Recently, I have been "on a roll", so instead of a backlog, I'm in the pleasant situation of a "forward"-log. So you may be receiving this a week early :-)
Oh ya, before I proceed, I better start with a warning here that this blog entry contains what some would describe as "severely disturbing" content.
Some people have laid the accusation that grace should not be over-emphasised. That we need to balance law and grace, and not swing to one extreme or the another. Better take the safe and middle road.
Paul mentions very clearly in Romans 7 that such a philosophy is akin to spiritual adultery.
Romans 7
An Illustration From Marriage
1Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
4So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
We, the church, is described as the bride of Christ. Jesus is our bridegroom.
A wife has a covenant with her husband, and she is supposed to be totally devoted and committed to him. She is to forsake all others. I am sure all of you out there has any quarrel with this.
Yet, when it comes to the covenant between God and us (upon which the marriage between a man and a woman is a shadow of), we take issue when we hear messages or sermons that tell us that we are to forsake the Law and be completely under Grace?
In fact, Rom 5:17 tells us that receiving grace in abundance is one of the 2 keys to the victorious life (the other being the gift of righteousness).
The Greek word in question is perisseia (Strong's G4050).
That means to say that we should not just be receptive to the gospel of grace, but be receptive to it in abundance!
So can grace ever be over-emphasised? Not if we want to reign in life and have victory over sin and whatever else the evil one tries to throw at us. Amen?
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