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A
gift to be a gift is free, and it would be adequate for the above
verse to say simply:
God’s
gift
is
eternal
life.
But
this version, the
Good
News for Modern Man,
along
with others, renders that charming Greek word
charisma
as
“free gift.” Nearly all versions, including the
King
James,
adds
the
free
in
Rom. 5:15-16.
Charisma
in
these contexts seems to say more than simply
gift,
so
most of the translations seek to capture the force of the language
with
free
gift.
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Proud
man with his propensity for independence tends to eschew anything
free. He wants to pay his own way. He does not want to be obligated.
Even as a child he insisted, as does my three-year-old
granddaughter, “I can do it myself,” and this penchant
for self-sufficiency affects his religion. He is persuaded that he
lives in a world where “There are no free lunches,” and
so he is slow to accept the idea of a free gift,
unconditionally
free,
with no strings attached. He just can’t accept it, not even in
religion. He has to do
something,
he
figures, but apparently the apostle means just what he says. God’s
grace is free, a free gift.
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I
recall a family Christmas party at which my six brothers and one
sister gathered to exchange gifts for our children. The child of one
of my brothers received a gift that was not anticipated. He
whispered to his wife, “Is that covered?” He could not
bear a circumstance in which he (or his child) received without
giving something in return. We prefer to stay “one up”
on those who would be gracious to us. We feel obligated to anyone
who has us as guests for dinner. We must now have them! We recoil at
the idea of a sure-enough, no-strings-attached free gift. It invades
the taproot of our psyche, our selfish pride.
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The
Japanese, who may be the proudest people in the world, make a
science out of being “one up” on you. While they will
graciously accept your overtures, when the contacts are all over it
is certain that they will have out-gifted you, even if it means
handing you a gift as you enplane at the airport. It is not that
they are not truly a gracious people, but that they make sure they
are “covered.” It is excusably human.
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But
does it not miss the point of a religion based on grace? It is the
principle of grace as a free gift that seldom finds a home in the
heart of man. Even those who profess to accept the gift can hardly
receive it as truly free and unconditional. The Scriptures indeed
call it a free gift, and in our heads we accept that, but it has
difficulty invading our hearts. A free gift! I am suspicious that
most Christians are like myself:
it
is
almost
too much for us to comprehend.
Even
God does not hand out free lunches. We have to do something: some
work, pray, be baptized, give money, attend church,
something!
It
can’t really be
that
free,
we reason in our self-sufficient pride.
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The
spirit of the free gift, unconditional grace and love, hardly
pervades the ongoing of life of most of us. And yet this is the only
way any of us want to be loved. I often tell Ouida that my love for
her is not on a contract basis; it is not a two-way agreement. I
love her unconditionally, no strings attached. If she ends up in a
wheelchair, no longer capable of the usual responses, I will love
her just the same. She doesn’t have to stay beautiful, young,
thin, sexy, rich, alert, or anything else, for me to love her. I
have chosen her to love
forever.
There
is nothing she can do to change that. Conditional love is not only
not true love but it begets fear and insecurity. If we always have
to “measure up” in order to be loved, we will always
feel both unloved and unworthy.
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It
is breathtaking to realize that that is the way God loves us,
unconditionally.
I
do not have to be good enough, obedient enough, intelligent enough,
sacrificial enough, prayerful enough, studious enough. True, he is a
covenant-making God and we are part of that covenant or agreement,
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but
his love does not depend on our loyalty to that covenant. Nothing
can separate us from his love, not even our own waywardness. Jesus
teaches us that God loves like the father loved his prodigal son,
especially when he was in the pig pen. When the son returned home
there were no demands meted out. The father loved him and accepted
him
as
is,
no
strings attached. It was indeed a free lunch, yea, it was a free
banquet!
