Dangerous Grace

Amazing grace. We know all about it.

Sweet. Melodious. Enchanting. In a word ... amazing.

But is grace simply amazing? Is that all there is to grace? What if I said grace was dangerous?

Our attitude toward grace will only reflect God's, when we recognize just how dangerous grace was and is. We begin to lose grace when we fence it in, instead of acknowledging how wild it can be.

God made grace dangerous. It's His plan.

Photo from morgueFile.com

Grace is absolutely amazing. It is inconceivable that the Father would love us in such a way as to send the Son to redeem us, who in turn would send the Spirit to seal us.

There is nothing we did or could have done to earn grace because that's exactly what it is – unmerited favor. God has turned his face toward His children simply out of His love. In fact, He has transformed us from rebels and traitors into children and joint heirs with Christ.

Grace frees us to choose Christ, where as that option was never available to us before. That is nothing if not amazing, but there is more and this is where grace gets dangerous.

God has openly poured out His grace for us, but He has done so on such fickle creatures who often choose poorly. As Screwtape tells Wormood in C.S. Lewis' classic Screwtape Letters, "He cannot ravish; He can only woo."

God's wooing leaves us open to reject Him and choose our own path that leads away. Grace gives options and this is dangerous.

We can choose to worship and obey God in His power, reject and turn away from Him in our own power, or attempt to worship and obey Him in our own power.

The most subtle temptation is to do the right thing outwardly, while relying solely on ourselves to accomplish it. We do this through legalism. It's what Jesus constantly condemned the Pharisees over.

Legalism recognizes the dangerous nature of grace, so it seeks to place protective fences all around to keep us in line. We don't want to use our grace as an excuse to sin, so let's add all of these rules to help us avoid temptation.

If legalism were the best way to grow us into worshippers of Him, God would have used it. If the risk of grace and freedom were too much for God in the long term, He never would have given them to us. If He could have used safe grace, He would have do so.

None of those things, however, are the case. God, in His infinite wisdom, chose dangerous grace. He chose to grant us freedom in our relationship with Him.

Grace brings freedom and freedom is dangerous. It has been since Adam and Eve and it continues to be today.

In his summation of the Christian faith, Mere Christianity, Lewis wrote, "Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk."

The proper response to this is nothing short of complete and absolute devotion to a God who went the dangerous route, the route that cost Him Jesus.

He didn't send down a list of rules to stay "safe" in heaven. He sent down His Son to a dangerous world to display dangerous grace.

Grace is amazing, but it is also dangerous. Dangerous to our way of thinking. Dangerous to our legalistic solutions. Dangerous to our ordinary lives.

This dangerous grace that saved you is calling on you to step outside of average and easy to exceptional and dangerous. Grace would have it no other way.

Insulting God

What did you think of when you read those words – "insulting God"?

For most of us, it conjures up someone screaming out curses at God or maybe someone forcing out wrathful words as they deal with a hurt in their life.

That's not quite what I'm talking about here. You may not have ever yelled angrily at God, but you've still probably insulted Him. Here's how.

Photo from morgueFile.com

When you give a gift to someone, what do you expect from them in return?

If it's actually a gift, you really shouldn't expect anything, unless it is a "thank you" and their enjoyment of it. How would you feel if, part of the time, they constantly followed you around doing things for you because they had to repay you, while, the other part of the time, they ignored the gift and treated it carelessly?

They never screamed at you or cursed you, but more than likely you would feel insulted and offended.

Either they are treating you as if you were requiring them to work for the gift or they see the gift as something essentially useless to them.

How do we treat salvation? The same way those in the church at Rome did when Paul wrote to them.

In Romans, Paul is writing to a mixed audience of Jews and Gentiles, who have differing religious tendencies. The Jews misunderstood the Old Testament to teach that salvation was earned through outwardly moral actions.

The Greek influenced Gentiles saw the gods as essentially unconcerned with our moral behavior as long as we observed the right holidays and made the right sacrifices. Often times, when both groups were present, there was a mix of both.

In Romans 4:22-25, Paul tells the Roman believers that God has credited their belief as righteousness. God's gift of Jesus' death for our sins and resurrection mean that we can enter into a relationship with Him. We have been granted justification. Unworthy sinners are made right before a holy God.

You didn't earn it. You can't earn it. It is a free gift from God and can only be given by God, who does so as we follow Him in believing in the sacrifice of Jesus.

