Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Innocence & Grace

Listening to the radio the other day a line of lyric got stuck in my head (that's nothing new),. But the longer it banged around in there, the more problems I had accepting it as a statement of truth. 

The song's message is about the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice to pardon sin, completely on board with that.  But the line, which was repeated over and over again was: I'm an innocent, an innocent man. The innocent moniker is tripping me up.

Innocent means no crime was committed.  I have been pardoned, forgiven, set free, and been made righteous, for which I am eternally grateful (and will have all eternity to demonstrate that gratitude). I am not innocent and don't want to lose sight of the fact that guilt is redemption's qualifier.   
Maybe I am over sensitive on this subject after having spent several decades laboring under the delusion that sin was graded on a curve demanding justification of infractions. I'd get out the old scale and weigh the good against the bad, you know, just in case Jesus' sacrifice had lost its potency or relevance after 1950 years.  For those few whoppers I couldn't neutralize, I had developed a method of minimizing, blaming, (it's not me Lord it is so and so's fault) or hiding. Not unlike Adam's fig leaf couture. 

While I'm on this word-definition soapbox, let's turn the spotlight on grace. Another word that has been hijacked somewhere along history's path.  Grace is not interchangeable with mercy.  Grace has  to do with empowering ability to accomplish a task.  Think about a person performing their practiced skill and makes it look effortless:  dancer, musician, roofer, painter, calligrapher, barrel racer... you get my point.  Grace is needed to navigate this minefield called life without succumbing to the temptation fo

r compromise.  Mercy is extended when we fail the mission. 

Christ's righteousness is for the trusting. Forgiveness is for the guilty. Redemption is for the captured. Freedom is for the incarcerated. Adoption is for the fatherless. Grace is for the triers and mercy is for the failed.

To be pardoned is not the same as innocent. Pardoned means the record of guilt and failure has been expunged.  There's a difference.  It's a big one.  But it's unlikely that any songwriter could sell 'I'm an expunged, an expunged man'. Just doesn't have the same ring to it.