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God’s
free gift of his grace! Doesn’t it blow your mind when you
ponder the implications? It means, it
has
to
mean, that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that we can do to
merit it or deserve it or be worthy of it. We cannot be like the
Pharisee that “considered himself righteous” because of
what he did and “counted all others for naught.” He
thanked God that he was not like others! We can only be like the
humble publican who stood back from the altar,
unworthy,
who
cried to God as he beat his breast,
Be
merciful to me a sinner!
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This
is the love we are to show to our children. If we love them only as
they measure up to our expectations it is not love at all. A child
is made anxious when he has to perform at a certain level, whether
on the playing field or in the classroom, to gain his parents’
acceptance.
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And
our love for each other as Christians must be unconditional.
Sectarianism is cruel in that it demands that we love only those who
are true to the party. If those in my congregation love me only as I
“line up” and believe and act precisely as they do, I
have no reason to feel secure in their love. If they love me with
the love of the free gift, they will love me when I am wrong. It is
an inadequate religion when one has to be “right” to be
loved.
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I
recently visited one of our ministers who is now serving another
denomination. I sensed that he supposed that he did not count with
me as much since he had “left us,” so I assured him in
no uncertain terms that my devotion to him was not based upon party
loyalty but upon our common bond in Jesus Christ. “You are my
brother in Christ and I love you (period),” I told him, “and
that isn’t affected by moving from one denomination to
another, for we can serve Christ wherever we are.” In fact
that may be where more of us should be, out there proclaiming the
good news to those who need it most, assuming that “they”
need it more than “we”.
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And
that
is
the good news, that God’s grace manifest in Christ is a free
gift. Thank God for that! If it depended on my goodness or my
righteousness or my works, it would be bad news instead of good, for
there is no way for me to cut it. I am not good enough to deserve
it, strong enough to demand it, rich enough to buy it, nor can I
work hard enough to merit it.
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Titus
3:3-6 spells out this truth poignantly. Verse 3 presents the
before
side
of the picture: “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient,
led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our
days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another.”
Here we have man’s perversion and degradation, hopelessly
estranged from God. Then comes the great
But
of
verse 4: “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our
Savior appeared, he saved us.” God acted in our behalf, as
unworthy and undeserving as we were, because he is good and loving.
He saved us by his grace, only by his grace.
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Verse
5 makes it clear that it was
not
because
of “deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his
own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy
Spirit.” Even a
righteous
act
on our part, if such there is, such as penance or baptism, is of no
avail. It is only “in virtue of his own mercy” that we
are delivered from the
before
life.
That he would refer to “the washing of regeneration,”
which almost certainly refers to water baptism, and “renewal
of the Holy Spirit” in this context shows that these are acts
of grace which we receive, not acts that we perform. We do not
do
baptism
as a work on our part. It is rather something done to us. We
receive
baptism,
and in receiving this act of grace we receive the renewing power of
the Holy Spirit.
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Whatever
we say about baptism or a “plan of salvation” we must
place it within the context of a free gift from God. We cannot
do
anything
to be saved, not if it is a free gift.
Of
course
we
must accept the gift, but even our response in repentance and
baptism is motivated by God’s philanthropy, “which he
poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,” to
refer once more to Titus 3. That passage goes on to read:
so
that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of
eternal life.
It
is clear that we are justified by what God has done for us, not by
what we have done. We are not saved by obeying commandments; we obey
commandments because we are saved. We do no works to be saved; we
work because we are saved.
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Our
response to the Father’s grace is to be overwhelming
gratitude. That gratitude, based upon the goodness and kindness of
God, leads us to faith, repentance and baptism. These responses are
his work within us (Philip. 2:13), not any righteousness that we do
ourselves (Philip. 3:9). Faith and baptism then are part of the free
gift. I cannot even believe on my own, unless it be a kind of
intellectual assent. The faith that saves is the free gift of God,
motivated by the good news of Jesus Christ. It is only when we see
the grand truth of the free gift that we begin to perceive the
meaning of the grace of God. —the
Editor