Have you seen the church sign that says, “This Church isn’t full of hypocrites. There’s always room for more”? (See below.)

There's something refreshing about honesty—about looking in the mirror and admitting what you see. So many of us go around pretending to be someone we're not. It happens at work, school, on social media (especially there!), and even church. Why is that?

Here’s one idea: while a legalistic gospel breeds hypocrisy, the grace gospel promotes honesty.

How?

If you believe that salvation depends on being good, you’ll have to convince yourself that you're good; otherwise, if you think about it, you’ll have a nervous breakdown. The problem is, Jesus said, “No one is good—except God alone” (Mark 10:18). No one includes you. But if you think salvation depends upon being good, you won’t be able to admit that about yourself, because it would mean you're going to hell. So, you’ll have to persuade yourself that you’re the exception. “No one is good but God…and me!” But that’s not the truth, is it? Have you seen the meme of the dog in the burning house saying, “This is fine”?

That’s a great image of someone who believes in works of salvation—sinning daily while trying to pretend they’re living well enough to deserve heaven. In short, legalism, works salvation, and Lordship Salvation promote hypocrisy.

By contrast, when you know in your bones that salvation is by grace, through faith, apart from works—you’ll realize something about yourself.

If God had to save you apart from anything you could do, you must be worse off than you thought! As Gerhard Forde noted:

“Since God has to impute righteousness we must be sinners. It would make no sense for him to impute righteousness if we were already wholly or partially righteous or even had some hope of becoming so according to our legal schemes. It would make no sense for God to forgive sins if we weren’t actually sinners. He would simply be wasting his breath” (Gerhard Forde, Justification by Faith, p. 30).

God has to reckon, consider you righteous, or impute it to you because you're wholly unrighteous.

Let me be clear. I’m not talking about civic righteousness. I have no doubt you mostly drive the speed limit, pay your taxes on time, and are kind to animals. "Even sinners love those who love them" (Luke 6:32).

Instead, I’m talking about the pure righteousness of the glory of God that all of us fall short of (Romans 3:23). If God has to impute that kind of righteousness to you, it means you have none to offer. In other words, salvation by grace helps keep you honest about your actual condition as a total sinner. There’s no need to pretend otherwise. There’s no need to put on a holier-than-thou act. You can tell the truth about yourself:

“The Good News means we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self-deception. It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed, and pride still rages within us. As a sinner who has been redeemed, I can acknowledge that I am often unloving, irritable, angry, and resentful with those closest to me. When I go to church I can leave my white hat at home and admit I have failed. God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am. Because of this I don’t need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him. I can accept ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness” (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 23).

While that’s a good thing to admit, I'll concede that’s basically bad news. But there's an encouraging flipside.

The good news is that once you accept ownership of your poverty, powerlessness, and need, you can begin to utterly depend upon Jesus’ riches, power, and grace.

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Send your questions or comments to shawn@freegrace.in.

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