I wish I could say that a Christian man will never succumb to this mindset, that he will never be so perverted as to use the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ as an excuse to commit a sin. But the fact is that most of us have entertained this thought, even acted upon it. We have brazenly walked straight up to the bar of temptation, ordered a sin, and told the host to put the guilt on the tab of Jesus.
How does a man reach this despicable frame of mind? The answer is by thinking that grace is a right rather than a gift, that salvation is a mechanism rather than a miracle. Sin wants us to lose sight of the fact that a living and breathing man named Jesus actually had nails driven through His hands in order to pay the penalty of our sin. Instead, sin proposes that we think of our justification as a math equation: sin + sacrifice = atonement. Though the formula is mathematically correct, it is as impersonal as a lab report. Reduced to such terms, Calvary feels more like a money transfer than a rescue by blood.
Men who are on the brink of thinking that they can pull grace from heaven like they can pour water from the tap need to answer the following questions. Would you desecrate and burn the flag of your country? Would you pour your sewage on the graves of your parents? If not – if you hold these lesser goods as objects of untouchable honor – how, then, can you willfully trample on the body of Jesus? Only an attitude of rebellion could inspire such callous indifference.