CHAPTER 3

GRACE - THE REASON WE COULD KEEP SINNING!

You can reign in life not by your efforts but simply by receiving God's abundant provision of grace and His free gift of righteousness. To reign in life is to know that you are right with God. It is to know that God is not mad at you but mad about you. It is to know that He is happy with you, approving of you, and pleased with you. It is to know that His love is toward you constantly and His favor continually upon you. To reign in life is to live totally free from crippling guilt and condemnation with an awareness that your right standing before God can never change!

For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
- ROMANS 5:17

Under the New Covenant, God never relates to us on the basis of our performance but on the basis of Christ's performance on our behalf. Salvation and all of His blessings come to us not by our good behavior but only by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ. When we were born again, we received God's righteousness as a free gift; we did not earn it as a reward for good behavior. We must never flatter ourselves by thinking that we deserved God's forgiveness because of "good works" that we did. Our sins separated us from God and we could not claw our way into right standing with God by our works, which Isaiah likens to filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). No, the gift of righteousness comes to us solely by faith in what Jesus freely did for us.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
- EPHESIANS 2:4-9

Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
- ROMANS 3:20-25

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
- ROMANS 5:1-2

When we stand before God, He sees us as righteous because Jesus is our heavenly mediator (1 Timothy 2:5); it is as though Jesus Himself were standing before God.

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the LORD."
- 1 CORINTHIANS 1:30-31

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
- 2 CORINTHIANS 5:21

It is essential for Christians to realize that our righteousness before God can never change because we received it as a gift. We will always remain in right standing before God because it is not based on what we do but on what Jesus has already done. If it were based on what we do, we would forfeit grace because it would no longer be a gift but a reward for works.

I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.
- GALATIANS 2:21

Many Christians cannot accept this because it sounds way too simple. Surely there has to be something that we need to do, right? Wrong! That belief must go!

What happened at the cross and how does it affect our life? Of the many things that happened, let's focus on propitiation, which simply means the satisfying of God's wrath. As a just judge, His wrath was on its way to us because all sin must be punished. Though we deserve eternal punishment for our sins, Jesus stepped in and bore the full brunt of it in our place so that we could be spared eternal death.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
- ISAIAH 53:5

Even though Jesus took away the sin of the entire world, only those who put their faith in Him and His finished work can access the benefits (Romans 5:1-2). What are the benefits in regard to propitiation? Well, God placed each and every one of your sins on Christ when He hung on the cross (Isaiah 53:5-6; Psalm 103:12; Colossians 2:13-15; 2 Corinthians 5:21). That includes all your past sins, all your present sins, and all your future sins (keep in mind that when Jesus shed His blood over 2,000 years ago, all your sins were in the future!). Since God will never punish the same sin twice, you will never be punished for any of your sins.

To illustrate this, imagine that a judge sentenced you to 25 years in prison with hard labor for burning someone's house down. That was your just punishment and you served your time. You are released from prison but now the judge turns around and says, "Another 25 years." Would that be just? Of course not! Justice was already satisfied and the penalty was already paid. Serving an additional sentence for the same crime would be totally unjust.
Since God has already punished Christ for all your sins, why would He then punish you for those same sins? That would be punishing the same sin twice, but God is just and will never do that. We never have to live in fear of being punished for sin. Someone once said that the safest place in a forest fire is where the fire has already burned because it can't burn there again. Where is the safest place for sinners to be? In Christ, where the fire of God's wrath has already burned. It will never burn there again!
If you are in Christ, your sins will never be punished again because Jesus was punished in your place for every sin you ever committed or will commit. That means that even if you still sin, you will not be punished for those sins because they have already been punished. Though I certainly am not suggesting that it is okay for you to sin, the fact is that even if you do, you will con-tinue to remain totally righteous before God and never have to fear his judgments.

Though many believe that if you sin you must ask God to for-give you and to cleanse you, but the truth is that every single one of your sins has already been forgiven and thus you are already cleansed. None of the New Testament epistles instruct us to confess our sins. Sadly, there is a verse that is habitually lifted out of context to support the teaching that we must confess our sins in order to be cleansed:

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
- 1 JOHN 1:9

When read in context, it becomes clear that this was written to those who had come under the confusing influence of the Gnostics. Since Gnosticism denied the existence of sin, John countered by saying that sin indeed exists (1 John 1:8) and that it is necessary to confess our sins in order to be saved. He was not talking about believers but about non-believers.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases.... As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
- PSALM 103: 2-3, 12

