Two-Hundred Proof Grace
Tullian Tchividjian Blog | April 29, 2012
The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace--bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel--after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps--suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started...Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case. (Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon and Three, pg. 114-115)
Reflecting on this quote, John writes, "Sola Gratia, Grace Alone, was not merely a leaning of the Reformation... it was a pillar. The reformers trumpeted God's grace as the only Christian method, with no compromise. The Gospel was being unleashed again, not reinvented, but rediscovered... the unending love of God, freely given to the undeserving. The truth--so scandalous, so surprising, our hearts have to be sitting down to hear it... God saves sinners single-handedly, He will not be needing our help. In fact, diluting the Gospel with our own help is precisely why grace ceases to amaze us. So busy trying to help Jesus help us, we hardly ever taste His gift and we remain unchanged and unmoved by it. Over time, our blended, balanced, watered-down cup of grace leaves us cynical and sober. We want so desperately to mix in some of our rule-keeping or our performance... we'd give anything to add something of our own label! But it never turns out as we had hoped. We start to feel like we can't keep up our end of the bargain - we feel as though we've failed. But... what if we don't need our own label? What if Jesus kept up our end of the bargain for us? Those who are broken and bold enough to ask the questions, find themselves seated at a table with smiling sinners - too drunk on grace to remember the rules, and yet, they all seem to know them by heart. We're served glass upon glass and something happens... the Gospel becomes the power of God and the wisdom of God. The power of God, because we taste something strong enough to save us. The wisdom of God, because we taste something good enough to change us. The bar is always open and the drinks are all paid for--just thank the Bar Tender, raise your glass and drink it straight. It's all Grace."Are you busy mixing or do you drink grace straight? Are you always in a spiritual hurry or is your soul free to rest and raise a glass? Is it possible that free grace in Christ causes people to love like Christ?
John 1:16-17, Luke 10:38-42, Ezk 36:26-27
Comments:
April 30, 2012 at 12:58 AM
Haha, I really have to check out some book by Capon. What would you recommend?
Even this quote shows how grace-oriented guy he was. I mean, he is comparing the Gospel to alcoholic beverages. No baptized moralist would do that.
April 30, 2012 at 12:45 AM
I just posted this quote on a bit of a legalistic closed FB group called "Be Zealous" that someone made the mistake of inviting me into, so I posted this Capon quote in there to see what they make of it. It seems pretty zealous, right? Ha ha! The first comment was, "What in the world? I have no context for this." I think that quite honestly a lot of people have no idea what grace is about, and when you say these things they are utterly mystified. They completely equate the Christian faith with a Jesus flavored moralism, because that is what is perennially taught.
My own pastor (whom I love and who really wants to get grace but is not quite there) taught this morning on the sermon on the mount. He made every typical error: skip the beatitudes and the initial one-way promise of blessing, ignore the impossibility of Jesus' exposition of law, ignore the "you must be perfect" clause, and pretend that a watered down version of 'don't hate and don't lust' is what He was getting at. He has made a point of trying to invite people to receive Christ, and he didn't even try after all of that business. I think he and everyone else secretly knew that none of us wanted to join that horrid movement!
Sometimes it is hard to understand how the church goes on at all. I pray for a new full-blown world-wide reformation! We need it! The teaching of grace is rare and strange, and we really shouldn't forget that.
April 30, 2012 at 11:35 AM
Pour me a double dram of that intoxicating Spirit of grace! Served neat. And not mixed with any of those deadly Mosaic law bitters.
Then filled with his Spirit, I shall love with the love of my Beloved . . . who loved me and gave himself for me.
April 30, 2012 at 04:02 AM
Pastor
Reminds me of my dad, he would have Canadian Club wiskey or some kind of brandy stashed away and take a shot when he needed it. when he thought no one was looking. In the tradition of the old Yankees.
April 29, 2012 at 11:50 PM
I was in a meeting the other night where someone was teaching some kind of dizzying nonsense about intercession or something, and I knew they were kind of looking at me because I always emphasize grace and people were smelling that it wasn't being emphasized.
I realized that the propitiation is the answer to literally everything. I actually don't know anything else any more. Isn't that wonderful? I went back to insisting that we don't understand our freedom or our power to pray because we don't quite believe His blood is really completely enough. But it is completely enough, right now. Any intercessory breakthrough is going to be a refresh of grace in some area of our mind, a hidden condemning obligation that presses us towards grace, that enables us to pray with boldness. It always boils down to this.
I love this quote, and that guy has a really great blog, thanks for the pointer!
April 29, 2012 at 11:19 PM
Drinking it straight (often as a sip of wine with His promises attached to it - you can't get any straighter than that)
His grace does work His love, through us...even though we are still tainted by sin. This is NO barrier to His work and will to use sinners for His purposes. After all, there's nobody else He can use.
Thank you, Pastor Tullian.
April 29, 2012 at 10:17 PM
I know a pastor who always says "50% of the time we need to smoke what we sell, and 50% of the time we need to sell what we smoke" regarding the need for Christians to share their faith and the impotence of trying to do that without actually having a vibrant relationship with Christ. I think it's funny that we like comparing Grace with illicit substances - it has a lot in common. Addictive, life altering, perception altering...etc. good times Pastor Tullian, thanks for posting
5.14.12 Fresh Pointers | SiftingPoint
May 14, 2012 at 02:52 PM
[...] Tchividjian in “Two-Hundred Proof Grace” quotes Robert Capon “one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us [...]