see in Scripture and experience every day. On the other, we are called to suffer. By “called” I mean that suffering, for a variety of reasons, is expected. But how exactly does God’s profound goodness factor into suffering?

The difficulty many have with God is the presence of suffering in the world. That if there were a God, he certainly would not allow this to happen. But this assumes God is the way we think he should be. It also assumes his goodness is the way we think it is. Sure, if God is all-powerful, then he must be the type of God who allows us to suffer. But whether we conclude he is good or not because of this depends on whether we define his goodness based on his willingness or unwillingness to allow us to suffer. Scripture makes clear God’s goodness is not defined in this way.

Our difficulty with God when it comes to suffering, rather, is our own conception of him. If we have been raised on a strict diet of being told God is good and he does not want us to suffer, we are understandably going to have difficulty when we do. We are going to think something strange is happening to us. We are going to think it should not be happening, and that God is not who he says he is. We are going to be inclined to a crisis of faith.

But there is really no cause for a crisis of faith if we turn to scripture, because in scripture we see from cover to cover a God, though profoundly good, willing to allow suffering. It isn’t as if the Word of God portrays God as a God unwilling to allow any form of suffering, and we now find ourselves coming to terms with a world full of it. The opposite is actually true: the Word of God shows God to be very willing to allow suffering, something that reflects the world we find ourselves in. Our difficulty with suffering then is our own ideas about God that neither agree with scripture or the world around us.

But how can God be both good and allow suffering? Again, the answer is that God’s goodness is not defined by his willingness or unwillingness to allow us to suffer. It is defined by something far more profound. To put it simply, God’s goodness is defined equally by his holiness. And it is God’s holiness that makes God willing to allow suffering. God did not create the world and then, looking down one day, say, “Something is missing. I know: suffering!” No, the Word of God is clear that all the suffering we see today came through sin. So suffering is clearly not something God desires, but it is something he allows on the basis of his holiness.

It is really important we understand this. When we object to God’s goodness on the basis of suffering, we are imagining a God willing to go to any length to prevent it. We are imagining a God willing to restrict our free will in order to prevent the consequence of sin, which is suffering, or a God willing to allow us to exercise our free will without consequence. In short, we are imagining a God who is either controlling or not holy. But God’s way of dealing with sin was to allow humanity to exercise the full range of free will and also experience the full consequence of sin. God was willing to allow sin to come through Adam and death through sin, resulting in the world we now see today.

And God is now in the process of delivering us not only from suffering but its root cause, which is sin, through Jesus Christ and his work on the Cross. Yes, even now, God could snap his finger and deliver us all from it instantly. But for a variety of reasons, he has chosen to deliver us progressively. He has chosen to keep us in the world, though we are no longer of it, experiencing his goodness in a variety of ways as we are transformed by him, being conformed to the image of His Son. And his reasons for doing so – though I have no space to go into it now – are all good.

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The Path to Greatness

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Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Matthew 16:24-25 (NASB)

What God has promised his children are glorious. Among them are health, wholeness and abundant life. But God has also promised us death. That is, death to what is often called “self.” In fact, death to self is the only path to greatness.

As a general rule, I do not like to die. But in the case of the death Jesus talks about, I will make an exception. Because the death that he has in mind is the death of everything in me that is not me. That is, it is everything in me preventing me from being all that I was created to be. Which is the same as saying: everything preventing me from achieving greatness.

Now when I say “everything in me that is not me,” I need to make a distinction here. In the words of the dating coach played by Will Smith in the 2005 romantic comedy Hitch, “me” is a fluid concept right now. Because the “me” that existed before Christ has died, and the “me” that now exists is a new creation. It is a creation that came to being when Jesus saved me, raising me from the dead to newness of life in him. For this reason, it is the only “me” that really matters. It is who I really am.

And God is in the process of putting to death in us all that is not who we really are.1 Some believers get confused by the fact we have already died to sin. They think that means it is impossible for us to sin, though we obviously can and still do sin. But the book of Romans makes clear we are not dead to sin in this way. Rather, our relationship to sin has fundamentally changed.The Spirit of God which now dwells within us makes it possible for us to overcome sin in every area of our lives. In this sense, we are now dead to sin. And the Christian life is the Spirit of God doing just that: putting to death in us the “misdeeds of the body” and we live “by” (in agreement with) Him.

This process is the “losing one’s life” Jesus is talking about. It is also what he is describing when he describes the pruning the Father as our Gardener performs in our lives as believers. Both point to the fact that in order to experience the fullness of life he has for us, something in us must die. In fact, it must die or we will die with it (see Romans 8: 13): we will experience the effects of death the “misdeeds of the flesh” in us produce in our lives (broken relationships, emotional pain, and even physical pain and sickness). But as these places in our lives are removed, we are liberated from the death and experience God’s resurrection power and life. Not only this, but we produce “much fruit”2. That is, we become all we are destined to become. We find ourselves on the path of greatness.

It may be difficult to realize death is the pathway to greatness, but for me it is a source of great hope. It means any area of my life bearing the marks of death are destined to give way to abundant life. My only task – though it may require perseverance – is to yield to God. He will do the rest. And in my experience, he is really good at it.

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  1. Romans 8:12-13 ↩︎
  2. John 15:1-5 ↩︎

The Cure for Judgment

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Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Matthew 7:1-2 (NIV)

Have you ever noticed not judging others and forgiving others are not in the Ten Commandments? Considering how important these virtues are to many, don’t you think that is a little strange?

I mention this because many times we try to be forgiving and nonjudgmental by treating them as simply “what we are supposed to do to be a good person.” And when we do, we run into conflict immediately for good reason. For example, when we try to forgive someone who has wronged us in the past, we immediately feel, “But that person does not deserve to be forgiven. They should pay for what they did.” And we are right. The Word of God makes clear there is such a thing as right and wrong, and that when others do wrong, they should be held accountable. So when we say to ourselves, “that person should pay for what they did,” God actually agrees with us. Our inclination not to forgive, then, actually comes from God. It is evidence of the sense of justice imprinted on our souls by God.

But the reason we should not judge is that God has chosen to not to judge us. And he has done so in such a way that we can only experience the benefits of his decision not to judge us by freely extending non-judgment to others. So choosing to judge others is not a sin in the usual sense. Rather, It is an act of disqualifying ourselves from the forgiveness God has freely made available through Jesus’ death on the Cross by our decision to disqualify others. By holding someone accountable for their sin, I am telling God to hold me accountable for all my sin.

And this is where the power to forgive really lies: understanding how forgiven we really are. Or shall I say: how much in need of forgiveness we really are. For you will only be able to forgive to the degree you realize how much you have been forgiven. So the next time you are struggling to forgive, ask God to show you how much you have been forgiven.

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