The gospel of grace really is a paradox, a mystery so beyond our finite comprehension, that not even the great Sherlock Holmes can deduce its logic. The gospel of Jesus’s vicarious substitution is supra-rational — so far above and beyond human intellect that we’d never conjure the story of God’s grace, or believe it, save for Someone, outside of us, telling us the veracity and freeness of it. Many today are extremists, reacting to the pendulum-swing of Evangelical Christianity with what they deem appropriate actions to counter any contrary doctrine, differing biblical interpretation, method of worship, etc., that seems poised to upset the status quo of Christianity. Most do this when approaching the gospel. Some see it as far too free, subsequently killing it of its power by attaching laws and “do’s” and qualifiers to it: demands that never existed in the truest sense of the Good News. Others take advantage of this freeness and conclude that all notions of demand are wrong, running wild with the gospel of free grace as some sort of “sin license.” This makes grace to be some sort of divine “get-out-of-hell-free-card,” which is, in fact, a mockery and marring of the gospel.
The mirror and mystery of the gospel.
The mirror and mystery of the gospel.
The mirror and mystery of the gospel.
The gospel of grace really is a paradox, a mystery so beyond our finite comprehension, that not even the great Sherlock Holmes can deduce its logic. The gospel of Jesus’s vicarious substitution is supra-rational — so far above and beyond human intellect that we’d never conjure the story of God’s grace, or believe it, save for Someone, outside of us, telling us the veracity and freeness of it. Many today are extremists, reacting to the pendulum-swing of Evangelical Christianity with what they deem appropriate actions to counter any contrary doctrine, differing biblical interpretation, method of worship, etc., that seems poised to upset the status quo of Christianity. Most do this when approaching the gospel. Some see it as far too free, subsequently killing it of its power by attaching laws and “do’s” and qualifiers to it: demands that never existed in the truest sense of the Good News. Others take advantage of this freeness and conclude that all notions of demand are wrong, running wild with the gospel of free grace as some sort of “sin license.” This makes grace to be some sort of divine “get-out-of-hell-free-card,” which is, in fact, a mockery and marring of the gospel.