The Sin Red Line – Part 1

Christians often debate the idea of taking grace too far. Are there some sins that are covered by grace, such as a little white lie. Whilst there may be some sins that do not merit the grace of God, such as rape and murder.

I think its human nature to seek the boundaries and workings of something, such as moral conduct, and create a set of guidelines and rules about it. If I was going to take up a hobby or new business venture such as cheese making, carpentering, gardening or whatever - I'd want to study the facts and methods of best practice about it. Even a set of actions, such as mountain climbing, warfare or policing, I’d want to know the methods of best practice as well as the legal constraints.

There have been a slew of self-help books on relationships and successful living over the last fifty years or so, such as The Rules of Life, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

But I think that's were we get it wrong when it comes to morality: we want to define a set of rules and guidelines for life. This approach doesn't work because it attempts to intellectualise something which must be spontaneous; it moves us from the heart to the head.

I like what Frank Viola wrote in Pagan Christianity: Christianity has become a combination of Greco/Roman culture (morality or rhetoric) and frontier revivalism (the drive towards salvation). This approach, again, moves us away from the original intention of the Gospel: relationship with God through faith in Christ.

God lives His life in us and through us - this is the mystery. But we still find ourselves like Paul in Romans 7: we often do what is considered wrong. In fact, the more we try to force ourselves to follow rules, often under the threat of punishment - the more we struggle with sin. What this shows us is that the Gospel is intended to set us free from the law: we are free to live our lives without fear of God's wrath. This allows us to live our lives freely so that we can progress and mature in our own way and timing. This is the only way it will work, because God does not seem to zap those wrong desires out of us.

What I've found is that everyone is born into a rather unique set of circumstances: parentage, birth-place, education and so on. Some of these factors are conducive to healthy development, whilst others are not. By the time someone reaches adulthood, they literally become the product of all of those conditioning factors. It will not work to simply place unrealistic expectations on certain people, according to their development. We humans seem to forget this important fact, but thankfully, God doesn't.

God meets us right were we are in life and beckons us into a relationship with Him. This is evidenced in the ministry of Jesus, like when He met the Samaritan woman at the well, or when the Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in the act of adultery. While the law and the Pharisees cry "Stone her!" Jesus says, "Neither do I condemn you." This shows us the contrast between the Old and New covenants.

Picture red line ~ horizontal courtesy of striatic (Hobvias Sudoneighm).