Opus 2025-444: An Agent of Grace

This morning I was reading in Psalms and reveling in how the author was rejoicing in his God.  I also rejoice in my God.  It’s the same God.  He would’ve been confused by my talk about grace and how superior it was to the old covenant of the law.  You see to him the law was in reality a covenant of grace.

We have this idea, possibly because of Paul, that the law was terrible burden upon people. Really?  Being told not to lie, steal, fornicate, and covet is a terrible burden?  Cut me a break.  What you were looking at in the law is an owners manual on your new Lexus.  It’s instructions on how to make sure that you never have to make that phone call for a tow truck.

If you buy a new Lexus and you ignore the instructions given in the Owner’s Manual, your car is going to break down.  If you ignored the instructions, they may not fix it for free, but they will be willing to give you roadside service and tow you to a mechanic.  If the engine seizes up because you didn’t check or change the oil, whose fault is that?  You see the warranty information was there to give you carefree driving.  Even if they replaced your Lexus every time the engine froze, you would still end up being stranded out in the middle of the desert.

The instruction manual is there for your protection.  When you follow it, life is much better than when you ignore it.  Such is the law.  When people follow the guidelines given in the law of God, their lives are better, their children grow up and get jobs, their neighborhoods are more secure.  That’s where the United States was until recently.  Remember how you used to never lock your house?  Granted, most people didn’t actually believe in the God of the Bible, but they followed His rules and it worked.

As a Christian, I am not under the law.  I am under grace.  For the most part, I still tend to follow the law because God has a reason for the things that He expects of us.  Am I saved because of that?  No.  I am saved because of my faith in Jesus Christ.  However, the instruction manual is still in the glove compartment.  I can still check it to see how often I need to change my oil or if I need to rotate my tires.  I think of it as an agent of grace.  It’s something that God has given us to make life better . It is not a shackle.  It is a guard rail.

Ignore it at your own peril.  Remember the tow truck may take hours to get to you.

homo unius libri