The Idol Called Grace: When grace becomes greater than God

What Others are Saying

Our hearts and minds perpetually produce idols of all sorts, but is it possible to make grace an idol? In this thought-provoking book, Dave Vance explores how we can make idols out of God’s good gifts and challenges us not to put anything above God Himself. This book will help you evaluate what you worship and why.

Dr. Thomas White

President and Professor of Theology

Dave Vance enters the ancient discussion on the often over-exercised subject of the grace of God with a much-needed fresh voice in his new book, The Idol Called Grace. Written from the heart of a pastor, yet from a mind of a seasoned theologian, Vance tackles the subject of grace from a perspective every committed believer needs to critically consider. From the first chapter, you enter the back door on the subject of grace and immediately find yourself called on the wrestling mat to grapple with the familiar doctrine. Each subsequent chapter then leads you further into the new arena of thought challenging your theological framework. By the end of the match, you emerge with a renewed perspective and love for the doctrine and the God who offers us His grace.

What I love about Vance’s style is that it is engaging and readable for those new to walking with Christ while at the same time thought-provoking and deep, rich with doctrinal complexity to challenge even the seasoned believer. The Idol Called Grace is a breath of fresh air. It is for anyone who has grown weary of the shallow, easy-to-understand doctrine of grace that stains our contemporary churches and bookstores. This is a book that cannot be recommended highly enough.

Tim Armstrong

Senior Pastor of The Chapel in Akron, Ohio

Dave and I frequently discuss the need to challenge people to live a life for Jesus out of a personal faith rather than some other prime mover such as culture or personal benefit. In light of my regular discouragement with various books over the years, I am thrilled that Dave finally wrote this book. The Idol Called Grace may be one of the best resources I have found. From practical examples to deep biblical study, The Idol Called Grace will walk you through the dangers of worshiping grace as an idol and how surprisingly prevalent this trend is today. Furthermore, you may find traces of grace as an idol in your own life as I did. Whether you are surrounded by people who are living a cultural Christianity rather than a personal one, or charged to lead such a community of people, this book is a must read. 

Rev. W. Bernt King Ed.D.

Acknowledgments

I

want to thank my godly mother for introducing me to God’s grace early and often in my journey. You have been God’s hand of grace to me in your prayers, encouragement, and teaching. I still remember the night I heard you praying, Lord, I don’t know what to do with him. Take him…he’s yours! Thank you for the faith legacy you birthed in me.

Deep thanks to my baby-love, my wife, Allyson, for the consistent picture of faithfulness that you reflect in your love, support, and shared dedication to Christ. In the darkest moments, you have been God’s voice of strength and focus to keep going and a beautiful reminder that the cause is a worthy one. There is no one else that I would rather be on this grace-journey with.

Tremendous thanks to my four boys, David, Caleb, Jacob, and Isaac. Being your father has taught me more about grace than anything else in life. The grace-legacy that continues through you inspires me daily. My prayer is that God would constantly use you to go further and reach more than I could ever possibly imagine. May your lives reflect the great grace God has shown me through you.

I have had the privilege to serve in three amazing churches and lead two churches. Each church has been an amazing gift to my life. I especially want to thank the wonderful staff and people at Crossroads Church in Mansfield, Ohio, who have allowed me to grow and learn as their pastor. You not only have encouraged this project, but you have dreamed with me and displayed an amazing picture of what this book is about. It is one of the greatest honors of my life to be called your pastor.

There are so many that have graciously spent time reading and editing this project. Big thanks to my personal assistant, Nicole, and my co-worker and friend Doug for reading every word and sharing your honest opinions. I am also so appreciative of Michele, Stephanie, Kelsey and the team from Outreach Inc. and Equip Press for taking some random thoughts in my mind and making them a project worth sharing.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Introduction

A Grace-Filled Tension

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here are times in our lives where God calls us into tension. A tension found in our discovery of who he is and what he has done. In essence, it’s an invitation into a wrestling match with the God of the universe. These moments when we enter the ring can be wonderful moments, but they also can be overwhelming. As a seminary student at Capital Bible Seminary, in Washington, DC, I had a systematic theology professor who provocatively challenged my thinking concerning how we view theological truths in the Scripture. He would say that whenever you study theology, you’re left with what he called blessed despair. Blessed despair describes the parallel feelings we have when studying the depths of God. On one hand, you feel so blessed, yet at the same time, it leaves you in despair. It leaves you wanting to bang your head against the wall. Why? Because we, the finite, are endeavoring to understand the infinite. And as we attempt to discover who God is, we continually run into our own limitations and inability to fully grasp the magnitude of his glory. So if we are to get in the ring with God, if you will, and wrestle a bit with who he is, I believe it has a way of stretching our minds, stirring our souls, expanding our thinking, and deepening our hearts.

