Grace Abuse

It seems that we sometimes take the idea of the grace of God and amplify it beyond what is Biblical. The Bible says in Romans that where our “sin abounded grace abounded the more” (5:20). It’s true, and God is really a God of grace and a God of mercy, but at some point along the way, if we are not careful, we may shake off the memory of Mt. Sinai and lose our sense of the holy. That attitude can lead to flippant worship.

We can come to Him with boldness, but not carelessness.

I need to be qualify that phrase above:“lose our sense of the holy,” I don't mean that we should be legalists. That's not what I'm stating at all. What do I mean by legalism? Majoring on the externals and making the non-essentials vital. Oftentimes people elevate preference to the point of the truth. When that happens, they have committed a sacrilege by legalism. I’m reminded of the Pharisees who took the traditions of men and taught them as the command of God...

Matt. 15:7-9 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:

8 'These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
And honor Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
9 And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"

Some may take the holy and make it profane, but some take the profane and make it holy.

So when I speak of "losing the sense of the holy," I'm not speaking of reverting to legalism (which, in itself, is a slap to the holiness of God in that legalism basically says that we can do enough good things to earn, nay, deserve the approval of God. I'm reminded of the statement that one made: "If holiness were just a matter of following a set of rules and doing certain things at a certain time in a certain way, then a computer could be programmed to be holy.")

I'm glad that God relates to us with the grace found in Christ. Grace is shown in Jesus taking my own sinfulness upon Himself and giving me His righteousness. It’s the Grand Cosmic Exchange. I can't very well be proud, simply because I didn't do anything to earn His righteousness and holiness. It is a gift from God.

When I came to Christ, it was not a matter of God becoming less holy than He is in the Old Testament, but about a human becoming a new creation for His glory and being given His holiness. He is still holy.

Is. 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

In the past, people would go to God and fall before Him, weeping over sin, mourning over those things displeasing to Him, shaking in the presence of One who is completely holy.

Unfortunately, when we think of holiness we don’t usually equate it with being broken, instead, we immediately think of “you must do this" or "you must not do that" and push ourselves back into legalistic thinking.

Remember: Our life with Christ is not a series of regulations that we attempt to follow, but it is a relationship to enjoy. There are things we should keep ourselves from, and certainly there are things we are to do in order to be obedient to him. But that is not the whole of it; we can't reduce a life with Him to a checklist.

Far too often we leave the doctrine of the Cross at salvation, and fail to apply it to the rest of our lives. Our lives as Christians are wrapped in the Cross. I often ask, “When does eternal life begin for you as a Christian?” It does not begin when you die; it begins at the moment of salvation. You become a new creation, and you start living eternally from that very moment. Our eternity is wrapped up in what Jesus did on the cross. But we often fail to live like it now.

So how are we to live with this knowledge of the Cross? How is it that we are to approach living this life with that mindset? The answer is found largely in the idea of sacrifice.

Just as on Mount Sinai blood was shed to consecrate and purify, in the Temple blood was shed for the same reason essentially: to cover and atone for sin. And Jesus shed His blood on behalf of our sin. Yet there is a difference in these sacrifices that we find in the book of Hebrews in that the blood of these animals was shed year after year, after year, after year. Jesus offered a once for all sacrifice, a sacrifice that need not be repeated because it was perfect (Heb. 9:11-15).

Do you think those bulls, those oxen, the sheep and goats, and the doves that were sacrificed under the Levitical system understood why they were being sacrificed? Do you think they had a comprehension of that? Of course not.

They didn’t...but Jesus did. Jesus understood. You don’t find Jesus on the Cross saying, "I don't really get why I must go through this; this makes no sense. I don't really understand this ‘sins-of-the-world-being-placed-upon-Me’ idea." We do find Jesus in the Garden of Gethesemane, agonizing over what is before Him, facing the dread of being separated from the Father by bearing the sins of humanity. Matthew relates:

Mt. 26:39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”

“Not My will but Your will be done.”

We find Him saying earlier that He had come to do "the will of Him who sent Me” (John 4:34; 6:38). Unlike the sacrificial animals, Jesus knew exactly what He was facing, He knew why He was dying, He laid His life down on His own accord…He said so (John 10:18). So just as the animals were sacrificed, their blood was sacrificed, their lives were taken, their physical life ended...they did not understand.

Christ sacrificed His body, His physical life, and shed His blood, but you can’t ignore the fact that He also sacrificed His will. His sacrifice was voluntary. He surrendered to the will of the Father. So the Cross then is not just the surrendering of His physical life, but the surrendering of His very will.

And it's the same for us. Sometimes we get so caught up in the externals, the trappings, the appearance of Christianity that we don't focus upon our wills and what’s going on inside of us. Jesus did not die so that you can have better self-esteem, and so that you could look better to those around you, and be well-liked, more appealing, accepted by society, and have your “ticket punched” so that you would have eternal life when you die.

Approaching a holy God means that you not only surrender your physical life, but that you surrender your personal will. Your desires, your glory, what you believe is best...you sacrifice all of it for His desires, His glory, and what He knows is best. That's not legalism, that's living a crucified life.

The writer of Hebrews gives us an understandin of how we approach our God...The Holy One:

Heb. 12:28-29 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.


We have been given grace, but let us never separate that grace from godly fear. Why? “For our God is a consuming fire.”

Ex. 19:18 Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.

He’s still the Holy One.

He says, “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16). He doesn't say, "Act holy, for I am holy."

Don't just do, be. Live a life crucified, in body and will, to the Holy One.