BY GEORGE S. STEVENS

F I WERE HALF AS GOOD AS Professor Field, I'd bet on heaven."

This was a popular statement on the campus of Southern Junior College in the early 1920s. Back then my five brothers and sisters and I were taught that if we were good, we'd go to heaven; but if we were bad, we'd be burned up. The general idea was that if we'd just arrive at a state of sinless perfection, we'd be sure of eternal life.

Officially, Seventh-day Adventists had long believed that salvation was a gift of grace. We sang "Saved by Grace." We recited Romans 6:23 ("The gift of God is eternal life"). And we read about God's amazing grace in Ellen G. White's writings. But in practice we demonstrated unmistakably that we really believed in salvation by works, at least to some degree. One of my college religion teachers explained that we were semi-Pelagianists. (Pelagius was a fifth-century British theologian who placed emphasis on the primacy of the human will in achieving salvation.)

Around 45 or 50 years ago some of us young ministers began to wonder if the church would ever free itself from this idea that we could somehow save ourselves. Some expressed the view that perhaps we'd have to wait for a new generation to arise before the view of an all-encompassing grace would be wholly espoused. The fact that we are saved totally by grace is a concept that has not been easy for third- and fourth-generation Adventists to grasp.

But grasp it we did, and partially with the help of new Adventists. Eventually we came to appreciate God's amazing grace. Indeed, the more we contemplate God's grace, the more we see that there's nothing in heaven or on earth that compares with it. Saints and angels will spend eternity learning about that grace.

Have We Gone to the Opposite Extreme?
Now that we've been thoroughly convinced that we're saved by grace alone, is there not a growing tendency to be careless about our behavior? Since we're not saved by being good, do we feel we can dispense with good deportment? Since God knows, and we know, that we can never make ourselves good enough for heaven, does He expect us just to drift along in complacent carelessness in our actions, expecting His infinite grace to rescue us?

Doesn't the same grace that saves us from the guilt of sin also give victory over the power and practice of sin? Is the theology of the old hymn out of date: "Cleanse me from . . . [sin's] guilt and power"?

While we are saved only by God's grace, I believe our generation needs to look carefully at the doctrine of obedience. It is almost passé to accept Samuel's declaration to King Saul, "To obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Sam. 15:22). No doctrine is more clearly enunciated throughout God's Word than that of the absolute necessity of obedience. Trouble is the child of disobedience; peace comes when we obey.

This does not obviate the need for grace. Only the grace of God can place us in the center of God's will, making us obedient. And here we agree with Augustine rather than Pelagius: grace comes first.

Ponder the following questions: Is the Sabbath as holy now as it was in Bible times? Does God hate divorce as much today as He did when Jesus was on earth? Is the movie theater less sinful now than it was a hundred years ago? Is modesty in dress and behavior less important today than it was a century ago? Do we laugh today at the humor that would have caused us to turn away in disgust a generation ago? Does God no longer demand moral purity among His children?

It all comes down to the fundamentals: God is still God. Sin is still sin. Holiness is still a prerequisite for heaven (see Heb. 12:14). The passing grade in holiness, so to speak, has not been lowered. "I am the Lord," God said, "I change not" (Mal. 3:6). Said Jesus, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:20). And He is "the same yesterday, today, and for ever" (Heb. 13:8).

How Love Behaves
It's true that God's mercy endures forever. But mercy does not bypass sin; it meets sin head-on, without excuse. It deals with sin as sin, and not as a mere mistake or an indiscretion. The world needs-the church needs-men and women who will call sin by its right name. We hear it said, "The commandments are not so important; what is important is love."

Yes, love is important. But the commandments were given to show us how love behaves. Remember that Jesus said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). And He also said: "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" (John 15:14). The world as a whole lives outside the will of God. But we Christians must never be in that position. Holiness is conformity to God's will. Whatever is contrary to His will is sin.

As recorded in Isaiah 54:17, "their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord." Romans 5:17 also shows that God is the source of righteousness. Both the Old and the New Testaments present righteousness as a gift from God. It's to be received by faith (see Rom. 3:22). Were it not a gift from God, our righteousness would never exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, and we would never enter heaven.

We're heartened by the assurance that Heaven's amazing grace covers us with a robe of righteousness that not only forgives sin, but frees us from its power. Jesus is the way to holiness and eternal life; and all along the road, God has placed His requirements as guideposts, to keep us traveling safely and in the right direction. The gospel song is accurate:

"Trust and obey, for there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."

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George S. Stevens is a retired pastor and biblical languages teacher who writes from Ooltewah, Tennessee.