What does grace demand?

Primates2016In the discussion almost my explanation of the Primates' Meeting, James Byron (a regular commentator on this web log, who comes from quite a different theological position from me) puts his finger on what is at the center of the matter:

The press portray this split as being nigh sex, when in reality, it'due south about authority and revelation, and sexuality is simply the presenting consequence.

This agrees with something I have said quite often. What matters in the current contend about sexuality has less to do with the consequences of whatsoever determination, and more to do with thepresuppositions that you lot need to make to want to alter the Church's electric current didactics. This is well illustrated by Martyn Percy'south second article in Modern Church.

Equally with his previous commodity, Martyn takes some breath-taking theological brusk-cuts on the fashion to making his (as a effect self-evident) determination.

Equally baptised members of their churches, living their Christian lives faithfully, and love lives lawfully, [lesbian, gay and bisexual Christians] will have total citizenship in heaven with their young man Christians.

This statement completely curt-circuits the theological work that needs to be washed (and is one of the central bug in the Shared Conversations): do same-sexual activity sexual unions establish true-blue Christian living, i.e. is this a pattern of life, 'created and hallowed by God that all should honor'? Martyn writes equally though the answer hither is clear and needs no farther give-and-take or rehearsal. He then goes on to talk virtually people 'being treated as in heaven' and its implications that all should be 'treated every bit' now.

Equally appealing as this sounds, it simply does non match upward with a NT theology of salvation and sanctification. On several occasions, Jesus talks of those who are 'great in the kingdom of God/heaven', not equally a description of 'degrees of saved-ness' simply in order to differentiate those things that are of greatest importance, both now and then. Paul has a similar vision of differentiation in talking about the value of ministry building in 1 Cor 3.10–15. We should each 'build with care', since 'burn will test the quality of each person's work' (1 Cor three.x, thirteen). I notice this a sobering, humbling and encouraging verse, since I know people who have probably 'built' much better than I accept—and it seems to matter. One of the repeated mantras in the argue on sexuality is that 'we should non discriminate'—withal the NT constantly invites united states to discriminate carefully betwixt what is holy and what is not, what is 'truthful, noble, right, pure and lovely' and what is non (Phil 4.eight).


But this theological error is not as serious every bit the one that follows. Martyn goes on to reflect on his radio debate with Chris Sugden:

Yet a minority of Bourgeois Evangelicals appear to believe that lesbian, gay and bisexual Christians tin can only exist in sky if they are celibate on world.  The reasoning being that y'all might forfeit your salvation if you haven't repented of your behaviour (rather than orientation).  In other words, you do have to (partly) earn your salvation.  It is not by grace lonely. God'southward love is re-cast as conditional; dependent upon good behaviour.

The equation that Martyn makes here is that beingness saved by grace means that behaviour does not affair. If we think grace demands a response of inverse living in lodge to have its effect, we are not being true to the gospel. He claims the theological high ground by identifying with the great father of the church, Augustine, against the heretic Pelagius. (It is always interesting to run into the style heretics of the past provide united states of america with useful polemical justification.) His mistake hither is illustrated simply by the saying attributed to Augustine: 'Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you' which does indeed advise that our response matters. In fact, Martyn's understanding of grace does not come from Augustine, only I retrieve arises from nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism, suggesting as it does that God's grace doesn't effect any modify in us. The same idea was expressed succinctly in a postal service by Andrew Lightbown. He mocks 'GAFCON and their admirers' using similar language to that of Martyn Percy:

Salvation it seems is almost conduct, works and perceptions of morality and non virtually religion, grace and mercy.


91zlHM+udtLTo see the trouble with the mockery, we need to get back further than Augustine to Saint Paul himself. John Barclay, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in Durham, has only released the get-go of a two-part magnum opus on Paul's understanding of grace,Paul and the Gift. As he explains to Wes Loma, a former Durham inquiry student, Paul transforms showtime-century understandings of souvenir, exchange and indebtedness to communicate the radically unconditioned nature of God'due south grace:

Paul talks well-nigh Christ as the gift of God, the grace of God. What is striking nigh this is that this gift is given without regard to the worth of the people who receive information technology. God doesn't give discriminately to seemingly plumbing fixtures recipients. He gives without regard to their social, gender, or indigenous worth. Nothing almost them makes them worthy of this gift. To deny whatever friction match betwixt God's gifts and the worth of recipients was, in Paul's day, a theologically dangerous idea. It made God seem capricious and unfair. Information technology meant that grace was unpredictable and that the world might become matted. And this view of grace breaks all sorts of social norms and expectations. The gift of Christ is larger than it should be. It is undeserved forgiveness.

Equally Barclay goes on to argue, this thought led to the early Christian communities being remarkable social melting pots, in detail breaking down the divide between Jew and Gentile every bit an ethnic stardom. This radical inclusion should also marker the church today, and for the aforementioned reasons.

Merely, says Barclay, if grace is unconditioned (in the sense that you practise not need to be worthy to receive it), information technology is not unconditional.

