In an online discussion with pastors after the Chuck Smith scandal, one of the pastors asked me to share my thoughts on whether or not forgiveness is available to the believer who plans to sin. This is a key question, not only in relation to the advice Pastor Chuck gave to a vulnerable pregnant woman, but because we see so many women entering abortion chambers empowered to kill their babies because of their overwhelming assurance that God will forgive them. Although one of the pastors in the discussion deemed this a “theological train wreck,” I thought it might be worth posting here for your consideration. What follows is an edited version of what I wrote to these pastors:

You asked me to share my thoughts on whether or not forgiveness is available to the believer who plans to sin. To help you understand my thoughts on that question, I suppose I must begin by briefly explaining some thoughts on grace. Too often we view grace in the primary context of forgiveness of sins, and by so doing we make grace (practically speaking) an enabler of sin (by cushioning its blow). But God’s grace is not given to enable us to do evil, but to do good. (Perhaps that will be seen as a radical thought, because of Romans 3:12, but stay with me here. Let’s consider a bigger scriptural perspective on what is “good.”)

We see this, for example, in Ephesians 2:8-10. Of course verses 8 and 9 are often quoted to emphasize salvation by grace through faith, but when we stop before verse 10 we miss the inspired purpose for these verses as penned by the Apostle Paul. We are not saved for the purpose of simply failing and falling repeatedly on His grace, but we are saved to do the good works which He planned for us to do. Now if He planned for us to do good works, that means that when we walk in the paths He has planned for us, what we do is, by definition, good. Our divine destiny is not to wallow in our sin (ever-confident that the Father looks at us through Christ-colored glasses) but to truly accomplish something “good.”

Of course nobody is “good” but God, so the only way that we can walk in the good works He planned for us is by letting Him work through us. But this is not a pipe-dream — it is supposed to be the reality of the Christian life!

In the Didache, the apostles focused their teachings on two “ways,” a way of life and a way of death. (Yes I know that this is not canon, but we’ll see this in both the Old Testament and New Testament.) Every day, we are presented with opportunities to choose one way or the other: God’s way or the devil’s. Yes, it is a choice, but it is a choice with consequences. Believers are not free to mock God without consequences, but will reap what they sow (Galatians 6:7-10). This does not negate grace — on the contrary, it is grace which enables us to do the “good” (the divinely-inspired word used here) which produces the harvest.

At each moment, when we have the opportunity to sow to our flesh or to sow to the Spirit, we will find that our Lord is speaking to us, if we listen for His voice (John 10). The voice of the Lord seeks to guide us to the pathways of Life, while the voice of the devil seeks to guide us to the pathways of death.

At that moment when we hear His voice, we have the opportunity to soften our hearts and respond to Him, or to stubbornly harden our hearts (Hebrews 3-4). We face great danger if we choose to allow our hearts to be hardened by the “deceitfulness of sin.” The primary danger is what happens to our hearts in the process. When we choose the way of sin, we are choosing to harden our hearts. The more our hearts become hard, the less we listen for His voice (which whispers more often than it shouts). The less we hear His voice, the less we choose the way of Life, the less we sow good seed, the more our hearts become hard, the less we hear His voice. It is a never-ending spiral. That is why Hebrews 3:13 challenges us not only to heed His voice but to exhort other believers to do so. The exhortation is inherently a challenge to believe God, as hardness of heart is inherently characterized by unbelief.

And so when we choose to commit “little” sins, even that little sin poses a significant danger in that it turns us away from the Voice of Truth and dulls our conscience to some extent. (Of course, some sins harden our hearts and dull our consciences more than others.)

When we face a difficult choice, we must not only choose to listen to our Lord and to believe His voice, but we must also be faithful to challenge others (such as women in difficult situations like Nicki) to do so. Can we believe that God can fulfill the purpose for which he placed those children in Nicki’s womb? If not, we are choosing to harden our hearts.

So where is grace in all of this? Grace permeates every aspect of this process. The voice is grace. The choice is grace. It is grace which enables us to believe the unbelievable. What if we have gone far down the path of death, and our hearts have become excessively hard? Have we nullified grace? No, at every point along the process, as long as we have the opportunity to listen again for the Voice of Truth, we can turn away from the path of Death. But will we? The scriptural challenge is clear: we can’t risk riding the spiral; no, “today” is when we need to respond to His voice, not tomorrow.

