“Free Grace,” The Devil’s Joke

(Written by Joseph R. Chambers)
Free grace does not exist, but the free gift of grace does. Ask the Father if grace was free and He will answer, “It wasn’t for me!” Ask the Son what the price of grace was and His answer will be, “It cost Me My life!” The modern church has stripped the cross of Jesus Christ of all of its pain and suffering for those who will embrace it. The people that embrace this new compromise are as spiritually dead as the theologians that preach it.

A cross that costs nothing means nothing. The faith that shook the world during church history was always a faith that costs the followers everything — the deeper the embrace and the greater the sacrifice, the greater the impact. Find any adherent that is a part of this “free grace” mentality and you will find a spineless and soft religion. Nothing but a religious club of giddy worldliness can result from such cheap grace.

Grace costs the Father His only Son! What a price that Heaven had to pay to purchase man back to the family of God! Sin did not just separate man from God; it defiled and robbed Him of his very God-like character. Sin is as vile as the serpent that was its first mouthpiece. The Jewel of Heaven was the Father’s Only Son. He alone speaks the perfect revelations. When God created light, the Son of God was the light bearer. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Our God paid the ultimate price for grace through the gift of His Son.

The price of grace for the Son of God was beyond words. To leave His Father sitting on His majestic throne must have filled this great Heavenly temple with utter sadness. The Son could not come to earth as the Prince He was, but He humbled Himself to be stripped of His divine robe. From birth to death, someone was constantly seeking His destruction.

Only His childlike innocence saved His early years from torments. His first sermon in Nazareth ended with a mob trying to cast Him off a cliff. He was not just crucified, He was emaciated. Isaiah described His torture, “As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14). Every possible abuse was used to render Him despicable. But, grace was the master of His every abuse and He died triumphantly.

Even the Holy Spirit paid an unreal price in bringing the action of grace to the reach of humans. Every moment of Christ’s earthly pilgrimage was overshadowed by the Spirit of grace. From His conception as the child in the womb of Mary until that same Spirit quickened His emaciated figure in the garden tomb, the Holy Spirit gave life to the sacrifice. There is no way that this third member of the Godhead did not grieve with the price the Son was required to pay. But, the Holy Spirit never withheld the strength of grace that protected the offering for sin until the sacrifice could utter, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

The two words, “free” and “grace,” appear in the Bible one time in the same verse. “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many” (Romans 5:15). Apostle Paul, speaking by the Holy Ghost, explained the working of this grace and proved infinitely that it is a free gift but only to those persons ready to die to self with Him. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Romans 6:1-2).

This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the working of His free gift of grace. Grace from Christ and death to self is the heartbeat of this gospel. Cheap grace has produced an apostate church. This apostle of Christ lays down the character of grace. “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin” (Romans 6:4-7).

The church is dead because those that profess Christ have not been willing to put their flesh on the cross in death to the old man. We have the exact words to show what is missing. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:11-14).

The Son of God summed it up as He taught His disciples, “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Grace is totally unearned. There are not any good works that can buy or merit our salvation. The life of Christ is a free gift that is given to every person that surrenders wholly to Him. He will give you His all when He has your all.