Luther was anxious most whatsoever language of obligation or obedience if it implied trying to win favor with God. As a result, some Protestants believe information technology'south inappropriate for God to expect something in return, because it would somehow piece of work against grace. They believe a gift should be given without any expectation of return. However, that tin lead to notions of cheap grace—that God gives to u.s. and doesn't care virtually what we exercise. On the other paw, the Calvinist and, in dissimilar ways, the Methodist–Wesleyan traditions have rightly understood that the souvenir of God in Christ is based on conditions, in a sense. While there is no prior worth for receiving the gift, God indeed expects something in return. Paul expects those who receive the Spirit to exist transformed by the Spirit and to walk in the Spirit. As he puts it, nosotros are under grace, which tin can legitimately lead to obedience, even obligation.(accent mine)


Lest we recall that this is a particular preoccupation of poor old Paul, who hasn't quite managed to allow go of his Pharisaic roots, a quick rehearsal of the story of Scripture will ostend this twin focus of grace as unconditioned, but non unconditional.

  • God creates the world, and humanity, out of sheer gift. But as office of that cosmos, God enjoins humanity, made in his image, to rule in his stead, not least by being fruitful and multiplying. When placed in the garden, theadam is given all the things that he needs to flourish—including boundaries around what he may and may not eat.
  • When God calls Abraham, he does so not because of Abraham'southward merit, but out of gift, and then that Abraham becomes the archetype of the graced life. And yet he is called on a costly journey, leaving his habitation for a promised still unknown state, and has to learn—at cost—what it is to walk by faith, trusting God for his promise.
  • When God calls his people out of slavery to freedom in the promised land, that freedom is shaped past a prepare of commands that begin with a reminder of God'due south gracious deliverance.
  • When God rescues his people from exile, he reminds them that they take been rescued by the Holy I of State of israel, and the return is accompanied past a rediscovery of the 'Police force' that was given in the desert.

Then it is not all that surprising that, when Jesus comes announcing the presence of God'due south reign amid his people (the 'kingdom of God'), he immediately calls for—and here is the paradox—a response of repentance for those who would receive this free gift of grace. The invitation of grace offered in Jesus is at one and the same time an invitation to a life of costly obedience—if information technology wasn't, why would then many (including his closest disciples) accept struggled to come to terms with it? Information technology is in that location in the gospels; information technology is there in Paul; it is in that location in the letter of James; it is in that location in the book of Revelation. When the risen Christ comes to his people in the seven cities of Asia, his sentence of every unmarried one of them is based on the fact that 'I know yourworks'. In other words, has this free gift of grace actually made a visible difference in your life together?

To agree with Martyn Percy on sexuality (and Andrew Lightbown's succinct summary) it is non a question of debating one or ii obscure proof texts, nor debating the niceties of Greek or Hebrew grammar. Rather, you need to condone a central theme, running through all of Scripture, regarding the essence of God'south way of dealing with humanity—that grace, though unmerited, does indeed brand demands. As James Byron said quite rightly, sexuality is just the presenting issue; the real question is near authority and revelation and the nature of God's grace.


This has been confirmed by other conversations I accept had this calendar week. Here are the arguments put to me on why the Church building of England has got it wrong on sexuality:

  1. If Jesus was alive 'in the flesh' today, he would assert same-sex sexual unions equally equivalent to marriage. Why did he not practise so in the gospels? Considering office of his 'self emptying' (Phil 2.7) meant he was subject to the social norms of his 24-hour interval, and did not question them. This means that Jesus' ain teaching is not a reliable guide for us, and it raises serious questions most whether it makes any sense to think of Jesus as 'the Word made flesh'.
  2. It is simply impossible to know what either Jesus or Paul meant, and it is airs to suppose we can know annihilation from the New Attestation. Equally apprehensive as this might appear, the problem is that is supposes non our own humility, only God's inadequacy in communicating his intention for our lives in Scripture. It becomes God-spluttered, rather than God-breathed.
  3. The only valid ethical measure of Christian action is whether it does 'harm', and there should be no other consideration. Such an arroyo abandons the notion of principles (deontology) or character (virtue ethics) and reduces everything to a state of affairs ethic—one in which nosotros can perfectly mensurate all consequences of our deportment.

Each of these positions is based on a valid observation. For example, nosotros do need to take seriously that Jesus was a first-century Jew, that there is some challenge and debate near making sense of Scripture, that ethical positions that appear to harm demand questioning. But each of these elevates their own concern every bitthe determining issue, and shapes everything else effectually information technology.


None of this in itself settles the ethical question in manus—the question which Martyn Percy but skips over—of whether those in same-sex activity sexual unions are 'living faithfully'. But it does show why Martyn Percy's position is so deeply flawed. Accordingly to his theology, Jesus did not offer his blood of the new covenant (since covenants involve obligations) simply the blood of a new gratuitous-for-all. Martyn replaces Paul's great 'Therefore…' in Romans 12.i with a 'so what?' That is why the Primates discussion is non actually nearly sexuality, but about something far more important than that.


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