Grace ≠ License: Understanding the True Power of Grace and Jesus’ Sacrifice
Yes, it is wonderfully true that he does not count our sins against us. But it is not the ultimate wonder. The wonder of all wonders is that God counted our trespasses against his Son the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not pass them by; he punished them to the full in the person who “himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). - Sinclair B. Ferguson
Words such as “saved” and “salvation” are used so frequently, casually, and flippantly that I wonder if we sometimes fail to appreciate their true value and significance.
Jesus didn’t come into this world to save us from having a bad hair day, to simply give us a positive attitude, to merely improve our lives, or to rescue us from some minor inconveniences. He didn’t come only to make us happy, successful, or fulfilled.
Certainly, these are some of the many secondary and peripheral benefits to being in relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but the driving and compelling purpose in Jesus coming to this Earth was to save humanity—us—from sin, from our separation from God, from our lostness. In a sense, He came to save us from our fallen selves.
God Is Just
O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. (Hosea 13:9 KJV)
Your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you. (Isaiah 59:2)
We really needed help, and help us He did! He sent Jesus to the Cross. There are those who think the Cross was unnecessary. They are sadly mistaken. Paul referred to “the offense of the cross” (Galatians 5:11) and said, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). How is such a seemingly cruel act—the crucifixion of the Son of God—the power of God? It paid the full debt of mankind’s sin.
Perhaps some think God looks the other way or ignores the sins of humanity because He is a God of love. However, the Bible also teaches that God is just. Deuteronomy 32:4 says,
All His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.
Stop and think about this for a moment. What would we say of an earthly judge who dismissed every case brought before him in spite of massive, incriminating evidence against the accused, even in heinous crimes? What if he chose to overlook every criminal act that was presented to him? We would say that such a judge was corrupt and did not uphold justice. We would rightly be concerned that the message such irresponsible leniency would be sending to our society is: Crime is okay and has no consequences.
There is absolutely nothing in the Bible—including God’s grace— that indicates God is light on sin. Consider the following:
“The Lord God…by no means clearing the guilty” (Exodus 34:6-7).
“A just God and a Savior” (Isaiah 45:21).
“Every one shall die for his own iniquity” ( Jeremiah 31:30).
“He reserves wrath for His enemies” (Nahum 1:2).
God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” and He “cannot look on wickedness” (Habakkuk 1:13).
Even when we move into the New Testament, we find God still hates sin and is just. Paul said that those who were stubborn and refused to repent from sin and be saved were, “storing up terrible punishment” for themselves, and that, “a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5 NLT).
When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)
Of Jesus, Scripture says, “You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness” (Hebrews 1:9). Hebrews 10:31 goes on to say, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and Hebrews 12:29 says, “Our God is a consuming fire.” What should we do then? Jude said, “Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment” ( Jude 23 NLT).
Jesus said that He hated both the deeds and the doctrine of a group called the Nicolaitans (Revelation 2:6,15). They were a sect believed to be founded by Nicolas, one of the seven deacons appointed to wait on tables in Acts 6. Nicolas taught that because Christians were no longer under the Law, they were free to live as they pleased. They could participate in pagan festivals, which involved idolatry and immorality, and engage in any type of behavior they desired. It was a perversion of the gospel and the biblical doctrine of grace.
In addition to the glories of Heaven described in the book of Revelation, there is also a stark description of final judgment, which will take place at the Great White Throne.
And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)
Hell is Real
Some have tried to reason away Hell. Those who reject the authority of the Bible may say that Hell is simply a result of man’s imagination. Some who use the Bible to support their unbiblical opinions acknowledge that Hell is taught in the Bible, but they believe no one will go to Hell because Jesus died for everyone’s sins, which means everyone will be forgiven and go to Heaven. This latter idea is often referred to as universalism or ultimate reconciliation.
I’m not against using reason, but we were never meant to exalt our own reasoning above the Word of God. God invited us to reason with Him not against Him, and His reasoning is found in the Bible.
“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
Recognizing how difficult it is for us to accept the horrendous reality of Hell, C. S. Lewis said,
There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than the doctrine of Hell, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, especially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by the Christian Church, and it has the support of reason.
To embrace the idea that everyone well automatically be saved based upon Jesus’ death, one would have to completely disregard the numerous scriptures that plainly teach salvation and forgiveness must be received by faith by the individual. For example, John 1:12 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
William Evans skillfully pointed out the difference between what God has made available as opposed to what man actually receives:
The atonement is sufficient for all; it is efficient for those who believe in Christ. The atonement itself, so far as it lays the basis for the redemptive dealing of God with men is unlimited; the application of the atonement is limited to those who actually believe in Christ. He is the Savior of all men potentially (1 Timothy 1:15); of believers alone effectually (1 Timothy 4:10). “For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we believe in the living God, who is the Saviour of men, specially of those that believe.” The atonement is limited only by men’s unbelief.
