"There is thus clearly a sense in which the message of "justification by faith only" can be dangerous, and likewise with the message that salvation is entirely of grace... I would say to all preachers: If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly, to the sinner, to those who are enemies of God. There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation." (177-178, quoting Martin Lloyd-Jones)
"People divide into two types: not the guilty and the "righteous," as many people think, but rather two different types of guilty people. There are guilty people who acknowledge their wrongs, and guilty ones who do not." (180-181)
"[Repentance] is what I call the 'catch' to grace. It must be received, and the Christian term for that act is repentance, the doorway to grace. C.S. Lewis said repentance is not something God arbitrarily demands of us; 'It is simply a description of what going back is like.' In terms of the parable of the Prodigal Son, repentance is the flight home that leads to joyful celebration. It opens the way to a future, to a relationship restored." (182)
"[God] awakes guilt for my own benefit. God seeks not to crush me but to liberate me, and liberation requires a defenseless spirit like that of the woman caught red-handed, not the haughty spirit of the Pharisees [in John 8]." (182)
"It is possible, warns the biblical writer Jude, to 'change the grace of our God into a license for immorality.' Not even an emphasis on repentance erases this danger completely... At first a devious idea forms in the back of the mind. It's something I want. Yeah, I know, it's wrong. But why don't I just ahead anyway? I can always get forgiveness later. The idea grows into an obsession, and ultimately grace becomes 'a license for immorality.'" (183-184)
"If you know in advance you'll be forgiven, why not join the bacchanalian pagans? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow God will forgive... If grace increases as sin increases, then why not sin as much as possible in order to give God more opportunity to extend grace? [St. Paul says] 'We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?'... No Christian resurrected to new life should be pining for the grave. Sin has the stench of death about it. Why would anyone choose it? (185)
"A friend of mine who led a Bible study [on Romans 6] had one college coed come to him afterwards with a puzzled expression. 'I know it says we've died to sin,' she said. 'But in my life sin seems very much alive.' Paul, a realist, recognized this fact, or else he would not have advised us in the same passage, 'Count yourselves dead to sin' and 'Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.'" (186)
"'Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?' Does grace offer a license, a sort of free pass through the ethical maze of life?... Again Paul lets out an incredulous 'God forbid!' How do you answer someone whose main goal in life is to push the outer edges of the envelope of grace? Has such a person ever experienced grace?" (186-187)
"Sin is a slave master that controls us whether we like it or not. Paradoxically, a headlong pursuit of freedom often turns into bondage: insist on the freedom to lose your temper whenever you feel anger, and you will find yourself a slave to rage." (187)
"What is required is the renunciation of the ego, and this is expressed perfectly in the phrase of Pascal: 'Entire and sweet renunciation. Absolute submission to Jesus Christ and my spiritual director.' People may laugh and scoff at you for being unworthy of the title of free man and for having to submit yourself to a master... But this enslavement is really a miraculous liberation, for even when you were free you spent the whole time forging chains for yourself and putting them on, riveting them tighter and tighter each moment. During the years when you thought you were free you submitted like an ox to the yoke of your countless hereditary ills. From the hour of your birth not one of your crimes has failed to go on living, has failed to imprison you more and more every day, has failed to beget other crimes. The Man you submit yourself to does not want you to be free to be a slave: he breaks the circle of your fetters, and, against your half-extinguished and still-smouldering desires, He kindles and re-kindles the fire of Grace. (188, quoting Francois Mauriac)
"[If] we approach God with a 'What can I get away with?' attitude, it proves we do not grasp what God has in mind for us. God wants something far beyond the relationship I might have with a slave master, who will enforce my obedience with a whip. God is not a boss or a business manager or a magic genie to serve at our command. Indeed, God wants something more intimate than the closest relationship on earth, the lifetime bond between a man and a woman. What God wants is not a good performance, but my heart. I do 'good works' for my wife not in order to earn credit but to express my love for her. Likewise, God wants me to serve 'in the new way of the Spirit': not out of compulsion but out of desire. 'Discipleship,' says Clifford Williams, 'simply means the life which springs from grace.'" (189-190)
"Paul begins most of his letters with a summary of the riches we possess in Christ. If we comprehend what Christ has done for us, then surely out of gratitude we will strive to live 'worthy' of such great love. We will strive for holiness not to make God love us but because he already does. As Paul told Titus, it is the grace of God that 'teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives." (190)
