Recently we were talking with a new believer friend who feels like it’s ok to keep sinning, because we’re only human, and God understands. He was looking for a way out of having to change certain things in his lifestyle.

As the reasoning goes– Why not just keep on sinning/doing wrong and evil in order to show the Lord’s grace? The “logic” goes, “Why not keep making a mess, since He cleans it all up anyway, and we want to show what a good cleaner He is?”

Paul faced and addressed this same issue in his ministry, which isn’t surprising, given human nature and our propensity to look for excuses to sin! Here’s how he responded, inspired by the Holy Spirit:

“But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!” (Rom. 3:5-8)

Let’s unpack this for further understanding on why we (and the Lord) don’t want (us) to keep sinning in order to demonstrate His grace:

1. If we have a real relationship with the Lord and have given our lives to Him, we won’t want to hurt Him or go against Him. Would any of us deliberately want to disobey or disregard a parent or any authority figure we love and respect just to remind them, us, and others of how kind they are? Likewise, we wouldn’t want to see how much we can get away with to test and prove their patience. Same with the Lord. IF we have a true relationship with Him where He is both Father and Lord.

2. Grace and truth/holiness go together. At least they should. All grace should be truthful/holy, and all holiness should be gracious. Or, as Dallas Willard said, “Grace is not opposed to effort.” Our recognition of God’s grace and its existence shows that we concur with the truth of our sinfulness, His right to judge us, and the bad effects of sin regardless of whether He punishes us or not.

We call these bad effects “logical (or natural) consequences”. We who are parents (or thinking of our own childhood) all know how effective a discipline this is. For example, the child steals and eats all the cookies from the container at once and gets a terrible “tummy” (stomach) ache. Children remember that, and if they don’t the parent will point out that “logical consequence”— the stomachache, as self-inflicted punishment.

As adults, people incur logical/natural consequences such as hangovers after too much alcohol, broken marriages after adultery, people not trusting them after they gossip and/or don’t keep promises, etc.

We know, from Gen.2-3, and Rom. 6:23, that “the wages of sin is death”. Adam and Even didn’t die physically right away, and we usually don’t either, but look at the death that happens, in terms of loss— sin leads to broken relationships, loss of peace of mind (the nagging guilt and worry about being “found out”), loss of mental and emotional wellbeing, loss of self-respect, loss of physical health (either directly or indirectly— for example, smoking, bad diet, etc., are bad for our health).

3. Do we want to be a slave to sin? What we give ourselves to, we’re slaves to. Real freedom is freedom to NOT sin. Good news— we don’t have to sin anymore! Rom. 6:15-18, a parallel passage to Rom. 3:5-8, reminds us: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

Think of all the refugees who’ve escaped horrible governments and conditions from their original countries and become citizens of better countries. Those better countries aren’t perfect, but no refugee wants to go back to their old countries while they’re still horrible. They left for a reason. For we, who have become “citizens of heaven”, under God’s perfect rule, why would we want to return to bad government and conditions under our old ruler (satan)? As Col. 1:13-14 says, “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.”

4. Finally, the reason we’re held accountable for our sinful thoughts and actions, i.e., why the Lord has the right to judge us, which is why we need His grace to begin with— Because we have free will. No free will = no responsibility. Just fatalism. Such as in Islam— “If Allah wills, I’ll go to heaven (and all else)”. A Muslim rightly asked us once, “If everything is up to Allah, why am I held responsible for what I do?!” Thankfully, we know we have a loving Lord who gave us free will to choose.

All to say—let’s enjoy and demonstrate God’s grace by using it to walk away from not toward sin! We and He, as well as others, will be glad we did!