Unbiblical Grace - The Great Excuse
Unbiblical grace is a cheap grace which seeks incorrect interpretations of the Bible in order to justify or excuse even the most improper behaviors and addictions. Cheap grace causes people to become users of God and to interpret scripture in narcissistic ways that support, enable and excuse their habits, helping them to feel good about themselves without ever taking true responsibility and ownership of their addictions. True repentance never takes place because cheap grace diminishes the sin to the level of a simple mistake that everyone does frequently and regularly.
One such example might be the misuse of the following scripture:
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)
This scripture tells us 3 things.
1 - There is no temptation that someone may suffer that is so utterly new that no one else in the world has suffered it.
- By “uncommon” the scripture means to say that what you have suffered, someone else has suffered, thereby nullifying any attempt to say “no one knows what I am going through, so there is no one who can help me avoid my temptations.”
2 - God does not tempt us beyond what we are capable to handle which means we have the ability and responsibility to avoid temptation.
- Because God wont tempt us beyond what we are capable, this means not only are we able to avoid a temptation, we have a responsibility to avoid it. This could be by not doing things which may place us in a situation of temptation, restricting our behaviors, changing our habits, and setting up boundaries. This also means that if we find ourselves in a situation of temptation and we succumb to it, that we are responsible for our actions because we did not do enough to prevent it, and we did not walk away from it once we found ourselves there.
3 - God will always provide a way out so that the person may avoid and escape the temptation
- No matter what the temptation is, God will provide a way out. It may be the ability to walk past certain establishments. It may be a back door through which to physically escape a temptation. It may be the friendship of someone you can call in times of temptation to keep you strong. It may be a different route to take home, or someone to go one a business trip with in order to keep you accountable. Whatever it is, God will provide a way out and we need to keep our eyes open.
The cheap grace interpretation of this verse however comes to the following conclusion:
1 - If there is no temptation that is uncommon to man then everyone must suffer the same temptation as I do and therefore it must not be so bad.
- The cheap grace understanding of the word “uncommon” is “normal,” or by crossing out the two negatives that “all temptations are common to all men.”
By interpreting this verse in this way, one attempts to make the scripture an excuse to justify a lack of self-control. Cheap grace ignores a person’s responsibility to avoid temptation and instead excuses his or her failure to avoid the temptation by rendering it as a common and simple mistake as if one might spill a glass of water which of course everyone does without thinking too much about it.
For example a married person might have a complete lack of self-control when it comes to friendships with the opposite sex. As such, this married person may regularly and consistently fall into emotionally and/or physically adulterous relationships year after year. Rather than recognizing that this level of adulterous self-control is abnormal, this person may come to the conclusion that he/she is not the only one who suffers this problem, or rather that everyone must also suffer such a lack of self-control and therefore it isnt really that bad of a problem. As such this person will continue to involve his/herself in extramarital relationships by which he/she seeks to fulfill the desires of their his/her heart, while thinking very little to avoid such relationships until it has become a fully adulterous relationship even by his/her own confession; that is until the next guy or girl comes around who will attract the desires of his/her heart.
The hope of cheap grace is to take even such an abhorrent infidelity and to excuse it rather than to call that person to be responsible for their own actions. Rather than seeking to avoid the temptation or to walk away from it when it comes, cheap grace allows the person to walk right into the sin, commit it, and then after it is done, believe that they only need to say “I’m sorry” yet one more time. The God of cheap grace is a vending machine of forgiveness for the continuing of their addictions. As such cheap grace never calls the person to be morally responsible or repentant for their sins.