Amazing Grammar, a Lesson in Grace

            I got a letter from a former student who was searching for God, someone from my days as a public high school teacher.  She has allowed me to share with you a part of her tearful confession:

Does God really love you? I mean when you’ve done horrible things? Can he truly forgive you? I was pregnant see . . . was . . . can God forgive that? I did the practical thing . . . I didn’t know it would hurt me like this . . . I feel so lost and drained . . . right now . . . I feel as though I killed humanity. My soul has been seriously damaged by this. I would give anything—my life to go back to that day and change my mind. I know you’ll probably hate me or be very disappointed in me too . . . no more than how I feel I bet. Is it possible to be your own biggest enemy? My entire existence has been one instance of me destroying me . . . . I wish I could love. I didn’t have the abortion because I didn’t care . . . on the contrary I loved—no excuse me I love—the baby . . . I let all the obstacles block the most important thing . . . love . . . so as I said, can God ever forgive me? Can you? Can I? I’m so sorry . . . so sorry . . . so so sorry.

            Many of us have experienced this extreme level of guilt.  Those who haven’t still understand what it’s like to feel guilty, especially those of us who deeply desire a closer relationship with God, who have struggled with the same nagging sin problems for years and sometimes get discouraged, wondering how patient God can possibly be. 

            Romans 3:23 is a light of hope: . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Now this verse doesn’t seem very encouraging at first but it’s an incredible statement about the grace referred to in the verse that follows. The secret is in the grammar. Look at the verse again and see if you can find a grammar mistake.  Did you find it?  Admittedly it’s not really a grammar mistake; however, if Paul were taking my college composition class, I’d tell him that he’d mixed his tenses. The first clause says, “all have sinned”—it’s in past tense. But the second clause isn’t in past tense. In fact, frequently when you hear people quote this verse, they correct the second clause without realizing it. They say, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But it doesn’t say that; it says “all have sinned and fall short. . . .” The second clause is in present tense. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. You’ll see why that’s important shortly.

            We have to keep talking grammar, this time Greek grammar even, but first a lesson about English tenses. You know we have past, present, and future tenses in English. But we also have progressive tenses. Example: If I say, “I drive my car to the store,” it’s something I do on a regular basis. But if I say, “I am driving my car to the store,” then it’s something I am doing right now, at this very moment. Now here’s the important point: In Greek, every time you read something in present tense like “all fall short” of God’s glory, you should read it as a progressive present: “all are falling short of the Glory of God.”

            Romans 3:23 therefore says something like this: “All have sinned and are continually falling short of the glory of God.”  I hope you get the point—in Greek present (progressive) tense, the action being done is an immediate and continual one (even if there are moments that I do not sin). When I say I am driving to the store, it is something going on right now and continues after the statement. And when Paul says, “we are falling short of the glory of God” he means that it’s something we are doing right now and we will continue to do it. We are constantly falling short of the glory of God. We can never be good enough, never do good enough for Him. No matter how hard we try, how good we become, we’ll still fall short of God’s glory! What terrific news!

            The reason it’s such great news is in verse 24: and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  “Justification” is a legal term meaning “not guilty,” and God says we can be called not guilty apart from anything we’ve done to try to earn His love. That’s what grace means. It’s a gift given freely. You can be justified, found not guilty. And if you’re not guilty then you’re not condemned; you are saved by grace.

            And this works in two directions. First it works the way I’ve tried to describe it in verse 23: there’s nothing you can do to please God because you constantly fall short of His glory. You could go to church all your life, convert ten people a year at your work place to Jesus, read the Bible from cover to cover annually, pray every hour, listen to Christian music only, watch G rated movies (only with Bible themes), become a missionary to Fiji, visit the holy land, dress right, eat well, floss daily—it doesn’t matter! Still not good enough for God. And so He simply chooses to save you by His grace (through faith in the redemptive work of Christ). Do you realize how freeing that is?! God loves you, and when you come to Christ He accepts you for who you are, where you are right now. Salvation is offered to you apart from what you do and offered to you despite the stupid things you’re going to do in the future. No more having to struggle with “Am I good enough?”  Guess what? You’re not. But Christ is, and so salvation is yours by His grace, by what He’s done alone. That’s why when verse 23 says we’ll never be good enough, it’s such good news.  Never being good enough means we don’t have to be good enough.  Instead, Christ is good enough for us.

            But this grace works in the other direction too. It works for those who have struggled to be good and fall short, but it also works for those who have been very bad and are thinking they can’t possibly be forgiven. Maybe you’re a drug addict. Maybe you’ve had sex with more people than you can remember. Maybe you’ve had an abortion, gone to jail, cheated on your spouse, tortured your parents or your children with terrible words, violent actions.  I began with a letter from a former student who’d had an abortion.  I think that my letter back to her was one of the clearest moments of thinking about grace I ever experienced:

We live in a society that has forgotten that love can be terrible and wonderful, that it can hate evil and accept you unconditionally. Is God disappointed in you? Yes. Am I. Sure, not that I count for anything. But love is not love that doesn’t demand the best of us. It is pity. And God has paid you a terrible compliment in that He loves you so much that He will not settle for pitying you but wants the absolute best for you, whether you want it or not . . . .

So here you are with a load of guilt on your shoulders. You know what many in America don’t: Guilt is real. You’ve found that out the hard way and it’s eating you alive. Friends might say to you, “It’s not your fault,” or “Don’t feel bad,” or “Who has the right to judge you?” But you know better. And you feel it, don’t you. You feel it . . . .

On the night Jesus was arrested two people betrayed Him. Judas turned Him over to His enemies and Peter denied he knew Him. Both men betrayed Christ, but only Judas never found forgiveness for it. Peter did, you see. But Judas hung himself. You know why? Because he thought that what he’d done was so terrible that not even God could forgive him. He turned God over to humanity to be killed!! Who could forgive that?! But God could have. Judas suffered a kind of reverse pride. He was so focused on himself that he thought he could actually commit a sin too big for even God to forgive. But God is so much bigger. Peter learned that lesson and so did not kill himself but found forgiveness from his resurrected Lord. Can God forgive you? Are you humble enough to believe in Someone bigger than you, bigger than your problems, bigger than your sin? YES, GOD CAN FORGIVE YOU. And for what it’s worth, so can I. But you have to have courage enough to ask Him to, and faith enough to believe that He has.*

            And she did.  My former student asked God’s forgiveness and she believes He has forgiven her.  And God has blessed her with the gift of a new child, as well.  He’s a toddler now, and she loves him dearly.

            Amazing grace.

* The material in this essay is adapted from Dr. Starr’s book, Life in the Spirit: Studies in Romans 1-8 (College Press) where he shares at greater length about the amazing nature of God’s grace.