A young man came to see me after a sermon, troubled not because I had made the gospel too demanding, but because I had made it too free, too dangerous. He was convinced that if people were simply told they were forgiven for Christ’s sake, without conditions, someone would inevitably take advantage of it.

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Christianity has always had its share of people who cannot quite forgive the gospel for being free. I can understand. When my self-consciousness has gotten the better of me, I have had those moments when the freedom of the gospel has seemed, well, too much.

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And in those moments, you, too, may have said or thought something like this:

Is there not something I can point to in myself to prove grace has not fallen into the wrong hands?

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But this question only reveals the condition in which we are bound: measuring, comparing, judging, and trying to establish ourselves by what can be counted.

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How is my faith doing? Is my repentance deep enough? Am I praying enough? Is there enough fruit?!

And when those questions become unbearable, we can always turn them toward the neighbor. Is his faith genuine? Is her repentance sincere? Where is their fruit?

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The result is a Christianity in which the believer is never quite permitted to stop watching himself, or to have the uneasy sense that someone else is!

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But did Christ die to produce a more efficiently monitored sinner? To keep you continually under surveillance? Or did He die to end the old arrangement altogether?

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There is a reason Paul does not tell the Galatians, “Having begun by the Spirit, you must now finish by careful moral supervision.” His question is less polite: “Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” Another way to put it is: “Have you begun with Christ only to turn back to yourself?” 

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The law has much to say about what your spouse, child, employee, stranger, and neighbor need from you. In every domain of life, the law speaks in full voice. But do not drag it into the courtroom of justification and ask whether Christ’s verdict can be trusted.

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 The gospel is not advice. It is good news. Really good news!

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“Your sins are forgiven.”

“There is therefore now no condemnation.”

“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

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Those are not motivational slogans. They are final verdicts. But a verdict that must be constantly reexamined by reexamining the defendant is no verdict at all.

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The new life in Christ is real, but it is not offered as evidence of justification. A vine does not bear fruit by anxiously staring at its branches, waiting for them to produce. The vine produces the fruit. And the vine does need the help of the branch, thank you very much.

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That is intolerable to the old Adam, who would rather be condemned on his own terms than justified by someone else.

The young man who came to see me was right about one thing: this gospel is dangerous. It takes the entire religious project out of our hands. There is nothing to hold up before God and say, “See, it’s working!”

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There is only Christ who has taken your sin to the cross, put it to death there, and risen to give you his life. And Christ does not caution you, saying, “Watch yourself carefully, and perhaps someday you will know whether you are forgiven.”

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He proclaims, “Your sins are forgiven!”

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So, friend in Christ, where your Good Lord is concerned, the surveillance can end. You are free.

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The old Adam will, of course, want to install another camera.

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Let him watch the empty tomb!