Thus the Bible's teaching is plain, clear, and simple. No sin is too great to be forgiven; no person has gone too far to be brought home by God's grace when that person approaches God in absolute surrender and faith. "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away" (John 6:37, NIV) is the divine promise and provision.

God's grace is amazing, limitless, abounding, and ever-assuring. And yet today's reading carries the unusual title "The Limits of Grace." The key to understanding the difference between the unlimitedness and limits of God's grace is to be found in the biblical process of salvation. The limit of grace can be seen in four ways: (1) God's love and human freedom; (2) futility of righteousness by works; (3) fruitless life; and (4) the possibility of falling from grace.

God's Love and Human Freedom
Redemption has its source, its means, its completion, in God's love as manifested in Jesus Christ. That's the foundation upon which the entire gospel is built and proclaimed. Those who believe in Jesus are saved, and those who do not believe are condemned. "The gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith. . . . For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith; as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live'" (Rom. 1:16, 17).

But the very fact that salvation is intertwined in God's love shows that the first limitation of God's grace is our human response to that grace. "God is love" (1 John 4:8), and love cannot force allegiance. All that God does--His plan of creation, providence, redemption, relationship, restoration, and judgment--proceeds from love. While He does not "drive away" any sinner who may come to Him (John 6:37, NIV), He cannot force anyone to come to Him against that person's will.

Freedom of choice plays an essential role in salvation. If salvation comes by a forced allegiance to God, it would not be an act of a loving God, but the desperate measure of a super tyrant--something totally different from the very character of God. Hence God's abundant, free, and all-powerful grace cannot save a sinner unwilling to come to Him and accept through faith the redemption that God has provided in Jesus. Our freedom of choice can effectively limit the working of grace.

Righteousness by Works
Another limitation to God's grace comes from human pride that one can save oneself by one's own works. The doctrine of righteousness by works is as old as sin itself. "The principle that man can save himself by his own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion," wrote Ellen White.¹

The history of finding salvation through one's own works repeats itself even today. It has taken many shapes and forms: philanthropy, ethics and lifestyle, humanism and moral uprightness, social justice and social gospel, universal meditation, and even obedience to the Ten Commandments.

Another word for such pretension is legalism. The apostle Paul indicted the Galatians for quickly deserting "the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel--not that there is another gospel" (Gal. 1:6, NRSV).

The Galatians, who accepted Christ and entered into a salvation experience through faith in Him (Gal. 3:1, 2), were now in serious peril of losing that experience because they were attributing their salvation to their works. The apostle asked, "Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?" (verse 2, NRSV).

Paul was quite firm: "We have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law (Gal. 2:16, NRSV). Wrote Ellen White: The robe of Christ's righteousness, "woven in the loom of heaven, has in it not one thread of human devising."²

Good and honest people who accept salvation by faith in the crucified Savior can slip back to another so-called gospel, the "gospel" of works. But legalism can never be the good news of salvation. It is indeed the sad news of adding to the burden a sinner already bears.

The antidote to the Galatian heresy must ever be to keep before the Christian the finality of the cross. Even if "we or an angel from heaven," wrote Paul, "should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed!" (Gal. 1:8, NRSV). Any limitation to that divine act places a limitation on grace.

Fruitless Life
A third limitation to grace is the claim that God's grace makes us free from the demands of obedience. Grace frees us from sin, but it does not remove from us the obligation to obey the law. Paul asked: "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? . . . We were buried therefore with [Christ] by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:1-4).

We are saved by grace through faith, and the resulting freedom is not meant to live as one pleases, but to live in accordance with God's will, as revealed in His law. Salvation comes by faith, but must lead to obedience, the natural sequence to God's gracious liberation from sin.

Questions for sharing: 1. Which of the four limitations to God's grace do you think is especially perilous? Why that one? 2. How does one experience all the benefits of grace that God intends? What practical steps do we take to stay in "a state of grace"? 3. How would you approach someone who had embraced one of the four factors that limit God's grace--legalism, a life without discipline, "once saved, always saved," for example?

Consider Jesus' assertion and hope in John 14 and 15. Just as the relationship of Jesus with the Father preceded His obedience to the Father, so should the disciples' relationship with Jesus precede their obedience to Him. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).

Observe the hope Jesus has for His disciples. "Abide in me," He said, "as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me" (John 15:4, NRSV).

Christian discipleship is not the achievement of a moral status, but the reception of Christ's calling; it is not moral perfection, but a constant abiding in Him. Once that abiding is established through faith in God's grace, fruit follows as a natural course. The principle is simple: first love, then fruit; first grace, then obedience.

Christian discipleship has no room for either the heresy of legalism or the luxury of cheap grace. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, wrote: "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."³

To be a disciple is to be a follower, and being a follower of Jesus is no cheap trick. To the Corinthians Paul wrote: "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them [the apostles], though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me" (1 Cor. 15:10). Paul did not receive grace in order to lead a vain, empty life.

The grace of God has not come to redeem us from one kind of emptiness to place us in another kind of emptiness. Having come into God's family, we bear fruit of God's love through the power of His grace. Cheap grace that ignores obedience and fruit bearing places a limitation on God's grace.

Falling From Grace
The final limitation on God's grace can be summarized in the false belief "once saved, always saved." Nowhere does the Bible teach such a false assumption. Indeed, it is Satan's cunning ploy to lead Christians to take their salvation experience for granted and lead lives of lethargy and indifference.

While the power of God's love and grace is great and abundant, it does not guarantee that once a person accepts that love and grace he or she will not fail. Otherwise, why would the Scriptures warn us to be watchful? Consider the following admonitions:

"Be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong" (1 Cor. 16:13).

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Gal. 5:1).

"Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Eph. 6:11, 12).

"Let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" (l Cor. 10:12).

"Be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall" (2 Peter 1:10).

Stand Firm
Our call and election into God's family are made possible through the free grace of Christ when we accept them in faith. Having come into the family, we bear fruit of God's love through the power of His grace. As long as we abide in that grace, bearing fruit, living a love relationship with Christ, we need not fear any limitation on the workings of God's grace. He is able to save us to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25).

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* Unless otherwise noted, scripture references in this article are from the Revised Standard Version.

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¹ Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 35.
² White, Christ's Object Lessons, p. 311.
³ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan Co., 1965), p. 47.

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John M. Fowler became a Seventh-day Adventist as a teenager in his native India. He has served the church for 45 years as a pastor, teacher, editor, and administrator, and is currently an associate education director of the General Conference.