Is It a Fundamental Human Right to Live off God’s Grace as Borrowed Capital with No Intent of Paying Back?

Last updated on: January 4, 2017 at 10:49 am by Paul Louis Metzger

Is It a Fundamental Human Right to Live off God’s Grace as Borrowed Capital with No Intent of Paying Back? 2017-01-04T10:49:43-08:00 Paul Louis Metzger

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Is it a fundamental human right to live off God’s grace as borrowed capital with no intent of paying back? Often, we live as if God will be gracious to us, no matter how we live. Voltaire, the deistic critique of orthodox Christianity in the 18th century, was reported to have quipped, “God will forgive; it’s his business.” Is it? How do we know? Was Voltaire living in light of borrowed capital from the Christian tradition he rejected without paying tribute?

Voltaire was likely far more cognizant of the biblical backdrop to grace than many young people in our moralistic therapeutic deistic age (MTD). According to sociologist of religion Christian Smith, “When teenagers talked in their interviews about ‘grace,’ they were usually talking about the television show Will and Grace, not about God’s grace.”[1] Still, many young people—and no doubt, older people, too, presume that God is in the business of helping them when they need it—a deity on demand. As Smith states, “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.”[2] But how do we know that God will help us resolve the problem? Should we assume that God will respect our wishes and fill our orders?

Now if it is the case that we are to be fair and good to others, and fair and good people go to heaven, as many MTD’s maintain,[3] how do we know that we fit the bill? Or do we simply assume God will pay the bill with grace if we can’t pay in full?

What such assumptions also seem to beg is that God is good and righteous and holy (even though our MTD world does not emphasize these attributes); otherwise, why would this deity let the good people in to heaven and exclude the bad people, as MTD’s tend to think? Someone’s got to pay for misdeeds in our culture; after all, we’ve all heard that there’s so such thing as a free lunch—or a free ride, for that matter: someone’s paying for the gas.

The biblical account of Moses portrays a man who ran away from his problems in Egypt—and from God, no doubt. But God tracked him down. At times, it seems he wished that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob never sought him out in the wilderness and called him back to Egypt to lead his people out to the Promised Land. And yet, we find increasingly a person passionate about knowing God and doing God’s will. Exodus 33-34 depicts Moses as asking God to show his glory to him. Here is the disclosure he receives:

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:5-7; ESV).

God reveals himself as gracious—forgiving us of our transgressions and sins, even though we don’t deserve it. And yet, God will not clear the guilty; they should not presume upon God’s good graces, or take divine grace for granted. Still, God longs to forgive. While it is not a fundamental human right to be forgiven, it is a fundamental drive of the Almighty to forgive. But we must respond to his invitation. We must confess our sins, as 1 John 1:9 declares: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (ESV).

The Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament provide the means of cleansing for forgiveness from guilt—the spotless lamb of sacrifice, which the New Testament discloses as Jesus (See Hebrews). Those who make use of God’s gracious provision don’t live off borrowed capital, but God’s grace bound up with the sacrifice of innocent life.

Still, when we presume upon God’s grace and mercy, we are living off borrowed capital with no intent of acknowledging our debt. How fair and good is that? Such presumption may work with a deity on demand, but not the demands of the Almighty, who does not owe us anything, especially not grace.

__________________

[1]Christian Smith, “On ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism’ as U.S. Teenagers’ Actual, Tacit, De Facto Religious Faith,” page 53: https://www.ptsem.edu/uploadedFiles/School_of_Christian_Vocation_and_Mission/Institute_for_Youth_Ministry/Princeton_Lectures/Smith-Moralistic.pdf.

[2]See Smith, page 47.

[3]See Smith, pages 46-47.

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