Free Sins for Christians (What!?) Prescribed by a Dentist of Grace

Steve Brown

Let’s face it, American Christianity is so strongly addicted to various form of Pelagianism that to speak of grace the way the Bible does is to put one at odds with most Christians. Long gone are the days, or so it seems, when sola gratia had teeth in a large part of the church. A grace-soaked letter such as the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (see below) has become repugnant to the Pelagian-soaked people to whom Paul wrote: Christ’s body. For this reason, the church needs more “dentists of grace” like The Old White Guy, Steve Brown, who are willing to perform root canal jobs on Pelagian rot.

Three Free Sins!

Steve understands the thick Pelagian veneer covering much of the church, and he skillfully uses tongue-in-cheek, shocking metaphors and double-take-inducing rhetoric to make Christians angry enough to stop and think like Christians (i.e. according to Scripture). For example, listen to him cut through the Pelagian crust in the area of sanctification as he tells Christians they get three free sins:

Every Christian I know wants to be better than he or she is. There may be an exception to that, but I haven’t found one. In other words, most Christians aren’t getting any better and sometimes are getting worse…but they really want to be better.

Do you know why most Christians don’t get any better or why you don’t get any better? It’s because you’re doing it wrong, dummy! You are obsessed with sin and your faith has become another “system of laws” whereby you feel guilty and try and try and try to do better. It doesn’t work, never has worked, and never will work. Only really shallow people keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same result, thinking that the next time the result will be different.

So stop it.

Why such shocking rhetoric? Many Christians think God saves them from hell, but they themselves have to work up to heaven, so to speak, effectively heaping a covenant of works upon themselves (i.e. living as if they can earn salvation merit with God by trying hard to keep His commandments even though Jesus has already kept God’s law perfectly in their stead).

But how could we ever earn (heaven and sanctification) what Christ has already won for us? Aren’t we who are united to Chrsit already “seated … with [Christ] in the heavenly places”? Only when we first understand our new identity in Christ are we then able to understand how to please God with our works, as a covenant of grace (i.e. living as if I am already a perfect law-keeper because I am one in Christ, and thus obeying God’s law not because I have to earn salvation, but because I have been freed by Christ to obey God’s law out of love!). In Paul’s words from Ephesians 2:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience– 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV; emhpasis and line breaks mine).

Christian, quit trying so hard to impress God with your obedience. Jesus has already pleased the Father; put your faith in Him. Who are you to think you could one up Jesus!?

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4 thoughts on “Free Sins for Christians (What!?) Prescribed by a Dentist of Grace

  1. I get what you are saying, and it sounds very good, however, what do you make of such Scriptures as

    “On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.” 1 Thessalonians 2:4, emphasis on the fact that it says TRYING TO PLEASE GOD.

    I note that Job was ridiculed for ‘supposedly’ believing that it profit a man nothing to try and please God.

    Obviously we should all want to please God, and pleasing God is necessary, Scripture is clear on this. And one cannot please God without faith, or if they are controlled by sin. It is whether we should be TRYING to please God that is the issue here.

    I believe, like you are trying to point out, that without relying on Christ we cannot please God, because we need His righteousness, His faith etc. However, would it not also be pleasing to God to be also, in that, TRYING to please God? To make an effort towards it, as 1 Thessalonians 2:4 seems to suggest, or have I missed something? What is your opinion on this? i.e should I just quit trying not to sin and wait for Christ to compel me not to?

    • Hi Jake,

      The tongue-in-cheek factor may be clouding the intention of my rant above. The free sins bit is a cheeky way of focusing Christians’ attention on a common misunderstanding about justification, namely, trusting Christ for forgiveness of sins but not for Christ’s perfect obedience to the law (what theologians call Christ’s “active obedience”). When a Christian fails to see that Christ lived for him just as much as Christ died for him, then that Christian only has a partial gospel or half of the story. Further, that Christian will think that his own performance/obedience is the basis for his justification, which is a shaky foundation indeed (Gal. 2:16).

      Your question pertains not to justification, but to sanctification. Paul asks in Rom. 6:1 whether being justified wholly by grace means that Christians don’t have to try to obey God’s law anymore. His answer is a categorical, “no!” In fact, being justified by grace is the only way we can obey God with a clean conscience in full freedom to try our hardest to obey His law, which is our delight and our constant meditation (Psalm 1, Joshua 1, etc.) and our guide for righteous living (2 Tim. 3:15-16).

      Check out how the Protestant churches of the Reformation have described the benefits of being united to Christ (justification, adoption, and sanctification), and especially how the distinction between justification and sanctification is made (in question 77):

      (From the Westminster Larger Catechism)

      Q. 69. What is the communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ?
      A. The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ, is their partaking of the virtue of his mediation, in their justification, adoption, sanctification, and whatever else, in this life, manifests their union with him.

      Q. 70. What is justification?
      A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone.

      Q. 71. How is justification an act of God’s free grace?
      A. Although Christ, by his obedience and death, did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice in the behalf of them that are justified; yet inasmuch as God accepteth the satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them, and did provide this surety, his own only Son, imputing his righteousness to them, and requiring nothing of them for their justification but faith, which also is his gift, their justification is to them of free grace.

      Q. 72. What is justifying faith?
      A. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation.

      Q. 73. How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God?
      A. Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification; but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness.

      Q. 74. What is adoption?
      A. Adoption is an act of the free grace of God, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, whereby all those that are justified are received into the number of his children, have his name put upon them, the Spirit of his Son given to them, are under his fatherly care and dispensations, admitted to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God, made heirs of all the promises, and fellow-heirs with Christ in glory.

      Q. 75. What is sanctification?
      A. Sanctification is a work of God’s grace, whereby they whom God hath, before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are in time, through the powerful operation of his Spirit applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God; having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased, and strengthened, as that they more and more die unto sin, and rise unto newness of life.

      Q. 76. What is repentance unto life?
      A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby, out of the sight and sense, not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, and upon the apprehension of God’s mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, he so grieves for and hates his sins, as that he turns from them all to God, purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with him in all the ways of new obedience.

      Q. 77. Wherein do justification and sanctification differ?
      A. Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace, and enableth to the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued: the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.

      Q. 78. Whence ariseth the imperfection of sanctification in believers?
      A. The imperfection of sanctification in believers ariseth from the remnants of sin abiding in every part of them, and the perpetual lustings of the flesh against the spirit; whereby they are often foiled with temptations, and fall into many sins, are hindered in all their spiritual services, and their best works are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God.

      • So then what are you and Steve saying if trying (and having to deal with failing) to keep God’s law (that which is pleasing to Him) is OK? Where’s the Pelagian veneer? The Scriptures warn us about not entering into His rest (Hebrews and Ps 95) and ECUSA and The people in the wilderness are cases in point of willful sinning. Where is the freedom from this burden/
        tension, that Christ “is the answer”, “just trust Him”, or “you’re in the heavenlies”? That would beg the question, having been warned then relieved by carte blanche stake- in the-ground “once saved always saved” Gnosticism. This tension on the other hand drives us to Christ and confession (and absolution). Yeah we’re baptised and in God’s church but we’re not guaranteed nor can we presume if we willfully sin that he will forgive and allow us to be with Him in eternity. Right?
        Keith

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