Another of those thorny tensions of spiritual life pertains to what might be called the “grace line.”

 

“What is the grace line?” one asks.

 

The grace line refers to a certain turning point in the drama of divine / human relationship. It is the line that God—in reaching down to man—must draw at the point past which He ascertains it is counterproductive to keep meeting man “where he is.”

 

To understand the grace line, we must first understand the “grace cycle.”

 

“What is the grace cycle?” one asks.

 

The grace cycle is a term to explain the way grace works. It defines grace as a two-way relational exchange between God and man. This “circuit” action consists of a divine “output” toward man in his frailty coupled with an expected return “input” back from man toward God’s righteousness.

 

Confused? Don’t be. That was just the definition for “spiritual physics engineers.” Let me say it more simply:

 

Grace is God’s meeting of man where man is in order to bring man to where He is.

 

That’s it. That’s all. Is the action clear? Do we see the circuit? That is what grace is. It’s a cycle of divine impartation coupled with a divine expectation of return.

 

This two-directional (or “bidirectional”) nature of grace is what is envisioned by the word covenant. The grace cycle is readily seen in the verse that says, “All things are from Him and through Him and to Him.”

 

 

The Grace Cycle vs. Incomplete Grace

 

This is necessary to spell out because there is by-and-large in the popular Christian mind a misconception of grace. Popular definitions explain grace only in terms of a one-way (or “unidirectional”) impartation from God to man, with little to no co-explanation of expected return toward God.

 

Common childhood descriptions such as “God’s-Riches-At-Christ’s-Expense” and “Grace is a free gift” exemplify this incomplete unidirectional conception. The same is true regarding the heavy adult use of the word “unconditional” often tied to grace. Here, the truly unconditional nature of the outgoing impartation is used to define grace in its entirety so as to cancel out any sense of a return expectation.

 

But in the circuit of true grace, God meets us where we are to bring us to where He is. Grace has an expectation tied to it. Grace is the active demonstration of the love of God—a love which is always to a divine standard in God. The unconditional impartation is coupled with an expectation that does put a condition on grace for its completion.

 

God does not meet us where we are to leave us where we are or to reinforce us in what we are doing. God meets us where we are—in our sin, in our weakness, in our immaturity—in order to transform us into conformity to the standard of Who He is and what He is doing. True grace results in a continuous “changing out” of old values for new values, and of temporal reference points for eternal ones.

 

Nothing God’s Spirit is graciously doing today or ever has done among us should ever be construed as a sign of God’s approval of us “where we are” south of His values or seen as His reinforcement of what “we are doing.” Yet such an attitude prevails nearly everywhere the Spirit shows up to impart Himself through signs and wonders. God’s Presence is repeatedly used to justify regressive immature earthly values and even known sin.

 

 

Back to the Grace Line

 

This brings us again to the “grace line.”  Once we understand the grace cycle, we can understand the grace line. The grace line is that point in the grace cycle at which God determines it has become counterproductive to continue meeting man where he is.

 

At the point God sees that meeting us at our level of sin and immaturity no longer holds the prospect for bringing us back into conformity to His righteous image, He must withdraw and cease imparting Himself to us. While He is patient, the Lord can’t indefinitely bear with pouring Himself into what produces no upward covenantal return, but is just misused to reinforce our earthbound gaze.

 

The operation of the grace line is easily visible in Christ’s ministry. That the Lord sought an upward return into His eternal image in exchange for His free impartation is clear from His parables about planting and harvest. The entire concept of fruit in these metaphors refers to that expectation. The grace line is expressed in these parables by a turning point at which the Lord deems He can no longer bear with unfruitful plantings and must cut them down:

 

Lk. 13:7 "And he said to the vineyard-keeper, `Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?' 8 "And he answered and said to him, `Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; 9 and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.' "  

 

The actual operation of the grace line in Christ’s ministry is seen through His various withdrawals from the community. He came bringing “free” healing and deliverance. But after so long a time, once it was clear His impartations were only reinforcing people in their selfish man-centered worlds, He withdrew.

 

The most outstanding example of the grace line is found in John 6, where Jesus flatly refuses to provide any more supernatural bread to the crowds. But there are many other examples in which He “conditions” His otherwise “unconditional” impartations by his expectation for a return, or else simply withdraws from providing any more free impartation. This is the grace line.

 

Significantly, the Lord’s use of the term faith is tied as much to the expectational side of the grace cycle as it is to the impartational side. Many had faith for Christ’s impartations, but not to enter into the return grace to ascend from bondage to sin and religious thinking. On the whole, the Lord counted such half-circuit faith as unbelief, even though men did believe in Him for His impartations. {Hopefully, any application here to the modern “Faith” Movement is self-evident.]

 

The grace line divides unbelieving half-faith for free impartations from completed faith for ascending into the return of everlasting living covenant. Ultimately, the Lord’s drawing of the grace line is what produced His rejection. The quick turn from faith to rejection due to the grace line in John 8 provides a perfect miniature summation of Christ’s entire ministry experience.

 

 

Handling the Grace Line Today

 

As mentioned at the start, the grace line is an issue of roving contention in the body of Christ. That is, it is an issue among the true disciplehood in the body of Christ. The grace line is not an issue among those who believe in one-way grace. For these, there is no such thing as a grace line.

 

But the grace line is an issue for everyone with a disciple’s heart—ie, for everyone who believes grace is a two-way cycle requiring a return into God. This is because discipleship is really all about the return side of grace.

 

All of us—and I’m speaking to disciples now—wrestle with the questions,

 

“At what point do we stop meeting people where they are because they repeatedly show no return movement toward embracing the eternal values of God? When do we stop pouring freely into people because doing so only reinforces them in their faulty thinking and lifestyles?”