We should never address such a weighty topic as Hell and eternal damnation lightly. D. L. Moody said, “I cannot preach on hell unless I preach with tears.”
And Paul said, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11).
Jesus Was Born to Save
Grace does not mean God excuses sin. Paul encouraged us to consider both the goodness and the severity of God (Romans 11:22). Having received His grace, we get to enjoy His goodness, but make no mistake about it—God still hates sin. The Good News is that even though God abhors sin, He loves us; and that is why He sent Jesus to save us from our sins and restore us to Himself.
The angel Gabriel told Joseph, “And she [Mary] will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21, brackets mine).
Jesus said of Himself, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Paul said, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief ” (1 Timothy 1:15).
After Jesus had purchased salvation for us, Peter told those listening to him, “Be saved from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:40).
Paul said of the salvation we have through Jesus, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:9). He reinforced this thought when he said, “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:17-18
What we do see is Jesus, who was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.” Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone. (Hebrews 2:9 NLT)
What an amazing thought! Jesus Christ, our perfect and sinless substitute, tasted death for everyone. The Bible even says how He did it: by God’s grace. It was God’s love, compassion, and mercy for you and for me that not only sent Jesus to the Cross but enabled Him to endure it. Jesus was no helpless victim of hatred or persecution. He voluntarily surrendered Himself to death.
“No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (John 10:18)
Jesus went to the Cross willingly, knowing that Isaiah 53:6 was going to be fulfilled as He suffered on our behalf:
All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, everyone, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
As our substitute on the Cross, Jesus suffered the unimaginable and the incomprehensible. Grace never means that God is light on sin! Grace means God placed sin and the punishment for sin on His only Son so we would never have to incur His wrath. First Thessalonians 5:9 says, “God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” What was the basis for this?
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are Saved from What? of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 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 5:17-19,21)
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:13-14)
Remember, it was by grace that He tasted death for every man, woman, and child. It was by grace that the sins of the world were laid upon Him, that He was made poor for us, and that He was made a curse for us. It is also by grace that God makes us righteous, enriches our lives, and blesses us. It was the grace of God working in and through Jesus that motivated everything He did for us.
The Gravity of Sin and the Greatness of His Love
John Chrysostom, who became Archbishop of Constantinople in 398 A.D., said, “By the Cross we know the gravity of sin and the great ness of God’s love towards us.” It is common, and rightly so, that we hear much about the love of God. However, it is also important to understand what Chrysostom referred to as “the gravity of sin.” Noted Bible commentator Harry Ironside said,
No finite mind can fathom the depths of woe and anguish into which the soul of Jesus sank when that dread darkness spread o’er all the scene.
It was a symbol of the spiritual darkness into which He went as the Man Christ Jesus made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
It was then that God laid on Him the iniquity of us all that His soul was made an offering for sin. We get some faint understanding of what this meant for Him when, just as the darkness was passing, we hear Him cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Each believer can reply, “It was that I might never be forsaken.” He took our place and endured the wrath of God our sins deserved. This was the cup from which he shrank in Gethsemane; now, pressed to His lips, He drained it to the dregs.
Ironside further expounded on the sufferings of Christ in a sermon entitled “The Sinless One Made Sin”:
In some way our finite minds can not now understand, the pent-up wrath of the centuries fell upon Him, and He sank in deep mire where there was no standing, as He endured in His inmost being what you and I would have had to endure through all eternity, had it not been for His mighty sacrifice.
When we catch a glimpse of the sufferings of Christ on the Cross and understand that the precious blood of the sinless, spotless Son of God was shed on our behalf (Hebrews 9:22), then we can begin to grasp what Ephesians 3:18 msg describes as “the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.” This grace—the grace by which Christ tasted death for everyone—demonstrates the magnificence of the love God has for us. It is not a theoretical love or a philosophical love; it is a love demonstrated in the most intentional of actions. Under the gravity of our sin, Jesus died for us.
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,...we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 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). (Ephesians 2:1,3-5)
Through the grace of God, Jesus saved us from sin, a formerly corrupt life, eternal separation from God, wrath, spiritual death, and Hell. The salvation that has come to us through the grace and the goodness of God is no small thing. Neither was this grace acquired cheaply. Grace may be free to us, but it cost Jesus His blood and His life. That is why we must never treat His grace lightly or disrespectfully.
In His great grace, God purposed that His own Son Jesus would take the punishment and penalty that our sin deserved so that we could be forgiven. It’s not that judgment no longer exists; it does. But Jesus took our place, and we are now free. Spurgeon expressed it so well when he said, “Justice is honored, and law is vindicated in the sacrifice of Christ. Since God is satisfied, I may well be so.”