"When Augustine made the famous statement, 'If you but love God you may do as you incline,' he was perfectly serious. A person who truly loves God will be inclined to please God, which is why Jesus and Paul both summed up the entire law in the simple command, 'Love God.'" (191)
"The church, says Robert Farrar Capon, 'has spent so much time inculcating in us the fear of making mistakes that she has made us like ill-taught piano students: we play our songs, but we never really hear them because our main concern is not to make music but to avoid some flub that will get us in the dutch.'" (208)
"Legalism stands like a stripper on the sidelines of faith, seducing us toward an easier way. It teases, promising some of the benefits of faith but unable to deliver what matters most. As Paul wrote to the legalists of his day, 'For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.'" (209)
"At first glance legalism seems hard, but actually freedom in Christ is the harder way. It is relatively easy not to murder, hard to reach out in love; easy to avoid a neighbor's bed, but hard to keep a marriage alive; easy to pay taxes, hard to serve the poor. When living in freedom, I must remain open to the Spirit for guidance. I am more aware of what I have neglected than what I have achieved. I cannot hide behind a mask of behavior, like the hypocrites, nor can I hide behind facile comparisons with other Christians." (209)
"Jesus proclaimed unmistakably that God's law is so perfect and absolute that no one can achieve righteousness. Yet God's grace is so great that we do not have to. By striving to prove how much they deserve God's love, legalists miss the whole point of the gospel, that it is a gift from God to people who don't deserve it. The solution to sin is not to impose an ever-stricter code of behavior. It is to know God." (210)
"I see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace. C.S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of [power], allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist." (232-233)
"Attempts to perfect Christian societies in this world, whether conducted by popes or revolutionaries, have tended to degenerate into red terrors." (234, quoting Paul Johnson)
"Who is my enemy? The abortionist? The Hollywood producer polluting our culture? The politician threatening my moral principles? The drug lord ruling my inner city? If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus' gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace." (242)
"Jesus declared that we should have one distinguishing mark: not political correctness or moral superiority, but love. Paul added that without love nothing we do--no miracle of faith, no theological brilliance, no flaming personal sacrifice--will avail (1 Corinthians 13)." (242)
"If the world despises a notorious sinner, the church will love her. If the world cuts off aid to the poor and suffering, the church will offer food and healing. If the world oppresses, the church will raise up the oppressed. If the world shames a social outcast, the church will proclaim God's reconciling love. If the world seeks profit and self-fulfillment, the church seeks sacrifice and service. If the world demands retribution, the church dispenses grace. If the world splinters into factions, the church joins together in unity. If the world destroys its enemies, the church loves them. That, at least, is the vision of the church in the New Testament: a colony of heaven in a hostile world." (262)
"Perhaps the reason politics has proved such a snare for the church is that power rarely coexists with love." (263)
"Karl Barth made the comment that Jesus' gift of forgiveness, of grace, was to him more astonishing than Jesus' miracles. Miracles broke the physical laws of the universe; forgiveness broke the moral rules. 'The beginning of good is perceived in the midst of bad... The simplicity and comprehensiveness of grace--who shall measure it?'" (271)
"How does a grace-full Christian look? The Christian life, I believe, does not primarily center on ethics or rules but rather involves a new way of seeing. I escape the force of spiritual 'gravity' when I begin to see myself as a sinner who cannot please God by any method of self-improvement or self-enlargement. Only then can I turn to God for outside help--for grace--and to my amazement I learn that a holy God already loves me despite my defects. I escape the force of gravity against when I recognize my neighbors also as sinners, loved by God. A grace-full Christian is one who looks at the world through 'grace-tinted lenses.'" (271-272)
"We creatures, we jolly beggars, give glory to God by our dependence. Our wounds and defects are the very fissures through which grace might pass. It is our human destiny on earth to be imperfect, incomplete, weak, and mortal, and only by accepting that destiny can we... receive grace. Only then can we draw close to God." (273)
"Christianity has a principle, 'Hate the sin but love the sinner,' which is more easily preached than practiced. If Christians could simply recover that practice, modeled so exquisitely by Jesus, we would go a long way toward fulfilling our calling as dispensers of God's grace. For a long time, C.S. Lewis reports, he could never understand the hairsplitting distinction between hating a person's sin and hating the sinner. How could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? 'But years later it occured to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life--namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.'" (280-281)
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