Grace is one of my favourite words. It is a word which gives me hope, and tells me of a loving Father in heaven who, despite my horrible rebellion against Him, has taken me to be his own.
It is God’s favour towards me. It is God doing me good and pouring his blessing upon me. It is God’s Son taking the evil which I have committed, the guilt of my actions, the evil desires and tendencies which lie in my nature, and dying on the cross as an offering to take them all away. Yes, there are evil desires within me. My desire should be to love God with all my heart and mind and soul and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5), and likewise to love others as I love myself (Leviticus 19:18). But I find that my natural desire is to love myself with all that I am, more than both God and my neighbour. I am a natural born idolater. But God has been gracious. He truly forgives without diminishing the seriousness of my wickedness.
And his forgiveness is free. I cannot deserve it. There is nothing I can do to earn it. He sent his Son to redeem those who were otherwise unredeemable. It was Christ’s joy to come to save us, although this meant unimaginable suffering as he took our place on the cross. His grace was so costly. It was not cheap grace. God didn’t say “I’m not bothered that you’ve rebelled – let’s forget it.” He remembered all my wrongdoing, my wrong-thinking, my wrong-desiring and dealt fully with it on Calvary.
All eternity will be taken up by the redeemed in praise and wonder when we will understand more of what it meant for the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. Free grace is also costly grace.
However, there is another sense in which grace is costly. It is costly for us because it is a call to give up all to follow Christ. Please do not misunderstand me. We do not in any sense deserve and we cannot earn God’s grace. It would not be grace otherwise. But grace is given to us so that we do put Him first. He must be King and Lord of our lives. So when we receive it, Christ says to us: “Take me to be your greatest treasure, even if it means losing everything else.”
Of course, this Christ who calls us to forsake all to follow Him is not a tyrant. His yoke (in other words the burden he places on our shoulders) is easy. But it is costly to us. We must give up all our idols, and if this means doing without then that is a small price to pay for the joy of knowing Him.
Free grace is not an unlimited license to sin without considering the consequences because they’ve all been taken on the cross. Rather it is being released from sin so that we can live for the One who gave His life for us. It may cost us dearly in terms of the world, because we hold lightly to the things which this world considers precious. Our grip is tight upon Him.
So free grace is never cheap for us – there is a cost to discipleship, as Bonhoeffer said so clearly. It is never easy grace. It is the call to consider Jesus precious above all other things, and it is the grace to hold onto Him whilst letting go of all others.
Such grace will at the same time attract and repel the world. On the one hand people will see that this sort of grace counts for something. It produces a life which is different. It is grace worth dying for, worth living for. There is reality to be seen here. It is not just words.
But it will also repel the world, making it feel uncomfortable because it shows up the defectiveness and shallowness of a life without grace. It will be frightening in the claims it makes on those who accept it. The world will know that to receive this grace will mean a burning of their boats, and anchoring themselves to Christ whatever it costs. That is why in Acts we read that: None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. (Acts 5:13-14 ESV)
The world is not bothered by a faith which costs nothing to its followers. It needs to understand and be challenged by that grace which is totally free, and at the same time uncompromisingly costly.
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