My Epiphany

Well, I have been in a social ethics class for four weeks now and for those weeks I have rejected at least some part of what my professor has been presenting. We are talking about a grace/faith ethic. The idea is that there is NOTHING that we bring to the table when it comes to us and God and us and each other. This has been hard for me.

Complete and total grace with no exception. There is nothing we do. God works up within us and flows out of us in our "fruit" not in our "works." Fruit is something that we cannot control becuase it grows naturally out of the root of our being. The root is us and we cannot produce anything but what that root naturally bears. What I do is not what defines me, but who I am is what defines me and my actions are indicitive of who I am.

This sounds great, but what about my transformation? What about sanctification? What about me being better and "working" to be better than I am? I really like the idea that I am in control of something. I want to be part of becoming better that I once was.

Last week a very powerful thing came out of this class. I was driving home and I realized that it was all true. Unequivocally true. Complete grace is the only thing that can free us and bring the life that God desires for us; the life that God sent his son for us to have. The church does not preach true grace very much if at all. We are enslaved by our guilt and our sin because we think that we can do something about it. This world is based on doing and action, which leads to constant assessment by ourselves and by others. We will always come up short and this is why we live in a depressed and overmedicated culture. It is the only realistic response to a false sense of grace (or no sense of it at all).

Instead, God says that it is only by his working in our hearts that we even come to call him God and only that by his working do we do anything truly outside of ourselves and our selfish ambitions (we can have the predestination discussion later). There is true and complete grace in Christ because we can do nothing and therefore God requires nothing. This brings complete freedom in Christ. There is an immediate lifting of the chains that we allow the enemy to use to hold us down in our guilt. We have no reason to bear them once we receive the truth of the cross.

The fear that prevents this truth from being preached from the pulpit is the fear of Christians running free; being terrible witnesses to Christ and feasting on what Bonhoeffer called "Cheap Grace." My professor requested one thing when this was brought up in class..."show me one person where this is the case." In other words, show me one person that has experienced the true grace of Christ (which isn't cheap at all by the way, its free) who is running around being anything but a free and loving example of God's truth and forgiveness. For he who is forgiven much loves much.

The true Antinomian doesn't exist. Someone that experiences the freedom and forgiveness of God does not go off and do whatever he wants. He (or she) is so floored by God forgiving them when they deserve eternal punishment and damnation that they can do nothing save run throughout the town telling everyone, "there is a man who has told me everything I have ever done!" It is an empty fear made up by the enemy to keep us in bondage. And many of our pastors are perpetuating this from the pulpit when they preach that God requires something from us.

Please understand that I was not convinced by my professor and I understand that I am not going to convince you. This is my experience, and now, a large part of what I believe to be true. I hope that you will struggle with it. I hope that you will ask lots of questions as I did (and as I am still doing). But, it will take the hand of God to convince you as it did me. However look for it, because once it happens, true freedom will flow and a true desire to share that completely with others will proceed naturally.