"For the remission of sins that are past."

I remember when I was a boy that Sheriff Slavin of New Haven had what was called, I believe, a "First Offender" program. The idea was to give a boy or girl who had been arrested but had never broken the law before, a fresh start.

This is how Divine grace actually works.

Let us say there is a compassionate judge. An individual has been brought before him for stealing a car.

The judge looks at the defendant and thinks this person could make something of himself if he had a fresh start.

Even though stealing a car is a serious offense the judge fines him twenty-five dollars and puts him on probation. What is the judge's purpose? It is to give this person a chance to become a law-abiding citizen.

But what if the individual shows up in court next week for stealing another car? The judge is liable to throw the book at him. He didn't get the message!

God's purpose in putting our sins behind His back is to give us a fresh start. We can now begin to pray, seek Christ, fellowship with Christians, read the Bible, and live a righteous life. We do not have to worry about the Law of Moses because we are married to Christ.

The purpose of grace is to give us a fresh start so we can serve God.

But we have made grace a "new dispensation."

Our present teaching of grace is as if the car thief comes before the judge, and the judge says the old laws do not apply any longer. Just confess you are unable to keep from stealing and fall on the mercy of the court. Once you do this we encourage you to stop stealing cars. But if you do not you still do not need to worry. The law against car-stealing no longer applies to you.

You are not under the penal code any longer. You have been set free such that if you steal cars, or even kill someone, the laws no longer apply to you. You are free from the law and are sheltered by the grace provided by the criminal court.

This seems to be a pretty good picture of the "dispensation of grace" we have invented.

If the criminal court system threw out the penal code and brought in a system of grace, as we have outlined above, what do you think would become true of our society?

Well, this is what has taken place in the Christian churches. The people often are lawless because they have been taught an unscriptural view of Divine grace.

Don't you think it is about time we got back to the Bible? The Christian churches have been wrecked by a false teaching of grace.