Utumishi Blog

“Ok,” we might say. “I like all this grace stuff. I do believe we need to be preaching the gospel of grace. But you can go too far with this can’t you? There are standards in the Christian life. There are laws to obey. We’ve got to get a balance of God’s grace and God’s demands. If we focus too much on grace, if we preach that it’s all 100% free then people will just think they can sin as much as they want.”

Look at how Paul answers that in Romans 6. He’s just been banging on about free grace: “justified by his grace as a gift” (3:24) “to the one who does not work” (4:5) “God counts righteousness apart from works” (4:6) “so that it may be by grace” (4:16) “this grace in which we stand” (5:2) “how much more did God’s grace and the free gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many” (5:15).

And he knows what we’re thinking… “Shall we go on sinning?” (6:1) 

Now how does Paul answer that? Does he say, “Ok, maybe I was being a bit too strong on grace there – we do need to remember the law – there are certain things that we really need to do.”

He doesn’t do that does he? He doesn’t backpedal or tone down his teaching on grace. He talks about union with Christ by grace: “we have been united with him…” (6:5). Notice the passive tense? Not, “we have united ourselves with him”. It’s sovereign grace. “Don’t you know…” (this is obviously supposed to be basic teaching – salvation 101) “…all those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death… our old self was crucified with him…” (6:3,4,6). When you were converted you were united to Christ and the history of Christ became your history – he died, he was buried, he rose – you died on that cross, you were buried in that tomb, you were raised that Easter morning. Just as death has no hold on Christ so it has no hold on you. The old you, the slave to sin, who deserved only punishment for sin, has gone. Now there is the new you, the new creation in Christ, living because He lives. Therefore of course we don’t want to go on sinning (6:2,11-13). Since you’ve been united to Christ in an unbreakable bond, since the old you has died the sinners death in Him, since you’ve been rescued from slavery to sin for true life in the Trinity – of course grace is not a license for sin.

Do you see how Paul has answered an objection to grace with more grace? The answer to “Can’t we just sin as much as we want then?” is not to bring in the law but to plunge deeper into the doctrine of grace. In fact Paul finishes the sub-section with a sentence that is completely the opposite of what we naturally think: “sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace” (6:14).

But Paul knows that we are still finding this really hard to accept.  “Surely you’ve got that the wrong way round Paul – you need the law to fight sin.” When we’re facing a church full of immorality or a lack of giving, preaching grace just doesn’t seem powerful enough medicine. And so we reach for the Law – “Stop robbing God or you’ll be cursed! Do this or do this more and you’ll be blessed!”  Paul knows that’s what we’re thinking: “If you say we’re under grace not law there’ll be no end of sinning” (6:15). 

How does Paul answer that? You guessed it. More grace, deeper grace. He doesn’t appeal to our free will and exhort us to make renewed commitments and resolutions. He says we were slaves and we are now slaves. We were slaves of a terrible master (sin, impurity, lawlessness) and now we’re slaves of a wonderful master (obedience, righteousness, God himself). How did we move from one to the other? Slaves don’t chose their owners do they? “…having been set free from sin [notice the passive tense again], we have become slaves of righteousness” (6:18 and again at v22). You don’t become God’s slave by being obedient, you are obedient because you are a slave to obedience – freed from sin for a new life and a new identity as God’s possession. How does he end the chapter: “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23).

The problem may be a superficial understanding of grace but it’s not grace itself. The answer is more grace, deeper grace, union with Grace Incarnate. Can you have too much Jesus?