Grace Pushed Too Far

For you are called to freedom, brothers; only don't use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. For the entire law is fulfilled in one statement: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. - Galatians 5:13-14 HCSB

There are many today who try to foist a “Gospel of love” on believers. They emphasize God’s grace and mercy so much that they actually wink at sin! Galatians 5:13-14 is one of the favorite passages they like to quote. However, its historical context includes the fact that the Judaizers were trying to get the Galatians to circumcise FOR SALVATION.

Obviously, since Christ filled the parts of the Law dealing with atonement, anything in the Sinaitic Law that deals with salvation of the soul is not required. However, the Sinaitic Law involves an awful lot more than atonement sacrifices.

My difficulty is that many who claim to follow Christ fail to understand His teaching when He said, “Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets…not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished.”

Not only did He explicitly teach that the Law was not abolished, but He went on to raise the standard even higher! Before, the illicit sexual act was adultery; now the thought counts. Before, rage acted upon was murder; now arrogantly despising someone counts.

Because the majority of Christians have effectively excised two-thirds of their Bibles under the guise of “grace”, we are in dire moral straits. The divorce rate among Christians is no different from the unregenerate. The adultery rate is exactly the same. How is the world supposed to believe us when we say that Christ’s Spirit empowers us to overcome sin?

The early church apparently already struggled with this issue for Paul (inspired by the Holy Spirit) found it necessary to teach: "Everything is permissible for me," but not everything is helpful. "Everything is permissible for me," but I will not be brought under the control of anything.[1] “Everything is permissible," but not everything builds up.[2]

He had to emphasize again and again, “Consider yourselves dead to sin; do not let sin reign in your mortal body; do not offer any parts of it to sin; sin will not rule over you; should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Absolutely not!”[3]

By the way, a good working definition of the Greek phrase upo nomon (literally “under law”) would be “in subjection to any system which results from perverting the Torah into legalism.”

Being saved by the gracious death of the Christ does not give us a free pass to ignore morals, ethics or the elements of the Sinaitic Law that spell what “Love God; Love your neighbor” looks like in real life.

[1] 1 Corinthians 6:12;
[2] 1 Corinthians 10:23
[3] Romans 6:9-15