“What then! shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”
Rom 6:1
IN our consideration of the three texts that lie before us this morning, I propose to ask and answer four questions from the Word of God.
First, What is the grace of Christ, into which God has called us ? Second, How can a Christian fall from grace? Third, Where does a fall into sin bring the Christian? Fourth, Shall we continue in sin against abounding grace?
There can be no doubt as to the answer to the first question: What is the grace of Christ? The whole of the New Testament proclaims the flaming response. It is the grace of God which bringeth salvation that has appeared to all men (Titus 2: 11). When our love moves upwards toward God, it is adoration. When loves goes out to man on our own level, it is affection. When God’s love stoops to us, it is grace.
I confess readily that I am totally unable to treat a word like this in the fashion of the great oratorical preachers. During these past days I had opportunity of reading Alexander Gammie’s new book on the great preachers he had heard over the course of the years. As I read essay after essay a note of doubt about my own preaching crept into my thinking, for the characteristic which had singled out these preachers to the author was frequently the exalted and stately periods of their oratory which had gripped him as a thing of sheer beauty. One instance will suffice. He spoke of a moment in a sermon by a famous preacher that had enthralled the audience. It was a paragraph on grace. I pass on the paragraph, not for its doctrinal or spiritual content, which it undoubtedly possesses, but for an illustration in method of approach. The orator spoke as follows:
“There is no word I have wrestled so much with as grace. It is
just like expressing a great American forest by a word. No phrase can
express the meaning of grace. Grace is more than mercy. It is
more than tender mercy. It is more than a multitude of tender
mercies. Grace is more than love. It is more than innocent love.
Grace is holy love, but it is holy love in spontaneous movement
going out in eager quest toward the unholy and the unlovely, that
by the ministry of its own sacrifice it might redeem the unholy and
the unlovely into its own strength and beauty. The grace of
God is holy love on the move to thee and me, and to the likes of
thee and me. It is God unmerited, undeserved, going out toward the children
of men, that He might win them into the joy and brightness of His
own likeness.”
I know I could never produce minted coins like that. My metal comes pouring from the furnace in a hot torrent, sometimes spattering its greying drops outside the mold. Rather must I say that there is such a thing as the grace of God, and that I know it, first of all because God has commended His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And secondly, like a forlorn child who has known the wanderings that come from being lost, and who has known the yet sobbing calm of the haven of its mother’s arms, we who have been overtaken by the grace of God can merely tell you who have not known it that therein have we found our peace. And if you will let yourself go, the irresistible undertow, the grace of God, will take you into the great depths and you will know and feel the love that passeth knowledge and the peace that passeth understanding.
This grace is eternal grace. It takes the one who becomes the child of God out of the pit of the past, into the power of the present and guarantees the future glories that are our inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled and that fades not away. But at this point someone asks if the inheritance of grace is really incorruptible and unfading. Is it not possible, they ask, to fall from grace? This brings us, then, to our second question: How can a Christian fall from grace?
The phrase “fallen from grace” occurs but once in the Bible, and its clear context teaches us that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the sins of the believer. I propose, in fact, to show that a believer cannot fall from grace by sinning, but that falling from grace is entirely a theological matter. The only way that a Christian can fall from grace is by falling into law. The Galatian Christians fell from grace by adding to the Gospel circumcision as a practice necessary for salvation. Against the whole legalistic plan of law-works, Paul inveighed heavily. The entire epistle to the Galatians is written to show that a Christian is not bound by the ceremonial law. The Judiastic party claimed that even the Gentiles had to observe the ritual of the law in order to be saved. Paul says that when he confronted the leaders of that party concerning the matter he did not give place by subjection, no, not for a single hour. It was concerning this that he resisted blame-worthy Peter to his face. He called the Galatians foolish for thinking that, having begun by the grace of God, they could keep on by their own doings. Clearly they had fallen from grace by falling into law.
In our day the method and the result of the fall are the same. One falls into law and thereby falls from grace. The Romanist falls from grace by adding ceremonies and works to the process of salvation. If original sin is removed by the waters of baptism, daily sin by the non-bloody sacrifice of the mass (and we must not forget that the Council of Trent said, “Let him be accursed who saith that sins are not removed by the non-bloody sacrifice of the mass); if venial sins are removed by the oil of extreme unction, and other sins by the fires of purgatory, it can well be seen that there is not much left to be removed by the bleeding sacrifice of the Cross of Calvary. Where water, bread, oil and fire remove sins, what does the blood do? If so much is done by works, little is done by grace. A friend of mine once wrote a booklet on the subject of our redemption to which he gave the long, but true and thought-provoking title, “Salvation by Grace through Faith plus Nothing.” That is the reality of the Christian Gospel. Adding to Christ destroys the doctrine of free and sovereign grace.
The Seventh Day Adventist has fallen from grace by adding the false doctrine of Sabbath-keeping as a necessary element of salvation. They say that keeping Sunday is the mark of the beast, and that anyone who fails to keep Saturday is thereby lost. They may talk of salvation by grace, but they have fallen from grace by falling into law. We could paraphrase our text and write, truly, Behold, I say unto you that if you keep the Sabbath (as a part of the means of salvation), Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify to every man that is thus a Sabbatarian that he is debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are (in any part) justified by the law ; ye are fallen from grace.
The Christian who believes that it is possible to lose salvation after it has been received has fallen from grace. Failure to believe in the eternal security of the believer is really the doctrine of, Christ saved me, but I must keep saved by what I do. This is legalism. This is death. This is falling from grace into law.
