License to Sin

My Ohio driver's license gives me the legal right to operate a motor vehicle. It confirms that I have met a set of criteria making it appropriate for me (under the right circumstances) to operate a motor vehicle. It grants certain rights and privileges, but it does not permit me to do things like speeding, distracted driving, or dangerous driving. It is a license, but it has limitations. Jude, when he wrote his brief letter to all faithful Christians, warned that when we understand that we are saved by grace, we must not treat that grace like a license to live however we want. This is what was happening back when he penned the book of Jude, and it is certainly happening now.

Some believe we can live however we want because of the gift of God's forgiveness. Jude warned that this is a perversion or corruption of the grace of God… “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”  (Jude 1:4 ESV) In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul uses some of the strongest words in all of scripture to make a similar point: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:1-4 ESV) In other words, why would we go back to the old life when we have been given a new life?

Paul gets even more graphic when he says in Hebrews 6:6 that this would be like putting Jesus back on the cross. What a horrific image, especially for those of us who claim to understand the grace of Jesus through the work of the cross. Jude is warning us in his letter that we never want to go back to our old, tarnished way of life. I had a friend once show me a business card given to him by a family member who was a police officer. He described it as his “Get Out of Jail Free” card, and he said that if he got pulled over for doing something illegal, he could just show the card and any police officer would let him go.

I suppose that mindset, as dangerous as it is, is a temptation for all of us. In essence, we say Jesus “paid it all,” and so we can keep spending. This mindset is so wrong that it merited the warning of Jude! “By no means!” should we take advantage of God’s grace; instead, we should do just the opposite. When a married woman tried to seduce Joseph (Genesis 39), he declared, “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” He understood that God’s love for him was not something to be taken for granted, but something that is worth honoring. 

Expectantly,

 Shawn