Redemption and Grace or the Demands of the Law

REDEMPTION AND GRACE

or

THE DEMANDS OF THE LAW

A baby is born with what is commonly called “Down’s Syndrome”. There are some obvious visual aspects as well as intellectual and emotional aspects as well. Another baby is born a girl but she has abnormal levels of testosterone and it alters her physique as well as changes her normal sexual attractions. Another baby is born with an adrenaline seepage which makes him frustrated and his temper is way out the normal range. Another baby is born with autism and refuses to respond to normal commands.

There are perhaps thousands of other biological abnormalities which result in irregular and sometimes bizarre behaviors. And the ones to which I refer have a direct relationship between behavior patterns and some physiological malfunction. Babies are born every day with these kinds of issues from slight to moderate and all the way to extreme. And as these children grow up they must deal with inward emotions and desires and pressures that normal children cannot imagine. That does not mean that most misbehaving children can blame it on some biological issue, but what it should do is make us aware that the effects of the curse reveal themselves in an array of areas. It is very easy and self serving to dismiss these kinds of facts and blanket everyone with a pristine and willful disobedience to the law and thereby relieve any struggle with the depth and scope of God’s redemption. All men are born sinners and all stand in need of redemption before a holy God. And Christ is the only path to that redemption.

But the church has isolated certain sins and ignored others. And along with that we have dismissed a range of disorders caused by physiological issues and labeled them as sin via an overt choice of that particular sinner. We have erroneously thought that any syndrome of disorders is an excuse for sin, or disrupts the doctrinal syntax as it pertains to sin. But that is not the case at all. In fact, the disorders and maladies to which I refer are all sin related and can be traced back to the very first sin. And since all men are born as sinners then that eliminates this emphasis on either the qualitative or quantitative assessment of sin, especially as it pertains to divine judgment.

If all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, and if by one man’s sin we all are born fallen and in need of redemption, then how can works be recognized as part of the redemptive process? And if there are no works of righteousness that we can do to affect positively God’s offer of complete redemption through faith in Christ alone, then what implications does that upon the very essence of redemption and how it is made effective in a sinner’s heart and life? This is where the church has so often ventured into the vault of God’s eternal truth concerning redemption and taken certain unwise liberties. And when liberties are taken with the gospel then those liberties become stumbling blocks, falsehoods, and even heresies.

Each sinner stands before God as fallen and completely and utterly undeserving of eternal life. In fact, he is deserving of eternal death. His sin both inherited and practiced is empirical evidence that demands justice before a Holy God. That scenario is a constant among all men. No one is more or less deserving of God’s mercy and grace, and no one is more or less deserving of God’s justice and punishment. All men stand shoulder to shoulder with no plea or explanation. Eternal death awaits us all as we stand before God dressed in nothing but our sin and false righteousness. That situation is as dire as it gets.

Take the Christless humanitarian who dedicates his life to helping others, and place him beside the Christless practicing homosexual who is also a drug dealer to children, and you have two sinners equally condemned before God. Does that shock you? Do you have a difficult time coming to grips with that comparison? I mean doesn’t the humanitarian deserve some kind of consideration even though he still needs Christ? In our fallen minds we have created some self serving caste system which takes the consequences and weight of sins that are clearly evident here on earth, and we have translated them into the realm of eternal salvation. And even if we admit that Christ alone is the door, we subliminally, and sometimes openly, suggest that certain sinners must be viewed differently even without Christ. But I ask you this: If all sinners are dead in trespasses and sins, how can someone be more dead than totally dead? That reminds me of Miracle Max in the Princess Bride as he looked upon the dead Prince and he says, “I’ve seen worse.” Miracle Max goes on to offer the prognosis that the Prince is “mostly dead”.

Most of us find that humorous, however that is sometimes how we see things as it pertains to the eternal state of sinners. The sin of the gay drug dealer is far worse than the sin of the humanitarian when assessed through earthly prisms. But when we weigh their sins if front of the Holy and Eternal God of All Creation their sins have equally destroyed their souls and equally present an horrific affront to that same God. I hope, I pray that you can see the difference. This is not a condoning of sin, but this is the essence of the gospel. The offer of redemption goes out to whosever will regardless of their sin. It is an eternal miracle of grace without preconditions except that it applies only to those who are still dead in their sins. And that includes us all.

So now if we recognize the essence and purity of the offer of God’s redemption, and if we also recognize the equality of all sinners before God, then we can allow the Spirit to illuminate our eyes to the scope and the depth and the unsettling grace that is inherent within the gospel. Condoning sin? Absolutely not! Easy believism? Never! Lip service means being born again? God forbid! But let us now embrace the uncomfortable elements of that gospel. The word “uncomfortable” is used to show our own self righteousness because when we see lost sinners in a caste system it emanates and is fed by self righteousness and an unspoken perspective that we ourselves were only “mostly dead” and somehow became a believer with less sinful baggage than others.

Oh but the endless riches of His eternal grace! Open your hearts my brethren and see just who you were and what He has done! Were you any less of an enemy of God than others? Is the man who loads the bombs on the planes less culpable than the pilot who drops them? You see, when we look at the majesty of God’s redemption through the dirty lens of earthly perspectives we do a heartbreaking disservice to His love and grace. In fact, we also diminish the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How much blood did He shed for your sin? Was it less than He shed for David Berkowitz or Jeffrey Dahmer or Susan Atkins?

No, again we love to weigh things out like we were ordering lunch meat at the deli. You and I needed ALL of His shed blood as did all those who I listed. No sinner comes to Christ needing any less of His sacrifice than the whole! And please think on this…He gave it all to each and every one of us. You and I did not need some or even most of His sacrifice upon that cross. We needed it all! And so it was given to any sinner who repents and believes the gospel. You may not have understood the depth of it all when you first believed, but now you do. How could God do such a thing for me? Or you? This is beyond us and yet we cleave to Him in love and worship.

Take a brief look behind you. What is that we see? I see a grave now empty with dirt scattered everywhere. I see this grave filled with rotting works of the flesh and all sorts of diabolical transgressions committed against a Holy God. But I see no corpse. I see an empty grave of sin from which I was made alive. And sometimes I bring a corpse over to my former grave and I point it out to him and I invite him to look at me now. And I make it abundantly clear that I did not arise from that grave of sin by any power of my own, but that I believed on the Author of Life named Jesus and in an instant I was made a new and alive creation in Him! And as he gazes at my former grave, that sinner realizes he is still dead in his. And only through the miraculous ministry of the Spirit that sinner can be drawn to Jesus and like me look at an empty grave of sin where he once reposed.

And not one element of the law did I keep in order to be made whole. And look around at all the graves still left untouched by the Spirit. Can you not see something very similar? Yes, they have all been dug to the same depth. They may be different in the specifics of their repulsiveness, but they are equal in that repulsiveness. And the quality of their death is equal and complete. But when any sinner believes on the Lord Jesus Christ and is resurrected from his place of spiritual death, he stands equal among the saints and is in fact alive in Christ. Completely, profoundly, and eternally.

Halleluiah! What a Savior!