Scripture makes it abundantly clear that if you sin after being born again, God will not punish or reject you or take away His grace from you. In no way am I trying to excuse sin; I am simply showing you something of the wonders and depths of God's grace so that you can be set free from law based thinking and never go back to it. Paul talks about this in the following passage:

Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
- ROMANS 5:20-6:1

Paul is teaching that for those under the law, grace comes to them when they turn to Jesus, who has already dealt with all their sins. No sin is beyond God's grace; no matter how big the sin, grace is bigger. He is also saying that we have now come into a new era in which God relates to us on the basis of grace and not on the basis of our sins. Before being born again, we were dead in our sins and sin reigned in us, but now we are alive to God and grace reigns through righteousness (Romans 5:21). This gift of righteousness that we received at the new birth has brought us into complete right standing before God. That means that even if we sin, we will continue to stand in perfect righteousness before God because grace reigns over that sin. Paul is saying that where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. Grace always reigns over sin but sin can never reign over grace. There is no sin that is beyond grace or that can overtake grace. In other words, regardless of how much you sin as a born-again believer, grace will always overtake that sin and keep you in right standing before God. Once you are in grace, no sin or amount of sin can take you out of it. You did nothing to earn your righteous standing before God and you can do nothing to lose it. Grace is the reason that we could still keep sinning while remaining righteous before God!

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
- 1 JOHN 2:1-2

You could mess up and fall under grace every day of your life and grace would still always reign over that sin and just keep dealing with it. Grace can never run out because where sin abounds, grace abounds much more (Romans 5:20). That is why you can never lose your salvation! Believing that you can lose it indicates that you believe that salvation is based on performance: if you don't do enough good works or if you sin too much, you have lost it. That is simply not true!
Because some believers keep repeating a particular sin that they are struggling with, they carry around condemnation and feel unworthy of forgiveness. The fact is that they are unworthy of forgiveness whether it was the first or the hundredth time they did it. They never deserved to be forgiven the first time they did it, let alone the hundredth, but God has already forgiven each and every one of those sins.

At the cross, grace looked ahead to every sin that would ever be committed and dealt with it then and there. The only unpardonable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32; Mark 3:28-29). Since it is the Holy Spirit who draws the unsaved to Christ, it is blasphemy to reject the Spirit's testimony of Jesus by rejecting the salvation that He offers. However, as a believer now, you could never commit that sin.

Some will accuse me of preaching "greasy grace". They will say that I am confusing believers because it sounds like I am con-doning sin. After all, the more we sin the more grace we will re-ceive, right? Actually, if the way we preach grace does not provoke the question, "Should we just keep on sinning so that grace will keep increasing?" then we are not preaching true grace! Paul preached that regardless of the number of sins committed, God's grace has forgiven them all and therefore those in Christ will forever maintain their righteousness before God. Realizing that such preaching would be interpreted to sound like anything goes, Paul addressed this matter by asking, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" (Romans 6:1). Does the way you speak about grace provoke that question? Think about it!

The next chapter will look at additional deep truths that Paul taught about freedom from sin, but first we must be sure to have absorbed what he has said about righteousness. As justification is the foundation for sanctification, we should not go on to study sanctification until we have developed a good grasp of justification. Here's an analogy to emphasize the importance of putting first things first: If you want to paint a picture of rolling hills with a small country church in the foreground, you first need to paint the hills. Only when the paint is completely dry can you begin to paint the church; otherwise, the paint from the hills will mingle with the church and make a mess of the painting. In much the same way, if we do not allow "where sin abounded, grace abounded much more" to really settle into our hearts, we will struggle and be confused when we hear, "How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?"

CONCLUSION:

Grace is not designed to make us contemplate sin and find a way to get away with it. Rather, it is to empower us to live close to God at all times regardless of what happens. It is designed to give us boldness and confidence to come before His throne of grace and worship Him no matter what. Far from wanting to run out and sin up a storm, Christians actually want to flee from sin because it is foreign to their new nature. Despite any struggles we may have with sin, God sees us beautiful in Christ and nothing will ever stop Him from seeing us like that.

STUDY QUESTIONS:
• Does God ever relate to us on the basis of our per-formance and behavior? Explain.
• What must a person do to become right with God?
• What are the two kinds of righteousness?
• In Romans 3:21, what does it mean that "the right-eousness of God apart from the law is revealed"?
• If you are born again, do you lose your right standing with God when you sin? Explain.
• What does "propitiation" mean? What does it mean that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins?
• As a believer, do you need to confess your sins to God in order to be forgiven and to be cleansed of all unrighteousness? Why or why not?
• Are there any sins that are unpardonable? Explain. Was there ever a time when you thought that you committed the unpardonable sin?