God has limits and he has limited grace to certain specifics of behavior. Paul wrote in I Corinthians 6:12 the following: All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Paul was making references to the liberties that believers have in Christ, but that liberty doesn’t include the deliberate practice of sin such as fornication and other acts. He wrote in verse 13: Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. Meat is permissable, but it’s not if it causes a brother or sister to be offended as Paul pointed out in I Corinthians 8:13: Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend. Thus we can learn what Paul meant with words of I Corinthians 6:12. If the conduct isn't sin, but others are offended by it, don't engage in the conduct.

Paul says flee fornication, and since the believer is in a union with Christ's mind and body, the believer isn’t his own, verse 19. Then in verse 20 he gives the reason: For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. It is plain that the believer has to abstain from sin with both the mind and the body since Christ died for the total man and woman. Paul wrote in  Romans 8:10-12: And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. 12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. There is a limit on grace and it is due to the debt we owe to God and His Son.

In Galatians 5:19-21 and in I Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul lists all the behaviors that aren’t acceptable under grace. Each and every one of the sinful acts listed requires one to think about and then deliberately set about performing. None of them can be done accidentally, so a believer can’t claim ignorance of the truth when caught in deliberate acts of sin and neither can they appeal to grace.

The limit of grace was set forth at the creation. God told Adam and Eve what was permissible and what wasn’t acceptable. After their transgression, God could have immediately caused their death physically  at that time, but that didn’t fit his long range plan for humans. He banished them from the garden and thus a measure of grace (unmerited favor) was extended to them. God’s terms for behavior didn’t include disobedience then and neither does it now.

We find limits on grace in the words of Paul, Ephesians 4:3-7: Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. 7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them. Now we know what defines the limits of grace and the consequences for disobedience.

False teachers try to say that grace covers all regardless, but the scriptures tell us otherwise. In 2 Peter 2:1-2: But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

God’s word makes it easy to learn the limits of grace. Verse after verse informs us of what he expects from us. To do less than he teaches is to deny his perfect love and grace so freely extended.

© 08-24-2007 DEC

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