The cosmic criminal (each one of us) stands guilty and condemned before God. The holy and omniscient Judge has vindicated the righteousness of His verdict by exposing the sin accumulated by the transgressor minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, and year by year. The sinner stands knowing the truth of the verdict. In desperation he drops to his knees and cries in a flow of tears, “O God, have mercy on me a sinner.” He falls on his face. All is quiet. Nothing can be heard except his sobbing plea over and over. Then he hears what cannot be true. The court declares his innocence. Can this be? Is the Judge unjust, or has He found some worth in the vile man? Then he hears the explanation: “Arise. My Son has taken all your evil to Himself and suffered the punishment that should have fallen on you.”

This is not a vignette taken from the final judgment. Such scenes have been repeated through the centuries as God has worked in the hearts and minds of sinners, revealing to them the heinous nature of their sins, the certainty of His judgment, and the incredible grace of justification through faith in the atoning death and resurrection of His Son. This is a grace that leaves angels and mankind in astonishment and wonder.
Does the reprobate whom we saw sobbing over his sin and guilt at the foot of the cross rise and return to his former life of rebellion and degeneracy, rejoicing that he can now sin without inhibition? Such a thought is alien to the gospel. There is a vast difference between grace and permissiveness. The grace of justification and regeneration brings an objective change to the hearts and minds of sinners. There is a negative attitude toward sin and a love of God hat was not previously present. In other words, as Thomas Brooks wrote, “Just as heat is opposed to cold, and light to darkness, so grace is opposed to sin.”

Why do we then see church members who speak of the grace and love of God and yet sin with abandon? The grace they have learned from their pulpits is counterfeit. It is a not a grace freely given by a holy and just God who has sworn a righteous judgment on all sin. Rather, it is a permissive leniency of a god who winks at sin. It is a grace that knows nothing of God’s hatred of sin, the awful justice of Calvary, and the sinner’s redemption from the righteous wrath of God. Thus, the recipient of this pseudo-grace regards his mediocre salvation with a levity that allows him to “enjoy” God and continue his selfish, materialistic, immoral life unchanged. We must ask the church: “Where is the preaching and teaching of the fearsome holiness and justice of God, the odious nature and wages of sin, and the terrible price that was paid at Calvary for the redemption of sinners?” Without such truth, there will be no understanding of true gospel grace.

The genuine, amazing grace of God gives birth to a life consistent with that grace and remarkably different from the previous life centered on self-gratification. It is not a rote obedience to a law code. It is a behavior of supernatural love, joy, and peace demonstrated and bestowed by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit living in us. In Roman 6:14-15 we read that we are not under the law but under grace. The motivation of grace is far more powerful than the motivation of the law. +

• Rev. John P. Sartelle is senior minister of Tates Creek Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky.
• From September 2010 Tabletalk Magazine

• Carson, D. A. (1998). For the love of God : A daily companion for discovering the riches of God’s Word. Volume 1. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
• Luke 13:1-5

Oh! to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be; Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee! Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love—
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above!

Do you claim to know the love and grace of God in your own life? Prove your claim, then, by going and praying likewise.

• From Knowing God, pg 137

• From If I Were God, I’d End All the Pain by John Dickson

Lutheran theology is well-known for the sharp antithesis it draws between law and gospel. This finds its root to some degree in the teaching of Luther who emphasized what is often called the “pedagogical” use of the Mosaic law, its use as a schoolmaster to accuse us of sin that we might look to Jesus to save us. Christians in the Reformed tradition typically see more continuity between the covenants, but this use of the Law is biblical and a major part of the Reformed heritage.
Often this use is based on Galatians 3:19-29. This use of the Law can certainly be derived from this passage, although it is more of a secondary application when it comes to the Law’s use among Gentiles, since the apostle is talking chiefly about Israel’s experience with the oracles of God. Perhaps a better place to go are the first few chapters of Romans wherein Paul discusses the role of natural law in condemning Gentiles alongside Jews who face the same condemnation at the hands of the Mosaic law (1:18-3:20). In any case, the Lord’s commandments serve both to make the non-Christian aware of his sin that he might trust in Jesus and to convict the Christian of his remaining sin that he might return to the cross repeatedly for cleansing, reaffirming his utter inability to save himself.
That such a use of the old covenant law is defensible is found in Paul’s statement in Romans 3:21-31 that the only way the sinner convicted by God’s law can be justified is through the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. Consequently, the proclamation of God’s law should be a regular part of the preaching, for by hearing the Law the believer will be reminded of his need for the gospel, and any non-Christian present for the sermon will learn that he is under the righteous judgment of the Creator and must therefore trust in Jesus.

But God’s law must never be preached apart from the gospel. If this is done, we end up reducing Christianity to moralism, giving the message that people can by their own efforts do the right thing. We must never forget that the grace of God sets us free to love and serve him (Gal. 5:1), and so this grace must always be preached as well. Without the gospel, the Law is an impossible burden.

Our relativistic age does not like to hear that there is an eternal, unchangeable law that convicts all people. But the central message of the gospel is that we have broken this law and need to be reconciled to God, the great Lawgiver. If we do not know His law, however, we cannot tell people the bad news that they are estranged from God, and if we cannot preach the bad news, how can we preach the good news of salvation?

• From Tabletalk Magazine, July 2009

“Preach the cross” (as in Gal 3:1) is to preach salvation by God’s grace alone.  Such a message is a stumbling block (1 Cor 1:23) because it is grievously offensive to human pride; it therefore exposes us to persecution.

To preach salvation by good works is to flatter people and so avoid opposition.  To preach salvation by grace is to offend people and so invite opposition.  This may seem to some to pose the alternative too starkly.  But I do not think so.  All Christian preachers have to face this issue.  Either we preach that human beings are rebels against God, under his just judgment and (if left to themselves) lost, and that Christ crucified who bore their sin and curse is the only available Savior.  Or we emphasize human potential and human ability, with Christ brought in only to boost them, and with no necessity for the cross except to exhibit God’s love and so inspire us to greater endeavor.

The former is the way to be faithful, the latter the way to be popular.  It is not possible to be faithful and popular simultaneously.  We need to hear again the warning of Jesus: “Woe to you when all men speak well of you” (Lk 6:26).  By contrast, if we preach the cross, we may find that we are ourselves hounded to the cross.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

• ESV study notes: Just when things look the most desolate, Paul utters the greatest short phrase in the history of human speech: “But God!”

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure.
His pow’r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

Annie Johnson Flint