Personally, there has probably been no subject that has caused me greater wonder, awe, and reverence, while at the same time more inquiry, contemplation, and searching, than the subject of grace. I mean, what is grace? What does it look like to live out grace? Grace…take a moment and ponder it. Isn’t it such a common word in the Christian world? We use it all the time. Yet in spite of its repeated use, it would be safe to say that grace is one of the most beautiful and powerful words in our entire language, and at the same time one of the most mysterious foundations of our beliefs found at the core of Christian theology.

We see the beauty of grace fleshed out in our everyday lives. We hear it in our songs. It seems like not a day goes by without a worship song entering the scene with grace in its title. Old hymns like Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me and Grace, Grace, God’s grace. Grace that is greater than all my sin as well as newer songs, From the creation to the cross. There from the cross into eternity. Your grace finds me and How wonderful, how glorious. My Saviors scars victorious. My chains are gone. My debt is paid. From death to life and grace to grace. Songs are written about it. Sermons also focus on it. Simply do a search on sermons about grace and you will find titles like… More Grace, Great Grace, Amazing Grace, Wonderful Grace, Marvelous Grace, Remarkable Grace, just to name a few. Churches have attempted to tie their purpose to the word grace. We find all kinds of churches with the word grace in their title. There are names like Grace Baptist Church, Grace Bible Church, Grace Apostolic Church, Grace Pentecostal Church, and Grace Church. I would bet that there is likely a church with the word grace in its title within forty miles of where you live.

It almost seems like grace is the word of the day. Why do so many talk about, sing about, and desire it? Because it’s at the core of who we are. It’s the centerpiece of our doctrinal foundation and our salvation experience. This one word expresses the experience of every Christian in every place, at every age, and in every language. And this is exactly what led me to some deeply rooted questions about our understanding of this concept of grace: how we see, describe, and discuss it. My hope is that these questions will be an invitation to join me in the ring with God as we wonder about and wrestle with our view of grace.

I have to confess, this conversation isn’t the normal description of grace. Instead, we are going to look at grace from an entirely different perspective, a shadow side, if you will. I wonder, with all the uses of the term and concept of grace that we see in our culture today, is it possible that this magnificent concept can actually become dangerous? Is it possible that the very grace on which our lives rest has unintentionally risen to a place it was never meant to be? Could it be that we have so misaligned the grace of God that grace has actually become an idol? Has it become a spiritual golden calf that we attempt to worship above God himself?

Some of you see the words grace, idol, and dangerous used in the same sentence, and you might think that grace is like your mother-in-law showing up at your house without a Snickers bar.¹ You might even wonder, Dave, have you lost your theological mind? Is this a vain attempt to get fired? Has ministry finally done you in, that you would describe grace as dangerous…as an idol? No doubt, I deserve each of these questions. I confess that I didn’t fully realize where this journey was going to take me. What I hope to do over these next few pages is to invite you into a wrestling match with grace and God. I’m not naïve enough to believe that you will agree with everything you will read within these chapters as we contend with this theological subject. What I am asking you to do is be willing to grapple with what God’s grace looks like today in our world and in your life. Would you wrestle with what God’s grace looks like doctrinally in Scripture and practically in your life? What I can promise you is that if you are willing to wrestle with the concept of grace in this way, I believe your understanding of grace will become fuller and your view of God will become even greater.

These types of questions aren’t anything new. Throughout the centuries, key, core doctrines of our Christian heritage have been the subject of much debate. And probably no basic truth has caused more discussion and debate as the topic of God’s grace. Questions like What is grace? and What does a grace-filled life look like? reveal our inquiry and also our confusion about the doctrine of grace. And what we know about doctrine, all doctrine, is that for every great point of articulation, there can also be a shadow side. There’s always a dark side, a humanly twisted angle, and a manipulation of terms. I find this to be equally true about our understanding of biblical grace.

Our walk into the ring will bring us face to face with the dark, shadow, and unspoken side of God’s great grace. Namely, how we tend to manipulate this magnificent word, abuse this beautiful concept, and twist grace for our benefit. Let me put this in foundational terms. I want to confront the notion and ask deep questions over the next few pages. Have we relegated grace to merely a system of belief that has little impact on our behavior? Has grace become only an idea, a word, a song, a doctrinal point, or something that now stands on its own with little connection to the One who created it in the first place? These are the questions…the invitation. I hope the answers will stretch you like they’ve stretched me.

Table of Contents

What Others are Saying

Acknowledgments

A Grace-Filled Tension

Grace…An Idol?

What Is an Idol?

The Gracious Journey of Idolatry

The Distortion of Grace

Grace-Based Idols

Visible Grace-Based Idols

Invisible Grace-Based Idols

Now What?

Messy Grace

The Magnitude of Our Mess

Where Grace Meets Our Mess

Grace as an Excuse

Grace’s Invitation

Now What?

