The Grace of Limits and Unlimited Grace
In our fallen flesh, we often don’t like the thought of limits. However, we live with limits every day and don’t give them a second thought because we don’t find them objectionable. For example, if you want to call or text me, you must have my phone number, which is exactly ten digits, eleven counting the country code. These digits must be in a certain order. If you take the same numbers and put them in a different order, you’ll be contacting someone else. No one complains about a limit like that. I doubt many complain about guardrails or lane markers on highways. They are there to limit where we drive. However, if a limit opposes what I want, then the limit is bad and can be ignored. One of the problems is that the setting of limits can seem arbitrary, and we fail to see how the limit is a benefit to us. Consider speed limits. You’re driving down the road, and the sign says Speed Limit 25. You look around, and the road is empty. There are no houses, and there are few intersecting roads. You’re not in a neighborhood, so you wonder, “Why is the speed limit so low?” Now, there most likely is a reason for that speed limit, but given that we don’t know the reason, it seems arbitrary. For many people, believers included, God’s limits can seem arbitrary. Are they really for our good? If we don’t see a benefit and God says don’t do something that I want to do, or says do something I don’t want to do, then God can be ignored. We don’t want our thoughts, words, or actions limited or directed.
The Grace of Limits
Limits are ordained by God. He instituted them from the very beginning. God told Adam that he could eat from any tree in the garden except for one. God commanded a limit. However, not only are we limited by God’s commands, we are also limited by God’s creation. God created us as human beings, and that includes certain capabilities and certain limitations. We are made in God’s image, so we are special creations, but we are also limited. We can’t fly in the air like a bird or swim in the water like a fish. We can’t live without food, water, or oxygen. Also, God made us male and female, each with certain capabilities and limits. Yet, in Genesis 1:31, God looks at his creation and proclaims it very good. All of God’s limits, whether from his commands or from his creation, are very good.
However, there are consequences of going beyond a limit. God told Adam concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” After the fall, new limits were imposed. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, out of God’s presence. Sinful man cannot be in the presence of a holy God. At Mt Sinai, God set a limit. Exodus 19:9–12 says,
And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.” When Moses told the words of the people to the LORD, the LORD said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.’” (ESV)
When Moses asked to see the Lord’s glory, the Lord replied that no man can see his face and live, so the Lord put Moses in the cleft of a rock and covered him with his hand as he passed by. Whereas before the fall, there was intimate fellowship with the Lord, after the fall, that intimacy was gone.
Not only is intimate fellowship with the Lord limited, but there is also the limit of death. Sickness, calamity, and death limit us. No one lives this fallen life forever. Job, speaking in Job 14:1–6, said,
Man who is born of a woman
is few of days and full of trouble.
He comes out like a flower and withers;
he flees like a shadow and continues not.
And do you open your eyes on such a one
and bring me into judgment with you?
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
There is not one.
Since his days are determined,
and the number of his months is with you,
and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass,
look away from him and leave him alone,
that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day. (ESV)
God has graciously limited the number of our days in our fallen flesh and ordained each of them. Psalm 139:16 says,
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them. (ESV)
Further, God’s moral law should limit what we do each day. God’s command that we should be holy as he is holy (Leviticus 11:44; 1 Peter 1:16) graciously limits us to righteous living. God graciously gave the Ten Commandments and his law to his people, not to burden them, but so that they would thrive.
Unfortunately, because of the fall, man doesn’t see God’s ordained limits as gracious but oppressive. God’s limits are to be flaunted, and those who seek to live by God’s standards are to be condemned. This has been true since Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, and it will be true until the end of the age. Cain killed Abel, and the persecution won’t stop until Jesus returns. Of course, we see the many ways God’s commands and God’s creation limits are ignored by the world, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that those who belong to Christ are still in the flesh, and the flesh rebels against God’s limits. Anytime I choose to sin, I am going beyond God’s limits, and there are consequences. Anytime I go beyond my God-ordained physical limits, there are consequences, and as I age, the physical limits increase.
Unlimited Grace
God’s limits are gracious in many ways, but the true grace of the limits given to us by God is seen in that we can’t stay within the boundaries. Our greatest limit is seen in that we can’t keep God’s limits. Because we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), we cannot abide his limits. Another way Paul puts it is that, when we are dead in sin, we are slaves to sin (Romans 6:16). This, though, is where God gives unlimited grace, and this unlimited grace is found in his Son made flesh, Jesus Christ. Because unlimited grace is only found in Christ, it is limited to those who are in Christ.
What is unlimited grace, though? Is it unlimited in the sense that I can sin all I want and still be forgiven? Is it unlimited in that God will give me whatever I want if I’m in Christ? The answer to both of those questions is no. Grace is unlimited because in Christ, all limits to God are removed. Our sin that separates us from him is removed in Christ, and his complete righteousness is granted to us. All that Adam lost by violating one limit will be more than regained through the one who stayed within the limits and fulfilled all righteousness. Romans 5:18–21 says,
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (ESV)
Note that the “law came in to increase the trespass.” More limits were added, thus more limits were violated—sin increased. But “grace abounded all the more.” The great barrier, or limit, to access to God, our sin, is removed in Christ. Also, the great limiting enemy of death is changed to unlimited “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” In Christ, sin and death are defeated, and at the resurrection, we will have imperishable and glorious bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42–44). Furthermore, we will have unfettered access to God himself with all of the limitations of sin gone. Revelation 21:3–4 says of our future in Christ,
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (ESV)
Unlimited access due to unlimited grace. Will there be limits on us in the new heavens and the new earth? Yes. We will still be human, glorified humans, but still human. We will still have certain abilities and certain limitations, but the good news is that we will no longer see ourselves as limited but supremely blessed to be in the presence of Jesus.
Photo by Michael Nunzio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/warning-sign-on-wire-fence-4189458/