The Grace of God - Can It Be Balanced?

In my writings, I have been challenged by some people to be more balanced in my presentation of the gospel. This always bothered me – that others did not see the most important thing in the message I was bringing. I felt that the heart-truth of the message should be highlighted in every way I possibly could. To take any God-truth, taken directly from the Scriptures, and attempt to balance it with anything else, is to take the power out of the truth.

This, however, is common in many of today’s Christian ministries. Most of the time when people want a ministry to be balanced, they do not like some part of what the ministry is saying and want to balance what is preached with what they believe. To do this is to water down truth and make it something organized by man.

The Bible says Christ is the truth. This cannot be balanced. He is truth or he is not truth. The idea cannot be balanced, nor should it be.

Many direct statements from the apostle Paul show that he never made an attempt to balance Christ with anything or anyone else. One of the clearest statements Paul makes showing this is in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2. Here his bold declaration is to know nothing else other than Christ crucified. Then in 1 Corinthians 1:23, he says those who do not understand Christ as the truth, such as Jews and Greeks, are as stumbling blocks and are the foolish.

The truth of the New Testament is to always purely and boldly present Christ as the Father’s only intended life for humans. God never intended for humans to maintain a natural life, a religious life or a sinful life. The reason Christ died on the cross was that humans needed another life. God saw that trying to clean up the old Adamic life would never work. A new kind of life for the human race was needed. Christ made this possible on the cross, and Paul’s message explained how it works (Galatians 2:20). God would birth a new life, Christ’s life, in every believing sinner. This was simple and it needed no other explanation to make it work. All humans must be born again.

Yet, down through the ages of Christianity to the Christian world today, the simplicity of this gospel has been often overwhelmed by humans thinking their plan or doctrine is better than Paul’s message.

There are many things that have been and are being balanced by Christianity. I shall mention four of the most important.

THE FIRST IS THE ATTEMPT TO BALANCE LAW AND GRACE. Balancing law and grace is like mixing two unrelated chemicals together, creating a poison. I have heard this balancing attempt explained this way: “We must have a balance between law and grace to constantly remind people of the laws of god, that when they are broken people can go to hell. On the other hand when grace is preached too many people use it as consent to their continual sinning.”

No. The Scriptures are clear that the law died at the cross (Galatians 3:13). The Scriptures also say that the only salvation there is comes by grace (Ephesians 2:8). All sinners are saved by grace and nothing else.

In the first half of my life, I lived the Christian life under both law and grace. I believed that the grace of God brought me to my faith and had the potential to get me to heaven and salvation. But that whenever I broke the law of God and sinned, I lost that grace and was headed for hell. I could, of course, regain that grace of God by confessing and repenting. Headed for heaven! No – now headed for hell! No – now headed for heaven again! No – now headed for hell again! What a way to live, never having any permanent stature with God.

When I discovered that Christ comes to live His life IN ME by a new birth, then I HAD a permanent stature with God and knew the only place I could be headed was heaven because my permanent union with Christ was taking me there.

If a believer does not love the Lord more than he loves the things of the world, then neither law nor grace will make any difference, and balancing the two together will make it worse. The truth of Christianity is that it is a love affair, not a law affair.

THE SECOND IS THE ATTEMPT TO BALANCE THE OLD TESTAMENT COMMANDMENTS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT COMMANDMENTS. The commandments in the Old Testament were given to people who never had a spirit salvation given to them as we have by our new birth in Christ. Their entire program of salvation was soul salvation – a material salvation. When God deals with the soul of man, He waits for man to do something within himself to make it work. This is why there are so many commandments in the Old Testament. Salvation there is actually based on however man responds physically to what God says. In the New Testament, after the death of Christ on the cross, salvation was no longer based on commandments but on the finished work of Christ on the cross. Following this, God raised up the apostle Paul and gave him the final gospel of grace. And in this gospel of grace alone, there are plenty of commands, over 377 of them, but they are love commandments. This means there is no judgment attached to any of the love commands, like if you do not do this or that you will go to hell. Of course, this applies only to those who are born again. This means if you are saved by grace you are kept saved by grace. Never at any time does self-works enter into the believer’s salvation.

There are only two basic commandments for New Testament believers: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like to it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

THE THIRD IS THE ATTEMPT TO BALANCE TRUST AND WORKS. Hardly anyone who becomes a Christian fails to have this conflict. A new convert is presented with programs of works showing the things we should do to please God. Meeting the needs of the programs can become so burdensome to a believer, especially a new convert. Often they feel that they are a failure at being a Christian, or perhaps feel they are not really saved at all. It is at this point that works and trusting the Father to work out all things come in conflict. It is also at this point that it is put to bear on the worker that failing the program means failing God.

Where grace is the gospel, believers will always ask what they can do because they love God. In fact, you cannot stop them from working for their Lord, but it will never enter their minds that any work they do for the Lord will affect their salvation or their stand in Christ. Works and trust in the Lord never need to be balanced. Works flow out of a redeemed believer without any pressure.

THE FOURTH IS THE ATTEMPT TO BALANCE ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH. The simplicity of understanding the Scriptures is that at the cross Christ died for both Jew and Gentile and a new program was established which saved both the same way and no other plan from the Old Testament was involved, except historically (Colossians 2:13-15). This new life was in the Son, and no longer was there any need for the legalism, priesthood, ceremonies, observance of days or rituals that were a part of the soul salvation of Old Testament people.

So what did the Christian church do a short time after the apostolic era? They established an organized priesthood, ceremonies, observance of days and rituals! The New Testament Church is a new body of believers, and outer things – such as Israel’s practices for its soul salvation – are no longer necessary in grace. Grace provides a spirit salvation where none of these self-effort things make a difference in the life of the new born again believer (1 Corinthian 6:17). Israel never had a spirit salvation. In God’s ultimate plan, it was His intention that Christ be the life of humans.

Today, as in past ages, there are many believers who have never heard the final gospel of Paul who are attempting to return to some parts of Judaism in the hope of finding some refuge for their weary souls. Never before has grace become more powerful than it is today, but believers without a revelation of Christ living in them as their life – their only life – go back into the Old Testament hoping to find help for their troubled life. This is an attempt to balance, in their mind, Israel and the Church. Many still long for the pageantry, the candles and even the Old Testament priesthood. The sadness of this is that many of these dear Christians have Christ living in them as their spirit salvation, But go outside of Him to feed their soul feelings.

The Church is the Body of Christ and the believer is placed in Christ with Christ living in him the moment he is saved (1 Corinthians 12:13). Much of Christianity has never been drawn to the fullness of God’s plan – Christ in you, the key element of salvation. The priesthood and the pageantry offers something alluring and ego-satisfying, coupled in part with Christ as Savior, but never does it come right out and say, “We are not telling the whole truth.”

In it all, this business of attempting to balance things in Christianity and the Bible will fall flat. God has a perfect plan of creating true children by birthing Christ in them. Believers who know they are in Christ don’t need to balance anything. We need only to state the truth as Paul gives it in his epistles and everyone, both Jew and Gentile, will have the life God intended them to have – the life as a true child of God because Jesus Christ is living in them.

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