Insecure Grace

Identity Crisis

Identity Defined

Identity Confusion

Identity Restored

Now What?

Immature Grace

The Expectation for Spiritual Growth

Misconceptions about Spiritual Growth

Growing in Grace

Now What?

Weak Grace

Painful Questions

Grace Seeks an Escape

Grace Is Stronger Than We Think

Now What?

Stifled Grace

The Beauty of Grace Extended

When Grace Fails

Grace Extends the Gospel

Now What?

Unfinished Grace

When Grace Falls Short

Discipline for the Journey

Bitterness or Breakthrough

The Power to Finish

Now What?

Common Grace

When Grace Becomes Common

Where Grace and Holiness Meet

A Proper View of Grace

Now What?

The Idol Called Grace

By Dave Vance

Chapter One

Grace…An Idol?

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ow that you’re ready to throw this book away and label me a heretic, let me pause and begin to define some terms that will bring sense to what I am saying. Defining grace and idolatry could be a book in and of itself—thus we won’t take the time to discuss the details about these subjects—but we need to at least be on the same page about what these terms mean. And I want to start with this term idolatry.

What Is an Idol?

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of the word idol?

When I hear the word idolatry, I immediately think of Indiana Jones chasing the Holy Grail in the well-known movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. If you remember the end of the movie, upon reaching the mysterious temple, characters Donovan and Elsa use Indiana and Henry Jones, Indy’s father, to maneuver past all the traps to reach the chamber of the coveted Holy Grail. Of course, Donavan and Elsa pick what they perceived as the most beautiful chalice studded in bright emeralds, causing Donavan to age to dust immediately. Upon his death, the guardian knight, who had been alive for seven hundred years by the power of the Grail, delivers this penetrating line, You have chosen poorly! What a great line! As expected, Indiana Jones selects the correct cup, an old wooden, humble, cup. But you know the thing that surprises me most about this scene? The Holy Grail mixed with the temple water constituted what they referred to as living water, which holds eternal wisdom and eternal understanding. Hollywood couldn’t be that obvious, could it? When we hear the word idolatry, this is probably the picture that first comes to our minds. I know it is for me.

Or maybe, like me, you have visited a country with a history of idolatry. I think of a global ministry trip I took to Cambodia with a ministry partner called Asia’s Hope.² On one such trip, I had the privilege of visiting a well-known temple site called Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument in the entire world. If you’ve ever watched the Discovery or History Channels for any extended period of time, you probably have seen Angkor Wat. It seems to appear on there weekly. It was built during the Khmer Empire and was originally dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. There are castles, pyramids, and tons of monuments inside. As you explore the many temples on the grounds of Angkor Wat, you cannot escape the numerous physical idols representing many different false gods. These stone relics represent different perspectives of these gods. There is one particularly interesting one that represents a replica of Vishnu, the Hindu god, with many different arms representing different aspects of deity. In another temple there was a combination idol of Vishnu and Buddha.³ These are just a few of the many images of idolatry at Angkor Wat.

Likewise, stone relics, golden calves, and tiny statues are what most likely come to mind when I say the word idol. And if that’s true, then probably most of us would say, I don’t have an idol issue. I doubt anyone is reading this in front of a little trinket that you’re burning incense for and chanting to, but that’s precisely the image most of us have, and as a result, we think of idolatry as something distant from us. Something other-cultural.

But Scripture reveals something else. Something surprising. We find that idolatry is actually at the core of our identity. I love the description used by Martin Lloyd Jones, former pastor at Westminster Chapel in London. He gives us a helpful definition of idolatry: An idol is anything in my life that occupies a place that should be occupied by God alone. An idol is something that holds such controlling position in my life that it moves and rouses and attracts me so easily, that I give my time, attention and money to it effortlessly.

Similarly, Pastor Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and best-selling author of Counterfeit Gods, said, What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give you… An idol is whatever you look at and say in your heart of hearts, ‘If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value. Then I’ll feel significant and secure.’⁴ He goes on to say that anything can be considered a god if it rules and serves as a deity in the heart of a person or in the life of people.

Undoubtedly, there are many other nuances related to the definition of idolatry. But for the sake of our study, I want to combine these two definitions into a fuller, yet more specific definition, especially as it relates to grace.

Idolatry is exchanging what has been given by God

to reflect his glory and satisfy our enjoyment in

him for our selfish desires, our self-assurances,

and our self-serving intentions.

Please pay careful attention to each of the words used in this definition. Notice it takes the gifts God has given to us for his glory and for our satisfaction in him and uses them for our selfish assurances, our selfish desires, and our self-serving intentions. In essence, we exchange what God has given for self. It’s as if we say, I’ll take that, God, and use it for me. That’s idolatry at the core. Simply put, it is giving central value to something other than God in our lives.

Whether