Go, Sin No More

After healing the person who was paralysed for 38 years at the pool of Bethzatha (John 5: 1-18) Jesus told him you are healed, do not sin again. In many other occasions of healing and forgiving Jesus added this demand, ‘go, sin no more’. As in the case of John 8: 1-11, when it is said after forgiving wrongdoings or sins, it sounds fitting to hear Jesus saying, go sin no more. But when it is heard after a healing or after a meal we begin to wonder why so.

Cheap Grace

The central message of the gospel is repentance. Both John the Baptist and Jesus preached, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand". Though Jesus had done a lot of feeding, healing, raising people back to life, etc. the main mission of Jesus was to lead people to repentance. The only reason we find this shocking is that we have embraced a gospel of grace without repentance. We want food, healing, and everything possible as grace from God, but never want to repent and change our lifestyle, our allegiances with injustice and prejudices. We want to just pray the sinner's prayer everyday and be forgiven everyday, we want his grace everyday. Asking for blessings without change of heart is cheap grace. Cheap grace according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. Faith without action, meaning repentance, is an oxymoron; it is a contradiction of terms. It is not biblical!

The story of the healing of the man at the Pool of Bethzatha is all of grace - he may not have deserved anything; but it is all about repentance also. If we try to separate grace from repentance we severely distort the central theme of the gospel. With the things that we get from God we may become rich, healthy, intelligent, but not a Christian. This doesn't mean we don't sometimes fall into sin; that we're not sometimes rebellious, that we don't need continued forgiveness. We do. But we must repent and live a Christian life.

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SPRINGBOARDS and WALKING STICKS

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