Is Grace a License to Sin?
The question “Is Grace a License to
Sin?” has presented itself in the form of
numerous questions and statements in the
past, such as the following:
Does preaching Grace lead to a
careless lifestyle?
Won’t people run out and sin
recklessly if they get too “deep”
into the Grace message?
We can not preach Grace to a
new believer because they are
not mature enough to be trusted
with such freedom yet.
Taking the Law off believers gives
them a license to sin.
All these statements fly straight in the
face of what the Bible teaches about
Grace:
Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that brings
salvation has appeared to all men, 12
teaching us that, denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly,
righteously, and godly in the present age.
(KJV)
Firstly let us consider how Grace
influences a person’s thinking. When we
comprehend what the message of Grace is
all about (how God pardoned the sins of
the whole world (Hebrews 10:17),
abolished the written code of the Law
(Colossians 2:14), set people at liberty to
live free from the fear of judgement and
punishment (1 John 4:18), how believers
are encouraged to have boldness when
approaching God (Hebrews 10:19-21), that
we can be confident that God will never
be angry with us ever again (Isaiah
54:9-10) and many other truths like these),
it is clear that a proper understanding of
these issues will in fact not encourage a
person to want to sin, but rather inspire
such a person to be more thankful towards
God for all He has done, to live a life
worthy of the sacrifice made by Jesus and
to deny ungodly conduct as stated in Titus
2:11-12 (above).
Mostly the arguments and questions
against the Grace message, such as the
ones we mentioned above, come from
people who are not necessarily afraid that
they themselves will be deceived into
wanting to commit more sins, but their
arguments are for other “weaker”
Christians who in their opinion do not yet
have the “maturity” to handle the
responsibility that comes with such
freedom. Therefore they encourage that
the truth of the Grace message be taught
with a healthy dose of Law mixed in to
warn these “weak” Christians against the
perils of sinning. How ironic isn’t it then
that the Bible teaches us that sin doesn’t
increase through Grace, but rather through
the Law:
Rom 5:20 God’s law was given so that all
people could see how sinful they were. But
as people sinned more and more, God’s
wonderful grace became more abundant
(NLT).
Grace actually came in and covered the
sins that were made more abundant
through the Law!
So for someone to say that Grace is a
license to sin, it simply serves to expose
such a person’s ignorance to what Grace
actually means and stands for. It reveals
that they don’t understand that the power
of the Holy Spirit inside a believer
(reminding them of their complete 100%
righteous standing before God) is an
infinitely stronger empowerment for “good
behavior” than threatening someone with
the Law. As a result the legalists can all
relax and come to terms with the fact that
the Holy Spirit can be trusted with the
transforming work in the life of a believer:
Phil 1:6 being confident of this very thing,
that He who has begun a good work in you
will complete it until the day of Jesus
Christ. (KJV)
Nobody appointed us as each other’s
moral policemen, so how can we ever try
to assume that function?
A good response whenever we hear
someone ask “Is Grace a licence to sin?”,
is whether a fear of punishment is their
only motivation for doing good. We do
good works and live a moral lifestyle
because we WANT TO (the desires of the
Holy Spirit working in and through us), not
because we fear the consequences if we
don’t.
The truth is that Grace can never be
reduced to an “acceptable” level to
compensate for the insecurities of
legalists. Due to the extreme nature of the
Law, Grace needs to be preached in its
purest form as well in order to free people
from the poison of “works based”
mindsets.
Check out this awesome article by Bas
Rijksen: Should you be careful not abuse
Grace? NEVER.