Grace Is Not a License to Sin

Note from today’s Bible reading: Jude 1

The gospel is a message of grace. It described our condition of being lost in sin and how Jesus came and died on the cross so that we could be forgiven. Without His sacrifice, we would have no hope of salvation and eternal life.

Yet there were some in the first century – just as there are some today – who took the fundamental teaching of grace and twisted it into something unbiblical. Jude wrote, “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).

The New International Version translates the word licentiousness as “a license for immorality.” In other words, Jude warned his brethren about those who would teach that God’s grace gives us the permission to sin; therefore, we can live any way we please. Yet this conclusion is completely false.

The grace of God certainly saves us from our sins, but it does not give us permission to continue in sin. The message of the gospel is founded upon the authority of Christ (cf. Matthew 28:18). Yet if we act as though we can disregard what His word teaches us to do and live as we please, we are effectively “[denying] our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” We are saved by grace, but not if we deny the Lord (cf. Matthew 10:33).

So remember that grace is not a license to sin. We are expected to follow the Lord’s will in all things. Grace does not permit us to reject the Lordship of Jesus and His rule over our lives.