What if grace was in fact a created quality, and not a Person? What if sin turned out to be a thing, and not the absence of God’s life and love? There are many people, in fact I would say most Christians — Protestant or Roman Catholic — who think of sin and grace in these exacting ways. Does their understanding (or misunderstanding) disqualify them from being co-heirs with Christ (or Christians)?

My unqualified response to these questions is NO! What these misunderstandings about sin and grace impact is not someone’s eternal destiny; but instead it involves someone’s eternal and daily spirituality. Their experience of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit will be muted; because they will be embedded in a belief system that inherently grounds their experience of God in themselves instead of Christ.

Here’s the problem with conceiving of grace and sin in the terms I highlight previously: both sin and grace are corollaries; so how how one conceives of sin will shape how they, in turn, conceive of grace. So that if sin is a “thing” (or a substance), then grace will also be construed as such. The problem this poses is that sin and grace are “things” that need to be manipulated by us. Grace becomes something we cooperate with to appropriate salvation; instead of respond to in personal terms (like Jesus did for us as our mediator before the Father, He trusted the Father for us).

I think this might be way too abstract of a post, here is a great post from a mentor of mine — Dr. Ron Frost — on elucidating some of the history of what I am speaking to here:

The Amazing Migration of Grace

I would like to take some of what Frost says here, and even more explicitly ground how we approach grace and sin in christological terms. This is where the vicarious humanity of Christ comes in; and I think the unique voice that EC has to offer in this regard. More to come . . .