 

There is no “one-size-fits-all” answer to this. A certain inherent irresolvability to these questions prevents anyone from claiming to know the “final way” for drawing the grace line in every situation using a set of principles. Were principles adequate for measuring enforcement of the grace line, we would all know them by now and there would be no more contention among us.

 

Instead, we are all forced into utter dependence on the Spirit for each grace line answer and application. Whether dealing with personal relationships or body-level ministry, we have no choice but to come to the Lord for perceiving the point at which we must “cut off aid” to those who use the Spirit’s free impartations only to perpetuate courses of self-centered thinking and behavior.

 

And this is the way the Lord wants it. He wants it this way because this is how He had to do it. And His goal for us as disciples is to be like Him. So, to bring us into such a like Spirit dependence, He must continually move us back and forth between the increasingly finer nuances of extending or retracting the grace line as necessary. The rest of this article is dedicated to exploring the implications of this.

 

 

Apostolic Implications

 

From an apostolic perspective, it takes a unique grace to come into unified agreement in applying the grace line. The ability to agree on drawing this line affects apostolic ability to work together. The Paul / Barnabus contention offers a prime example. In the John Mark affair, Paul cut the line shorter than Barnabus perceived it should be cut. Their inability to agree on where to draw the grace line forced them to have to part.

 

One key lesson from this story is that, before working together in a team, apostolic co-laborers need to be agreed on who holds authority for making final calls on grace line issues. Where agreement is not readily forthcoming, the initiating vision keeper in any joint venture needs to be recognized and deferred to. Consensus is desired. But consensus is not always possible. This is true with husbands and wives. And it is true with apostolic co-laborers.

 

 

The “Hard-core Disciplist” Contention

 

Drawing the grace the line in ministry is complicated by another spirit in the body of Christ.

 

On the whole, there is a division between what might be called “hard-core disciplists” and true “disciples of grace.” Opposite to those who believe in a totally one-way grace toward man are a breed who believe in a totally one-way obligation toward God. Their definition of “grace” is painted entirely in terms of obligations to God—to repentance, to discipleship, to holiness, to immediate unbending submission to Christ’s lordship. Anything that smacks of a “free impartation” to man is considered an anathema. Those who come into this spirit usually do so in reaction to the errors of the one-way free grace believers.  

 

But the one-sided “obligation perspective” of relationship is as faulty as that of the one-way free impartation picture. It must in fact be rejected as a pharisaical brand of discipleship and false presentation of the gospel.

 

Today, an “underground war” exists in the body of Christ between the pharisaical disciplists and the one-way “free grace” masses. Those seeking a true cyclical grace discipleship are caught in the middle and take fire from both sides!

 

 

Repentance, the Grace Line and the Gospel

 

The call to repentance is a prime example of applying the grace line. It in fact lies at the heart of the grace line as it applies to initial salvation. Urging men to repent presents the return side of the grace equation in salvation. It presents God’s expectational side in the grace cycle of new birth. But where and how it is made varies in the Lord’s ministry and that of the apostles.

 

In the beginning, we find Jesus and John the Baptist together issuing calls for repentance in preparation of Messiah’s coming—before He has demonstrated any delivering grace impartations. Yet throughout the main course of the Lord’s ministry, we find demonstrations of free grace followed by expectational injunctions to repent.

 

Sometimes the Lord called for faith and repentance before He executed a gracious deliverance. Other times He executed healing before issuing the word to “go and sin no more.” In these cases, He used His goodness to “lead to” repentance.

 

A similar variation in the grace line appears in the apostles’ ministries. Like the Gospels, the Book of Acts opens with a bang in Peter’s call on the Jews to repent. But later, Paul first presents God’s goodness to the Athenians, then uses it as his basis to lead them to repentance. He saves the warning of judgment for the end of his message.

 

Back to the Lord’s ministry, we find by the end that He had to draw a final grace line. He had to withdraw permanently from the world itself. In course of drawing this final line, He observed that whether free grace impartations came after the call to repent as with John, or came before the call as seen by His eating and drinking with sinners on their level, neither way finally succeeded in bringing forth the return that completed the grace cycle.

 

 

Looking Unto Jesus: Our Ultimate Pattern for Drawing the Grace Line

 

As we have seen, resolving how to draw the grace line in relationships and ministry is not resolvable according to a set of principles. Ultimately, we are cast on the increasingly subtle nudges and promptings of the Spirit to know exactly where and how to draw the line.

 

The Lord exemplifies this refined sensitivity in His own ministry. He is neither “pro-grace” nor “pro-discipleship.” He’s just a hearer of the Father. In Christ’s ministry we find examples of both hard-core calls to discipleship and gentle after-the-fact-of-grace expectations for change. He assessed each grace line application through His perfect sensitivity to the Spirit. To be sure, there was always a line, but where and how it was drawn was never the same. Thus it was not communicable to us as a formula.

 

In the end, we are all responsible to learn how to draw the same line. If we are called as disciples to grow into the Lord’s image, then we must expect to have to learn to acknowledge and draw the grace line in all our relationships and ministry enterprises. We must neither walk in denial of this line, nor must we seek to enforce this line in a radical hardcore spirit based in reaction to the stubbornness of those who believe only in one-way grace and deny there is any grace line. After we have our bouts with this issue as maturing disciples, the final question for us becomes, can we mature into walking out this line based in the same sensitivity to the Father that Jesus showed.

 

&&&&&&&&&&

 

Hopefully, these few thoughts on the grace line and how to properly enforce it in our relationships and ministries will save others from having to wrestle longer than they should with this matter and from having to reinvent the same wheel I have had to invent to come to my own understanding of this vital element of discipleship!

 

Onward, brothers.

 

Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, RI

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.com/

4/06

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