Amazing Grays

Our local paper ran a feature story awhile back, written by a self-identified evangelical Christian and titled “There is Something in the Air. Can You Feel It? Grace.”

Great start. Nothing turns me on like a consideration of God’s grace because, after all, where would I be without it? But then it all went downhill, as the article celebrated the growing acceptance of same sex marriage, even among believers, as evidence of a “great grace awakening.” She went so far as to call it a Third Great Awakening which is “broader” than traditional Judeo-Christian ethics, and aligned with a “more universal ethic.” By the time she’d finished elaborating her views I found myself thinking “She’s describing grays more than grace.”

She’s not alone. Any observer of modern American Christianity will note that many believers – both leadership and laity – are embracing the notion that grace means both acceptance and approval of virtually anything non-violent or non-prejudiced, and that concepts of sin, holiness, sound doctrine, and discipline need to be either re-evaluated, revised, or removed.

And all in the name of grace.

Let’s break this down. For sure, “grace” is a somewhat elastic Biblical term, used in mildly different contexts by some Old and New Testament writers, but Louis Berkhof’s definition in Systematic Theology seems to hold up when he describes it as:

 The unmerited operation of God in the heart of man, affected through the agency of the Holy Spirit.”

Unmerited, so it can’t be earned. An operation of God, so it comes from Him. Now right off the bat, that tells me God will never inspire me to approve what He condemns, nor to condemn whom He’s approved. I can judge no person, yet I’m ordered to judge both words and behavior. So grace compels me to love as He loves, hate what He hates, forgive freely and always hope to see Him glorified in all people, in all things. I stand in grace because of His finished work, not because my godless works don’t matter, and pretending they don’t matter is a perversion of the grace concept.  I likewise extend grace to a fellow sinner without redefining or condoning his sin. Real grace demands nothing less.

That’s why, with all due respect to folks who, like the columnist cited above, refer to a new “Grace Awakening”, I want to ask, “What awakening?” Because grace is nothing new, plenty of wide awake people have been experiencing it for centuries, and I’ve been hearing fine teachers explain it, promote it and wish it for all of us since I was 16. The concept of the unmerited favor of God, made available for us because He so loved the world that He sent His Son as a sacrifice receiving the punishment for our sins, isn’t new.

And it doesn’t need revision.

What does seem new to me, and what’s masquerading as grace, I fear, is a sentimental affection that’s understandable but hardly divine. Understandable, because most of us want to get along, many of us hate confrontation, few of us want to see anyone outside of God’s will, and I trust none of us really wants anyone to be eternally and torturously separated from Him. So there’s a lovely, universal sort of unity we long for, impossible in this life but wished for nonetheless. Nothing wrong with admitting that, but there’s something terribly wrong in converting that desire into a false conviction that because we want everyone to be right, then everyone’s right. Or saved. Or out of spiritual anger.

Grace has nothing to do with wishful thinking, and attempting to impose wishful thinking under the umbrella of grace is a serious error.

Emotions rise even as I write this, because I must admit I don’t want anyone to be wrong, I want everyone to be happy, and within reason I’d like everyone to have what they want, all of which reduces me to the equivalent of a naïve child at Christmas. Because as long as there’s right and wrong, then people will be one or the other. As long as happiness can be found in sin, then happiness as a final justification is an illogical, unacceptable concept. And as long as all of us at times want what’s forbidden by God, both because it offends His nature and is in fact not in their own interest, then all of us will be, to some extent, less than perfectly happy. Trying to squeeze those facts of life into a new bottle of Grace Awakening is like eating raw cookie dough (a sin I relish) and calling it Dinner. Those are, as my wife sternly points out, two very different things.

There’s nothing gray about grace. It forgives sin without overlooking it: “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” – John 8:11

Then it shapes us into godlier women and men with all due humility:

But by the grace of God I am what I am” – I Corinthians 15:10

And it empowers us towards an attitude about sin that’s anything but casual.

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.” – Romans 6:1

So yes, amazing grace is, as we know and sing, such a sweet sound. But amazing grays are saccharin, not truly sweet, misleading and dishonoring to both God and man. So let’s relish, like dancing fools, the forgiveness we’ve received and the standing before God it’s given us. And let’s likewise abhor any teaching or trend that enhances permissiveness, minimizes sin, revises truth, or muddies concepts that are meant to be clear and vital.