When you behave as if your salvation as something you earned because of your works, you insult God. You are telling Him that you can buy His gift with your behavior. You are telling God that He's wrong and salvation is not as special as He believes it to be, after all, you worked to get it.

That's only part of the message to the Romans, and us. In Romans 6, particularly Romans 6:1-4, Paul confronts those who have lied about his message. When he teaches salvation through grace, he is not teaching cheap grace that requires no behavioral change. He is teaching free grace that results in a new life.

Simply because you didn't pay for your gift doesn't mean it was cheap. Our spiritual freedom cost God the Father the death of His Son.

When you live your life as if if your salvation matters so little to you that you refuse to allow God to make changes, you insult God. You are telling God that you'll take His gift, but you don't really care about it. It is essentially worthless to you, unless you feel like using it.

Sure, people verbally insult God with things they say, but the more immediate temptation for those who claim to follow Him is insulting His gift of salvation through treating it as something to earn or ignore.

Are you insulting God with your life?

Les Miserables: depictions of a Christian critic

Les Miserables, the film adaptation of the book and musical of the same name, has garnered rave reviews from both the secular and religious media.

Christians have noted the themes of grace and redemption lining up with a biblical worldview. Others are wary of the depictions of violence and sex in the film, suggesting that those counteract any good that may be found in the story.

It may be that the Christian critics of the film inadvertently reveal the gospel-centered point of Les Miserables with their criticism.

Jean Valjean from Les Miserables

Art, not being a person who can place their trust in Christ, cannot be called "Christian." It can, however, flow from and point to the gospel. That is the question to ask of Les Mis – is it a film that is consistent with the gospel and can Christians affirm the message of the film?

I would say without a doubt the film is drawn from gospel themes: grace, salvation, redemption, the emptiness of legalism, the inability to find life in the law, sacrifice. All of these are pictures of the work of Christ.

Some have said these are drowned out by the film show prostitutes, rape, abuse, having characters use sexual innuendo and other depictions of actions that are far from biblical.

One of these critics is Travis Ragon, a graduate of a Baptist seminary and a licensed professional counselor.

"As a mental health professional, I have worked with the victims of rape, incest and abuses that many do not want to know exist and most deny happens in their worlds," Ragon wrote to Baptist Press. "I see no entertainment value in their graphic depiction on a movie screen."

The irony of much of the film's criticism is that it seems to mirror the legalism of Les Mis antagonist, Inspector Javert, who is unable to recognize grace because of his obsession with the law.

I don't know Ragon, so I do not want to make comments about him personally. Criticism of a film, however, that focuses solely on particular scenes while ignoring the overarching theme of the movie is legalistic.

Ragon, like many of the critics, has not seen the movie. It is much easier to pull out isolated examples of unacceptable behavior when you do not have a grasp of the whole. As Javert, who was never able to see Jean Valjean for anything more than a bread thief, critics are unable to see beyond one scene of rape.

I would hope that Ragon and other critics of the film would not want the Bible to be judged by individual scenes pulled out of the larger context of the grand story of Scripture.

Should the entire Bible be dismissed because it mentions Lot having sex with his daughters?

Or because it describes Tamar dressing as a prostitute in order to sleep with and get the attention of her father-in-law Judah?

The Bible depicts slavery, unmarried sex, rape, racism, prostitution, murder, demon possession and virtually any other sin of which you can think. Should it be judged based only on those things? Would that be fair and right?

As a graduate of seminary, Ragon would have taken a Hermeneutics class, which helps students understand how best to interpret and understand God's word. One of the first rules in biblical interpretation is "Context is king."

You do not pull verses or even passages out in isolation in an attempt to understand them. They must be interpreted within the context of the passage, the particular book and the Bible as a whole.

It is equally wrong to attempt to evaluate and understand the message of Les Mis by pulling out certain scenes that depict sinful behavior.

Anyone who has seen the film would know that the scene in which Fantine is raped is anything but appealing or sexual. It shows the brokenness of humanity and the depths at which people without hope will go.

The scene does not glorify the behavior or the lifestyle. It laments their reality and aches for someone to bring hope into the situation, as Jean Valjean later does.

Les Miserables is about a man without hope is shown grace physically and spiritually and is redeemed from a life of slavery to the law he could never obey. That is the gospel and something that Christians can rejoice is presented so clearly in a modern movie theater.

We are Jean Valjean. God has radically saved us from a life of sin and slavery. Our tendency, however, is to become Javert. Les Mis is a beautiful reminder of both of those realities.