Not much grace in the grace-gospel

Grace. What be ‘grace’...? ask I! Is it the license to sin?

Permission to be as wayward, skew-mannered and sleazy as can be, and yet still somehow feel vindicated about it because a Jewish rabbi named Jesus, also baptized the Christ, supposedly died at Calvary two millennia ago.

Earlier this afternoon, I really had a hard time keeping both my shoes on when a colleague ventured an explanation for the so-called grace gospel, for I had half the mind to take off one of them, or better still – both,  and hurl the thing(s) straight at him.

Listening to him cast my mind through a kaleidoscope of conversations and/or arguments I’d had with persons of similar views; and I felt just about ready to let the fire loose on him right there and then, but only decided against it for the simple reason that I realized I’d actually never attempted a systemic assessment of the subject, and thus any alternatives I might volunteer would be inchoate, and at best, patchy.

Thus, I decided to take a few moments off and rationalize this construct, ‘‘the grace gospel,’’ that had worryingly began to catch on so quickly with the modern generation of Pentecostal Christians.

Grace.

 Is it, like my high-school chaplain fondly often asked, equivalent to divine approval, irrespective of when and if the conscious actions of a man go against the 'universal' moral code?

While I, on several counts disagree with the statement and all its possible implications, I increasingly find that many young (and sometimes old) people today cash into its surface and subliminal meanings with all the fervor of colluding stock-market brokers.

As far as I gather, the grace gospel entails the belief that man has been forgiven all his wrongdoing by virtue of the Christ’s death at the cross.

And that man is therefore not born into sin, but is born into a life of divine inheritance, since the Christ is said to have unconditionally paid for all the universal sin of man upon his three-day vacation in Hades.

One wonders, by the way, why he didn’t use that trinity of days to smite Lucifer with a deathly blow.

Anyhow, the implication of this vacation therefore being that no matter how much a man may fall short of any standards of decency and moral aptitude, that man cannot be held liable for any wrong.

Alas - the man is already absolved of all iniquity.

Summarily, even if one steals, lies, fornicates or even kills; s/he cannot be considered guilty for they were long pardoned by Christ’s ultimate sacrifice at Golgotha.

 All that is required for a man to turn away from his wrong path, weeping and sobbing with gratitude, is for him to understand that he was forgiven by Christ before he was even born, and loved so much to be pardoned while yet he was a sinner.

The mentality behind this argument I think, is that man is more likely to genuinely repent of his wrong works when he realizes that it is not for the goodness of his own works that he need count himself as loved of God, but for the pre-existent love of God that he should make his works good – perhaps as a sign of worship to God.

In other-words, let the man not turn to God to be forgiven; but let him turn to God because, apparently, he is already forgiven. How priceless! (and absurd!)

Too good to be true?

Oh yes, I know.

I thought so myself, the first few times I heard the argument advanced. 

But then, after a while, I was compelled to rethink the entire thought process that’d led me to be so earnest in receiving this version of gospel interpretation.

And for sure, the reason eventually proved as obvious as the attractiveness of the gospel itself. I was attracted to the gospel because it provided an easy way out; a way out of responsibility and accountability.

Come to think of it. Who wouldn’t want to be washed free of blame and forgiven prenatally; reprieved even before they are born!

Imagine it! Forgiven of sins one is “yet-to-commit!”

 One can thus see why the prospect, however ludicrous, is quite attractive to a generation as immersed in senses of entitlement, and silver-platter-borne gifts, as ours is!

While the long-standing alternative, the more traditional Christian doctrine of penitence succeeding transgression, suggests that God would place certain behavioral demands and expectations of conduct upon his creation and/or followers; the grace-gospel peddlers argue that this is ‘’the law’’, and that upon Jesus’ death, the epoch of canonical law as codified by the Jewish Rabbi Moses, was interred with the Messiah’s bones. (I would imagine there’s a possibility of the entombed law having risen with him too, three days hence.)

It is thus very attractive to tell any person today, that they cannot be held accountable for anything they do, no matter how debauched it might be.

To tell them that even before they contemplate murder or hate another, that hatred is already pardoned. See? It’s that tempting!

The only thing I quite haven’t figured out yet is who then the sin, once committed in real-time, may be attributed to.

The devil? A historical ‘‘sin-account’’ that pre-dates Christ’s sacrifice? Who takes up this culpability exactly?

I somehow find the notion that Christ historically swallowed-up all iniquity in one gulp a perfect carte-blanche for ‘believers’ to ran around pummeling society’s moral canvas with blunt cudgels,  without respite.

Little wonder therefore that the Pentecostal Church (across the developing world) has had its ranks swell astronomically over the past few years. (The developing world ‘specification’ will be the subject of another discussion, but I hope the implication is evident.)

That’s simply because it is easier for this type of gospel to be received by faint-hearted moral dilly-dalliers who find the notion of ‘purifying’ themselves  and seeking righteousness, too tall an order, as espoused by the more traditional Christian doctrine.

Thus, today we see hundreds of ‘’liberty-seeking’’ Christians running from the Catholic , to the slightly libertarian Anglican church, eventually ending up in the no-holds-barred Pentecostal church; because they consider the demands placed upon their faith too great to bear, among orthodox congregations.

Indeed – one must once in a while slip and have a little ‘fun’ … as long as they can come back later, say sorry to Daddy Jesus, and not feel too bad about it … like a married man slipping occasionally onto the secretary at work … after-all, his sins were forgiven a score of centuries ago!

My belly aches.