The man who believes that only some inner circle of believers will be taken up at the coming of Christ, and that the rest must pass through the tribulation, has fallen from grace. He makes the glorification of the believer dependent upon something in the believer instead of something in the Saviour. And it is an interesting fact that those who have fallen from grace into some form of legalism are always sure that the works which they are doing are enough to meet the demands of God, and that they are in the group that, though they could be lost, are nevertheless saved, or that though some could be left behind at the coming of the Lord, they are sure that they will go up. To have fallen from grace into law may thus be seen to be an immense stimulus to human pride.
We come, now, to our third question, Where does a fall into sin bring the Christian? We dare to reply that a fall into sin brings a Christian into the grace of God. No born-again man, a new creature in Christ Jesus, ever fell from grace by sinning, but every stumbling believer has found that he has stumbled into the grace of God.
God never punishes a believer; He chastises a believer. Punishment, by its very etymology, is punitive. Hell and the lake of fire are punishment. This punishment the Lord Jesus Christ has taken for us, and God cannot demand satisfaction from the Saviour and then demand further satisfaction from the sinner. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ—and we believe that this is the most important thing that could ever be spoken concerning the redemption provided by our Lord–the death of our Lord Jesus Christ absolutely satisfies all the demands of a just, righteous and holy God. But the child of God is oftentimes chastised in the grace of the Father. “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastened, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” (Heb. 12 : 6, 7). And the chastening of the grace of God into which the believer falls when he sins, “yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness” when the believer is exercised thereby (Heb. 12: 11).
A charming anecdote comes to us from the life of one of Britain’s most famous artists, to illustrate the truth of my answer to this third question. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, in his later years, went one day to his daughter’s home for tea. His little grand-daughter, Angela, was allowed to come to the tea table. During the course of the meal the child did something for which her mother told her to leave the table and go and stand with her face to the wall in a corner of the room. The quiet dignity of the child and her evident sorrow greatly touched the heart of her doting grandfather. He said nothing, but early the next morning he returned to the house with his box of brushes and paints. On the walls of the chastisement corner he painted a mural which became the most precious spot in the room. A flight of birds adorned the wall, and a kitten played with the tail of its mother.
Every true child of God who has ever fallen into sin has discovered that there is marvellous grace in the chastisement which the Lord has inflicted upon him. Let us call some of the witnesses from the Word of God.
Moses! You fell into sin. Did you fall from grace? And Moses would answer us. Oh! the grace of God. I played the fool, grew fat with pride, unleashed, my angry passions and killed a man. I got put into the corner—and my corner was forty years in the desert. But God came and painted pictures on my wall. I met Him in that desert. On the wall He painted for me a burning bush, and when I stood there I took my shoes from my feet and learned His Name and the holiness of His being, and He brought me back out of the corner and put in my hands the tables of stone where I read, “Thou shalt not kill!” These words God gave to the race by my blood-stained hands. Oh! I fell into grace, and such grace.
David! You fell into sin. Did you fall from grace? And David would answer us: Oh! the grace of God! I played the fool. I idled at home in the days when kings go forth to battle. My lusts seized me and I yielded to them. I took another man’s wife, and murdered the man to hide the foul deed. I got put into the corner—and it was as though all the bones of my soul were broken, and I lost the joy of my salvation. But God came and painted pictures on my wall. There were green pastures and still waters, and a table spread with royal dainties. And there He taught me to sing my sweetest psalms, until I could cry, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Psa. 32 : 1, 2). I fell into grace, and such grace!
Peter! You fell into sin. Did you fall from grace? And Peter would answer us: Oh! the grace of God. I played the fool. I, a fisherman, buckled on a sword and thought that I was a soldier. I boasted to the Lord that He could count on me, and then I denied Him with oaths and cursings. I got put into the corner—and my bitter tears were hot upon my face, and I thought that I was no longer one of His disciples. But my Lord came and painted pictures on the wall. There were lambs and sheep. And there He taught me to look away from myself and to point to His own all-knowledge as the proof that I loved Him; and there, He told me that I was to feed His sheep, and that I was to feed His lambs.
And you! And I! We fell into sin. Did we fall from grace? And our hearts must answer: Oh! the grace of God. We played the fool, and not twice or thrice. He knows the sordid details, as He knows our frame and remembers that that we are dust. And oftentimes we have been in the corner. And there, on the wall, our Lord has painted pictures for us :—
… there a precious fountain, Free
to all, a healing stream, Flows from
Calvary’s mountain.
What then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Here we are at our last question, and our renewed hearts cry out, thunderingly. God forbid! Out in Nigeria a black preacher was expounding the sixth of Romans to his congregation. The first verse was his text, “What then: shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” His audience was composed almost entirely of folk who had never worn shoes in their lives. Even the children run with fleet step over the rocky fields and paths. It is a country of many thorns, and it goes without saying that every foot has been pierced some time or other. One of the great desires of every man is to possess a type of steel prod that is sold in the markets and that is very useful for dislodging any thorn or splinter that has pierced the foot. The evangelist spoke of a man who longed to possess the steel,
who saved his money and finally purchased the implement. “Did he then cry out, ‘Now I can run in thorny paths with impunity. It makes no more difference, for I now have a prod with which I may remove the thorns that may pierce my feet?'” And the preacher concluded, “What then? shall we continue to walk freely upon thorns in order that we may use a steel to remove those that pierce us? God forbid!” For the thorn-wound may become infected, and may leave a scar, and may leave us lame in our walk. God forbid!
The love of Christ constraineth us. The love that painted forgiveness on the walls of our chastisement constraineth us. The same voice says to us to-day, “Neither do I condemn thee. Go in peace, and sin no more.”
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse
