Grace Is Power

Pauls says that the grace of God was not given to him ‘in vain.’ The word vain means devoid of results; unaccompanied by any demonstration of power!

Unfortunately the same can’t be said of everyone. The fact is, the grace of God is given to some in vain. Mainly because the have a limited view of grace. They see grace as the absence of judgement, rather than the presence of power. Grace is spiritual power that enables us to do the works of Christ.

The phrase ‘to do despite’ means hubris. In the ancient Greek context, a hubristic person is someone who is out of touch with reality; someone who is prideful and dangerously overconfident even to the point of defying the gods!

But as we said, this is not the message we hear today. What we hear from many who preach the message of grace is how grace is the absence of the law. When we make grace simply about “removing the law,” we risk turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.

The phrase ‘to do despite’ means to be hubris. In the ancient Greek context, hubris described a person who tries to defy normal behavior and challenge the gods! hubris person is out of touch with reality; someone that is prideful and dangerously overconfident. So, this is not someone who is making a mistake and failing the grace of God. This is someone who is arrogantly rejecting the grace of God being overconfident that they will, despite all indications to the contrary, that God will pardon them regardless of what they do.

So, this is not someone 'making a mistake’ and failing the grace of God through weakness. Instead, this is someone who arrogantly rejects the grace of God believing God will pardon them regardless of what they do.

Today we hear only about what God gives grace. However, the TRUTH is grace is power to manifest what has given. Grace is power, not just the absence of law.

I’ve listened to the message of grace being taught today, and while a lot of what I’m hearing is correct and good (particularly when I hear them speaking about grace being devoid of the law and condemnation), the problem I am having with the teaching t stops there (i.e. grace is the absence of law).

I’ve listened to this grace teaching, and while a lot of what they say concerning the law and condemnation is correct/good, the error is found in the fact that they are only teaching that grace is the absence of law.

Grace is not just the absence of law. Instead, grace is the replacement of the law with a new law—the law of the Spirit or the law of faith (, ).

If you simply preach, “Grace is the absence of law!” without replacing the law with something else, you risk turning grace into lasciviousness ().

Lasciviousness is the absence of restraint (law). Apparently there were teachers purporting a false message of grace, one that removed all restraint from people.

How do we know if the message we’re hearing in regards to grace is true or false message? It seems we lump every message (preacher) of grace into the same category. Just because someone is preaching grace doesn’t mean we’re suppose to reject it. (Remember grace is a Bible doctrine, not a movement!) What we must do is determine if the message we’re hearing is what the Bible teaches about grace.

Grace is not just the removal of the law (judgment). We believe that the absence of laws will eliminate sin OR even God’s judgment!

How many times have we gotten rid of things out without a replacement? We’ve gotten rid of bad leaders before we were ready to replace them with good ones. We’ve left churches before we had something to replace it with.

How many times have we gotten rid of things out without a replacement? We’ve gotten rid of bad leaders before we were ready to replace them with good ones. We’ve left churches before we had something to replace it with.

We believe that simply the absence of a thing will make things better. But, simply removing the law won’t remove sin OR judgment!

Notice, sin was in the world even when there was no law. Moreover, judgment (death) was ALSO in the world even though there was no law. In fact, the absence of the law didn’t deliver men from judgment in Noah’s day and it won’t deliver men from judgment in our day!

The absence of the law didn’t deliver men from judgment in Noah’s day and it won’t deliver men from judgment in our day! What delivers from judgment is not the absence of law, but it is the absence of sin. In addition, what delivers from sin is not the absence of law, but the presence of Christ/the Holy Spirit!

This is because what delivers men from judgment is not the absence of law, but it is the absence of sin. You don’t remove sin by simply removing the law.

If God knew that man would never be fully obedient to the law, why did He give the law? It was added because of transgression (so we might know what actions were sinful). The law does not give us power to reach or achieve God’s expectation, but it does reveal to us what that expectation is. If there were no laws (if everything was legal), we would be desensitized towards of sin.

God knew man would never be fully obedient to the law, but He sill added it. Why? For one, laws help to restrain sin and transgression. If you remove all laws from a nation (making sin legal), corruption (debauchery) will set it because people will become desensitized towards sin ().

If you take the law away (by making it legal to sin), then those who would otherwise pass on the opportunity will be emboldened to sin! In other words, you risk desensitizing people towards sin ().

The writer says that they were “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” In other words, they took such a loose approach to sin that their hearts (conscience) was hardened!

We glory in the fact that we have removed the law and delivered so many in the Church of condemnation. But, could it be that the reason we are no longer struggling with condemnation is because our conscience has been hardened through sin ()?

We rejoice in how well the message of grace is delivering the Church from condemnation, but have we ever considered that the reason people are no longer struggling with condemnation is because our conscience has been seared (, )?

Now, when it came time to remove the law, God replaced it with something else—the seed. If we take away the law without replacing it with Christ (requiring men to walk by faith and the Spirit), we will harden our conscience ().

In fact, God never removes the law without having something to replace it with.

How many times have we gotten rid of things out without a replacement? We get rid of leaders before there’s someone to replace them with. We’ve left churches before we had something to replace it with.

The absence of the law didn’t deliver men from judgment from Adam to Moses and it won’t deliver men in our day from judgment. This is because removing the law doesn’t deliver men from God’s judgment, but delivering them from sin does! Moreover, you don’t deliver men from sin by simply removing the law.

We glory in the fact that we have removed the law and delivered so many in the Church of condemnation. But, could it be that the reason we are no longer struggling with condemnation is because our conscience has been hardened through sin ()?

Notice the writer says, “…hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” In other words, taking a very casual approach to sin can harden ones’ conscience!

No, you don’t remove the law without He had something to replace it with.

How many times have we gotten rid of things out without providing a proper replacement? We get rid of leaders before there’s a replacement. We leave a fellowship (church) and we have nothing to replace it with.

How many times have we gotten rid of things out without providing a proper replacement? We get rid of leaders before there’s a replacement. We leave a fellowship (church) and we have nothing to replace it with.

We just get rid of a thing thinking that the absence of the thing will make things better. But, removing the law doesn’t remove sin OR judgment!

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Notice, sin was in the world even when there was no law. God’s judgment (death) was also present even though there was no law. In fact, God poured out His judgment and destroyed the world because there was so much sin!

The absence of the law didn’t deliver men from judgment in Noah’s day and it won’t deliver men from judgment in our day! What delivers from judgment is not the absence of law, but it is the absence of sin. In addition, what delivers from sin is not the absence of law, but the presence of Christ/the Holy Spirit!

Grace REPLACES the law of sin and death with the law of faith ().

If we take away the law without requiring men to walk by faith OR the Spirit, their conscience will be seared (). Sin is very dangerous and it has the potential to deceive us into thinking it’s harmless.

There’s a difference between

We glory in the fact that a large percentage of the Church is no longer struggling with condemnation. However, could it be that the reason they are no longer struggling with condemnation is because their conscience has been hardened through sin ().

Notice that the writer says, “…hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” In other words, they were deceived into thinking there was no danger in their sin, but in fact it was ‘hardening’ their heart/conscience!

We talk about revival and setting men free through demonstrations of the Spirit, however, it’s the knowledge of God’s truth that really sets free ()!

Which is better, being under condemnation or being guilty of disobeying one’s conscience? If you don’t know, the latter is the worse!

Freedom from sin (v.34) doesn’t come from the absence of the law. It comes from Christ—as we ‘continue’ in His words (teaching). The difference between Christ’s words and the words of the law is His words gives power (grace) to those who believe (Romans 1:16). The Jews in Jesus’ day claimed to have freedom as children of Abraham. However, their actions reveal that they are really children of the devil ().

(i.e. power from the Spirit). In fact, the Holy Ghost is called the ‘Spirit of grace.’

The phrase ‘to do despite’ means hubris. In the ancient Greek context, a hubristic person is someone who is out of touch with reality; someone who is prideful and dangerously overconfident even to the point of defying the gods!

So, this is not someone 'making a mistake’ and failing the grace of God through weakness. Instead, this is someone who arrogantly rejects the grace of God believing God will pardon them regardless of what they do.