Responding to His voice leads us to the throne of grace, not only so that our sins may be forgiven but that “we may find mercy and grace to help in time of need.” So that we may, once again, choose to walk in the good works which He ordained for us to do.

In both the Old and New Testaments, those who intentionally disobey God’s voice face severe consequences (see for example Numbers 15:30-31 and Hebrews 10:26-31). These scriptural warnings are established to help God’s people fear Him, not to throw the pearls of God’s grace before any swine who wish to trample them. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but in today’s church it seems that we don’t want anybody to fear the Lord; instead, we want to assure everybody that no matter what they do, there is nothing to fear. After all, “God will not condemn you.”

But God’s Word teaches us to fear Him! The very definition of the scriptural word “religion” is “to fear God” — and though we eschew the word “religion” today, the Bible does not teach us to do so. (From what I wrote above I hope it is obvious that we must not only “fear God” but also maintain a “relationship” with Him — obviously we can’t “hear His voice” without such a relationship.)

So How should God’s leaders model Biblical grace toward those who willingly choose to sin? Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal in Luke 15 helps to clarify when it is time to extend forgiveness — and when it is time to wait. The son willingly sinned when he chose to squander his father’s wealth. While this was going on, was he in relationship with his father? Was his father coming to visit him in the brothels pleading with him to come home? Did the father write him a letter while he was hungering for pig slop inviting him to come home for a feast? Not according to the scripture. Apparently there was no communication at all between father and son during this time, for the father himself said that during this time the son was “dead” to him. Apparently the son had reason to fear his gracious father, because when he finally decided to go home he decided to do so not as a son but as a servant.

But while the father remained at home, something changed in the son’s heart. The son realized that he had sinned, not only against his father, but against God. The son recognized the consequences of his behavior, and chose to become the father’s servant.

When he goes home to become his father’s servant, his heart has changed. He has experienced repentance. It is only at this point — after repentance — that we see the father running out to meet his son. It is only at this point that such amazing grace and forgiveness is extended.

The parables of John 15 are not about extending blanket, unequivocal forgiveness to those who intend to sin, but about the joy which comes from extending forgiveness to a “sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7, 10).

After the resurrection, Jesus proclaimed that His followers would preach a message of “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47) — not a blanket message of forgiveness for all.

How, then, shall we apply these scriptures to a woman who plans to abort her baby while she insists “God will forgive me”? As she plans to kill a child God placed in her womb, she is disobeying His voice, hardening her heart toward Him as she follows the path of death set forth by the devil. What is typically motivating a woman (or those coercing her) at this point? Often, lacking the faith to believe, they consider their child to be a curse and not a blessing (thereby hardening their hearts against the One who proclaims that children are a blessing and that He will provide). Or, they want to hide something shameful (such as pregnancy out of wedlock). If they truly believed in God’s grace, they could trust in that grace to do good (nurture the child in the womb both before and after birth while knowing that no matter how many people seek to shame them, God has forgiven them) instead of expounding a false grace which leads to death.

A few hours later, after the abortionist has completed his bloody work and the baby created in God’s image lies lifeless in a bucket, the devil changes tactics. No longer does he whisper enticing thoughts in her ear, reassuring her that abortion is her best choice. Suddenly, he becomes the accuser, filling the woman with shame over what she has done. After hardening her heart against her Creator and shutting off His voice, is she able to hear that still, small voice above the devil’s accusations? Most assuredly, He is still calling to her, but sadly it seems that most often abortion results in a further hardening of the heart.

Repentance after abortion is particularly problematic, because the abortion decision so often involves a need to hide something. If we walk in the light, according to 1 John 1, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. But those who wish to hide their deeds refuse to come into the light (according to John 3:20) and thus they prevent themselves from fellowshipping with Him and experiencing His forgiveness.

The pathway to forgiveness begins with repentance. There is no shortcut. Let us commit ourselves to teaching His paths, not teaching the way which seems right to man — but ends in death.