Human Potential or Radical Grace?
“I am here to pump…you up!”
One of the terms you will hear us use here at Dandelion is “radical grace.” The word grace by itself does not seem sufficient any longer in Christianity because it has been hijacked. Most often when people use the term “grace” they understand it in a partial way. In this case grace functions like a steroid shot in the arm that pumps up your already existent muscles so that you can be a better version of yourself. So that you can be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of spirituality. Another way to put it is that grace functions more as an aid, a help, a little push in the right direction from my divine Friend to keep me on the straight and narrow. In this way grace is seen as a way to unlock your human potential. It’s like we think of God trying to help us to learn how to ride a bike or something. “You can do it!” The idea of grace as an aid may work when thinking about our horizontal relationships. As U2 sang, “sometimes you can’t make it on your own”...(ahem...don’t you mean all the time, Bono?). And as they say in 12 Step recovery rooms, “We need people.” You might call that grace, and that’s ok, but it is specific to our interpersonal relationships, and it is indeed partial. However, it is NOT the same thing Scripture calls grace when referring to our relationship with God. He is not trying to help us learn how to ride a bike on our own without training wheels.
I can’t figure this one out…why is the dad pushing the kid when he still has training wheels on?
The kind of grace the Bible refers to is truly radical. If we tend to use the term referring to some kind of partial experience of aid or guidance, a booster shot or a kind of 5-hour energy drink to help us “be all that we can be” as the infectious US Army ads used to sing to us...then what the Bible reveals is total grace. There is nothing partial about it. It is not God asking us to meet him halfway. It is not God saying, “You do your part, and I’ll do mine.” Rather the grace revealed in the Bible is total, complete, 100% God’s action toward us. This is because He is righteous. The dictionary defines “righteous” as “characterized by uprightness or morality.” In other words, to be righteous means to be truly good. Jesus uses even stronger language calling righteousness “perfection” in his sermon on the mount (Matt 5:48). As you might have guessed Jesus’ word is best. To be righteous means to be perfect, no wrong, no flaw, no compromise, no “most of the time,” no Marry Poppins-“practically perfect in every way” (emphasis mine). Righteousness means actual perfection in every way all of the time without exception. Anything short of that is sin.
Fuzzy, just like my old tube tv in the 80s! Memories.
If you are self-aware in the slightest, then you can see the problem here. God is righteous, and we are not. This problem is what the Bible is concerned with. You might think, “What’s the big deal? So, I’m not perfect all the time. So, I make mistakes. Who doesn’t? Why can’t God just lighten up and give me a pass?” Hence, our partial version of grace. It’s just God making up for our flawed moments, our imperfections, or as Bridget Jones referred to them, our “wobbly bits.” He’s smoothing out our rough edges, etc., etc. This does not take righteousness or sin seriously enough.
Radical grace, total grace is exactly what is required when you are dealing with dead people. The back of our property abuts the Cutchogue cemetery, which means we have very quiet neighbors. As our unusually plucky and fun carpet installer observed, “Everybody’s dying to get in there.” But if I were to go back there and stand in front of one of the graves and start talking to the person buried there saying, “I’m here to help. I’ll give you a hand. You’ve just got to make a little effort. You’ve just got to do your part and then I can do mine. Just come my way a little bit.” Or if I were to use the classic line from Jerry McGuire, “Help me, help you!” You’d say I was insane, right? Nothing is ever going to happen. That person is going to stay dead and buried. They do not need a little help. They do not need a little direction or guidance or even correction. They need to be resurrected! They need new life. New bones, new muscles, new organs, new everything. Their problem is total and so the solution must be total. They need radical intervention. As God asks his prophet Ezekiel, “Son of man can these dry bones live?” Ezekiel accurately responds, “O Lord, only you know” (Ezekial 37:1-14).
Two Renee Zellweger movies referenced in one post! #lifegoals
Here’s the rub...spiritually we are no different from them. Apart from God’s total grace we are dead. You are dead. No matter what you try, no matter what self-improvement program you’re in, no matter what diet you’re on, no matter what exercise fad you’ve just begun (hello Peloton riders out there), no matter what trendy book you’ve picked up that promises you transformation...you are spiritually dead. You can do nothing about it. In this way, contrary to popular opinion, you are not free. You do not have a free will to choose what you want. Rather, you are bound and need to be freed. The Bible is very clear on this. Paul gives testimony to our inability to do the things we know we should even when we want to: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing….Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Rom. 7:10-25).
This is the difference between Christianity and every other religion out there. Every other religion works to excite your effort, to unlock your human potential, whether it be through inspiration: “You can do this! You’ve got the potential!”...or through fear: “You better do this or you’re toast!” The faith in all other religions and religious systems truly lies in you. The hope is that you will finally figure it out one day and get your act together and “do the right thing” as Spike Lee commanded. Problem is, as we have seen, dead people have NO potential. Whatever potential they had has already been proven a failure. Their potential did not save them...could not save them. Christianity on the other hand understands this about us. There are no illusions about our state and our potential ability to do anything about it. Christianity is all about faith in Jesus Christ. It is all about what he has done for us and not what we might do for him. Thank God!
This is why Jesus gets so specific with Nicodemus in John 3. He tells him that he must be born again. Nicodemus sees the obvious problem with this solution. He says, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” In other words, that’s impossible Jesus! Just as impossible for the dead in the cemetery behind our house to get up out of their graves and live into their potential. Jesus doesn’t relent! He ups the ante even more and answers, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (vv. 5-6). So, what you need is not simply new life physically, as if that weren’t impossible enough, but you need new life spiritually. Jesus takes away any hope of human potential from Nicodemus. The only One who can do what is required is God alone. And that is exactly who is standing right there in front of Nicodemus. Jesus came to do this very thing...to bring us to new life spiritually and physically. “Lazarus come out!” “I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?” “I will raise him up on the last day.” Total and radical grace.
Cutchogue Cemetery
Now, it’s no use us just talking about grace. As my friend, John Stamper, would say this post thus far at best would have given you a propositional understanding of faith. You would know about it. But God has appointed preachers to go and actually give Jesus, who is grace incarnate, to dead people. He has called his people to hand this radical grace over to those who are dying to get into God’s kingdom. And so that’s what I will do now. This is God’s radical grace for you in Jesus Christ...you are forgiven...for everything...right now. He has taken away your sin, your imperfection, your wobbly bits...without condition. Completely. Totally. He has conquered the dead for you. Jesus is risen from the grave and is alive today, and he has appointed this moment where you would be reading this article and “hearing” his word of total grace for you. He has not left anything for you to do because you can’t do it anyway. You are forgiven. You are loved. You are free in him and nothing and no one can change that. He will not let you go. He promises you, and he does not lie. Amen.
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