More Amazing Grace

What a journey! I look back over the last two years of my life and see step-by-step where God has led me to a new understanding of what it means to grow as a Christian. Christian growth does not occur as we become something we are not, but as we become increasingly something we already are.

It started with evangelism. Through the Way of the Master I started to understand that salvation was about the righteousness of God more than anything else. The aim of the gospel was to show people that they could be righteous in no other way than through faith in Christ. I think through that realization, I either got saved or understood the need for grace for the first time in my Christian experience. I also understood that there was no righteousness or goodness in me and that to please God I had to rely solely on Christ's righteousness.

Then there was an in depth look at the law and the purpose of the law. Again, through Ray Comfort (by way of Luther, Spurgeon and others) I came to understand that the purpose of the law was to lead us to grace. By forcing us to acknowledge that we could not please God by what we do, the law pointed us to the only other alternative - the savior.

Then there was the dawning realization that the gospel is every bit as important to the believer as it is to the unsaved. That it is the only touchstone of God on earth. Jesus announced, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." It could easily be assumed that he meant that no unsaved person could come to the Father except through him. Little by little I came to realize that he did not distinguish between the redeemed and the lost. NO ONE comes to the Father except through him.

This left a final hurdle. What to do with the law as a believer? I had seen Paul's abuse of the law as the "principles of this world" in Galatians. Then there is Romans 10:4: "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." The emphatic call of Galations 5:1 - "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." In context it was clear that Paul was speaking about the yoke of the law. Further on he equates walking in the flesh with living according to the law. Romans 7 and 8, 1 Corinthians 15 - "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."(1 Corinthians 15:56-57 ESV) It became increasing clear to me that the law had the odd effect of causing the sin within us to rise up and assert itself (Paul defines this principle as "the law of sin and death" in Romans 7).

I became convinced that the law was not necessary to the believer. As I began to speak confidently about such things, I was told that I had to be careful. Christ is the end of the "ceremonial law" but not the moral law. That I was preaching antinomianism and that was dangerous. We can't allow people to think that they, by the grace of God alone, have been freed from the law. They will go willy-nilly.

Which brings us to this week. I have had one of the hardest struggles of my life this past month. As my home church drifts farther and farther from the gospel and into asceticism, it is killing me. Sunday morning before the service I thought I might have to go to the hospital because I thought, quite frankly, that I was having a heart attack (this will be news to my wife, though I don't think she reads the blog - nobody does). What I didn't realize was that my biggest struggle was inside of me. It was a struggle between grace and law. Here is what was going on, from Galatians 5:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.(Galatians 5:16-18 ESV)

So yesterday I came to the conclusion that what Paul means by 'not under the law' is actually 'not under the law'. I can prove nothing to God by keeping or breaking the law, because by faith Christ is proof enough for God. In fact, I feel I have nothing to prove to anyone. Nothing to hide. Nothing to be ashamed of. I recognized that my identity before God and man is completely dependent on Christ. You see, it is never about what we can do or not do to win God's approval. Christ won God's approval, and God says that faith in Christ is enough for me to be approved as well. No more law. I remains to be seen if I go willy-nilly. But why would I ever trade this FREEDOM for that old yoke of slavery again?