Extreme Grace: The Danger of Christianity

There are at least as many different reasons why people become Christians, as there are reasons why people get married. Furthermore, there are as many different motivations for maintaining one's Christianity, as there are different states of marriages. I submit to you, as one married, that a marriage can be beneficial to both spouses, and so can one's Christianity be beneficial to Creation and Creator.

Why become married? Why stay married? The questions that I intend to raise are aimed at reflecting your motivations towards engaging in relationship, and to the end that they become healthy. I claim that the strength of my persuasion is grounded in sober, snot-on-your-sleeve, legitimacy. Not in strength of an optimistic will, or with a desire to paint the bruised as beautiful, but with as honest and sincere a wide-eyed look as possible.

What would your response be to an unfaithful spouse? If your spouse slept with someone else, and wanted reconciliation, would you be willing to attempt it? How willing are you to let your spouse know that though they were unfaithful to you, you would be faithful to them? Do you think that that would encourage an affair, or affirm safety and encourage intimacy? I think your response would depend on your relationship, and - maybe even more so - on your own character.

Now please keep in mind, what I propose to you to be an instrument with which to gauge your relationships (your response to these questions), works only in one direction. Like most gauges, for the speed of your car or the temperature of your oven, you cannot apply this in reverse. When you see the dial read "100°C" in the pot of water on the stove, that tells you the water is hot. When you see the needle buried in the red, you know you are going fast. But if you want to have hot water, you can't simply move the dial to "100°C" and expect the water to get hot, it is only a gauge, not the source of heat. I believe we Christians are the worst at applying this, since we've been given so many gauges through scripture. Once we identify ourselves as Christian, we now admit to what we ought to be, and try desperately (and sincerely) to make it so. We read in 1 John 4:21 that, "the one who loves God should love his brother also." And so, being unwilling to refute our love for God, we work on making loving our brothers a reality. This facet of how to apply the standard is what I take Jesus to be referring to in Luke 11:34 regarding letting your eye be clear. In other words, he is telling us to look at ourselves clearly - honestly - in order for our lives to be marked by truth. Otherwise, if we aren't honest about who we are, we will be deceived and full of deceit. Like having a glass full of liquid: if you don't honestly show it's contents through a clean vessel, but dress a wine bottle as a pint of milk, you will not be able to do rightly with it. If you don't love your brothers, you don't love your brothers! Let's at least start there, with an honest assessment of your contents, then you will be able to do rightly with it. In a less extreme example, if you sell yourself as compassionate and kind, but hide bitterness and envy, it's only a matter of time before someone buys it to drink down themselves. And when, finding the taste of gall rather unlike the wine they expected, spew it out and are worse off then without. There is a time and a purpose for both motor oil and mother's milk, but to confuse them is toxic.

We are free to sin. Yes, even we Christians - those who have accepted the marriage proposal of the Bridegroom - are permitted by our fiancé to be unfaithful to him, while he has promised to remain faithful to us. He does not even hide this fact from us, but forecasts it for thousands of years as documented in scripture. The writings of the prophet Hosea expound upon this point. And I believe that when we have sincerely engaged this reality of our freedom in Christ - that even though we may be unfaithful to Him, He will remain faithful to us - we will observe ourselves motivated to respond in like fashion (those who have experienced grace will express grace). And I believe our human insecurities do a disservice to God's intent when we cut His graciousness short but adding disclaimers and warnings to it. Grace must remain wholly gracious in order to "affect" the desired response. This is not to say that disclaimers and warnings are illegitimate, just insufficient in regards to motivating one towards the intended relationship between God and Human (what God has intended for our relationship).

I have often heard the question posed (and admittedly asked this myself) regarding a dating relationship, "How far is too far?" Like asking, "How much harder must I depress the gas pedal in order to overcome an empty tank?" the question itself crumbles under the weight of its assumptions. The reason why it may seem difficult to approach the "How far" question is because it is asking intellectually for what can only appropriately be responded to relationally. What is really being asked in, "How far is too far"? Too far for what? Not, too far for what's humanly possible, or too far for what God will allow to exist, but more along the lines of too far to remain sinless. I think that this question is similar to asking your spouse, "How far is too far?" regarding intimacy with someone who is not your spouse. How would you imagine their response to be? Would they begin to go into specifics regarding particular acts of affections that are and are not acceptable? Might they suggest that handholding is alright, but anything more than a peck on the cheek is too far? No way! The presumption of the question itself would insult and call into question the state of your relationship. What is desired from your spouse is your own motivation in itself to protect the intimacy of your marriage, and not the ramifications for exceeding the limits. If it's the penalties of being unfaithful that motivates you towards faithfulness, the intent of the relationship is lost. In the same way, if your motivation for faithfulness to Christ our Bridegroom is fear of the penalties of unfaithfulness, I insist that God's intent for the state of your relationship is not being fulfilled.

That is not to say that all is lost - that the water on the stove cannot be made to boil - but just that it is not hot enough. Here, then, do not attempt to tweak the dial to read "100°C" by white-knuckling your will towards a responsive heart of gratitude. What then? Turn up the flame (I'm pretending I know more about this than I actually do, for here, at the crux of what I'm getting at, I know the least about how to enflame my own heart). I think it starts with trusting God's character enough to seek support of this (like reading the letter that Paul wrote to the Romans six or seven times, slowing down to pay attention to what's said in chapter 8).

Now I must admit, our relationship with God is unlike our marriages in that the range of our maturity is much broader between when we start with God and when we start with our spouse. We have a running start into our marriages, already knowing how to relate with other humans and having extensive experience with it, already establishing who the other person is (to a large degree) and already having a fairly specific expectations for what a marriage will be like. With God, we may begin our relationship as Spiritual infants, in need of mothers and fathers to hand feed us God's Word, little to no expectations or examples regarding what our relationship will look like, and even fighting the process as a child untrusting of their parents intentions to keep them clothed and bathed. For this reason, I do think it quite appropriate that God bring us awkwardly, against our full will to the dance floor, perhaps kicking and whining with the pain of the fear of punishment, as a teacher disciplining their pupil. But for no reason is that intended to be the state of the dance, if such interaction could even yet be called a dance. "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1 NAS). The dance of Lovers' is a shared pleasure.

Does the extremity of God's graciousness towards us who trust Jesus to fulfill the requirement of the law make us dangerous people? Unabashedly, yes.

There does remain a tension if left at this. This tension is not, "but still, you should try and do good," no, that is the role of The Spirit in the life of one of grace, and I fully trust The Spirit to do what The Spirit strongly desires and is entirely capable of. I believe this tension is the fair warning (preparation) and encouragement that if you are to go by way of grace, you will not remain as you are. And this is good news indeed. Again, if here one wishes to give some persuasion to support the goodness of this claim, I offer that you are fumbling in clothes that aren't your own (that you are both incapable and truly unwilling to love in such a way - leave their spirit to The Spirit, and you testify as a Testament). The further in you go, the more utterly what will be destroyed. The "what" here is very appropriately not you, but that which you have come to love up to this point (that which you have come to exchange yourself for) will burn away (what is more gentle than a flame?) to reveal a you more unique, more lovely, and, what's better, more loving.

In short, death is to come. This will be enjoyed entirely.