Preaching Jesus means preaching the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If theology does not matter, then what Jesus do we actually preach? Faithful theology and saving grace are not at odds with one another, because as Paul puts it, we are either redeemed by the pure and true gospel of Jesus Christ or we are not redeemed at all. No gospel substitute proffers real grace. Grace is real stuff or it is not grace.

This article is the fifth and final part of a series. The first part is called “Salvation is by Works Alone,” the second is titled “God Works Grace,” the third is “God’s Work in Jesus,” and the fourth is “Sympathy Made Perfect.”

Theology regularly gets a bad rap. “Don’t give me doctrine. I want something practical.” “I like sermons that touch my heart, not those that fill my head.” Or, “Come on. I’m not interested in all this theology. I just want to love Jesus.”

Stated or assumed, such ideas have stormed the Church like ants at a picnic. But they also devastate the Church like the ants’ destructive cousins. Theology bashers are termites, who eat away at the Church’s very pillars­­—the apostles’ teaching. And theological antipathy has no fans in heaven. Scripture rebukes those who have little time for theological substance: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”  (Hebrews 5:12-14)

Emotion can cloud even the discerning mind. Many folks prefer feeling good over knowing truth, experiencing some feel of grace rather than knowing real grace itself. Through its years of warm and winsome baby steps away from doctrine, the evangelical Church as a whole has drifted from her Christ ordained charter. Sentiment has trounced substance, and grace has lost its Christological compass. In many instances, the Church’s notion of grace is no longer even biblically recognizable.[1]

The problem is exacerbated by other winds and whims. Ours is a world in which psychological liberation serves as the ultimate spiritual expression. The final arbiter of theological truth is if I feel better. Truth is true when my soul soars. In fact, the sense of freedom becomes more important than freedom itself! And since my sensation of grace is so amazing, how could I soar any higher than when I celebrate the mental and emotional freedom produced by cancelled guilt and sin? That realization is grace. Or is it?

We must take great care here. We can so desperately want release from a guilty conscience or from present circumstances that we easily settle for shallow or even empty promises – gospel impostor promises. Yet what if my sense of freedom does not align with real freedom? What if my perception is actually an illusion? What if the grace I know is a product of my culture rather than Christ? What if my version of grace is not the truth?

These questions come with no intention of alarming sweet and simple faith in Jesus. But here is the point: the sense of grace only has value if the grace itself has value. If faith has no real Substance, it is mere sentiment. If faith has no reliable Object, it is merely wishful thinking. And grace without the grit of Jesus’ suffering and glory is a fake. It is not real grace.

[1] These abuses include legalism, antinomianism, and even denials of the exclusivity of Jesus Christ.

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