Frustrating Grace Is Legalism Rising from the Attempt to Work for God

Frustrating Grace Is Legalism Rising from the Attempt to Work for God

Frustrating Grace Is Legalism Rising from the Attempt to Work for God

frustrating grace

Frustrating grace is the most crucial issue of Christianity. When Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God, he said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is as hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1: 15). With the word translated repent meaning “to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider,” Jesus is saying that to enter into the kingdom of God there has to be a new way of thinking (John 3:3). The old way of thinking, frustrating grace, must be transformed to prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God for our lives (Rom. 12:2).

Frustrating Grace the Work of the Mind

Paul also indicated the uniqueness of the gospel when he said that the intellectual exercise of the mind, that which produces frustrating grace, could make “the cross of Christ . . . of none effect:”

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect” (1 Cor. 1:17).

Thus, he declared that when he came to the Corinthians he “came not with excellency of speech or wisdom” (1 Cor. 2:1) and that “[his] speech and [his] preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. 1:4). He knew “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 1:14).

Finally, he said,

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4).

Paul knew the danger of man’s mind interfering into the receiving and the working of the gospel of Jesus Christ, thereby frustrating grace.

Frustrating Grace Comes Out of Illusions

For man to experience the gospel, he must experience salvation from the illusion that he can see by the exercise of his own mind. As Jesus said,

For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. (John 9:39-41)

Frustrating grace is the deadly perception that man has the capability to see which introduces evil into his life and causes him to remain in sin.

It is the awakening of the creature to his self-identity that destroys the life of God that man can experience. Man must repent (be turned around from his old way of thinking) and be baptized in the name of Jesus (come under a new way of thinking by the Spirit, the thinking of God) or he is doomed. He will be caught in an endless search for life, frustrating grace, that will always lead him down deadly paths of destruction.

The deadly destruction of hell always comes to man, through deception, when his eyes are turned from Jesus, the Way, onto another way. Man will always experience death when his mind (that which seems right) enters into the quest for life. The use of the mind, frustrating grace, always makes the mind useless in the search for life.

Frustrating Grace Always Produces Wretchedness

Paul described the death of such a man. He could describe it because he himself at one point in his life, frustrating grace, had traveled the deadly path of destruction. Although he once perceived he knew the way to life (the way to God) and did everything within his own power to experience that way, he soon found himself experiencing the wretchedness of hell. He wrote, “O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24).

With wretched meaning “enduring trial,” Paul found himself in circumstances that were causing him to experience the hell of a life that had gone down the wrong road. Although he had previously experienced the heavenly life, he now, frustrating grace, was experiencing the hell of the earthly life. He stated, “I was alive . . . once: but . . . sin revived, and I died” (Rom. 7:9).

A clue to this mystery of being moved from the heavenly life to the earthly life is given, when he wrote, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin” (7:25). Every time the mind is used in the search for God, the quest for life, destruction by the law of sin, will always follow. The writer of Proverbs wrote, “There is a way which seemeth [literal meaning, “the face (as the part that turns)” from the root ‘to turn’] right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12). Frustrating grace will always send the man down the wrong road to death.

Paul was experiencing the deadly destruction of the earthly life because, although he was serving the law of God with his mind, his flesh served the law of sin. His face had been turned away from Jesus to another law. He had turned to a perception of his mind and the mind, apart from Jesus, always produces the law of sin in the flesh. Frustrating grace always produces wretchedness, a life that is never what it should be.

The Deadly Tale of Frustrating Grace

The beginning of this downward road occurred when Paul moved away (his face was turned) from Jesus Christ as the Way of life. The end of the downward road occurred when he experienced the wretchedness of the “way which seems right unto a man.” Paul recorded the complete tale of the diminishing of his life, frustrating grace, from its beginning to its end. He wrote,

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

Paul then uses marriage to illustrate the believer’s union with Christ:

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also, are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Being married to Christ, sets the believer free from the law of sin:

For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

The problem is not the law but rather how the believer might attempt to use the law.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

The attempt to live by the law ultimately reveals that the law by itself can only produce sin:

Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal sold under sin.

Frustrating grace by attempting to live my the law produces only failure and sin:

For that which I do I allow not: for what I would that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Christ is the answer for all frustrations that come by our own effort to live as we know we should:

I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me in captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (Rom. 7:1-25)

Paul had come to the end of the road. His cry was “Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death” (7:24). Is he not saying, “Who will deliver me from the hell I am experiencing?”

Frustrating Grace always Begins with the Sin

The initiation of death that comes at the end of the road began when Paul was deceived into thinking that something other than Jesus could be the source of his life. He wrote,

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?” (7:1).

In the context of the rest of the chapter, liveth is not talking about physical life (the life that one loses when he goes into the physical grave). It is referring to the life one thinks he has in his own perception.

Again, as Jesus said,

For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (John 9:39-41).

Sin is always connected to the belief by man that he has the capability to see within his own ability.

The fruit of the tree of the knowledge [to know (properly, to ascertain by seeing)] of good and evil (Gen. 2:17) is always the foundation of all sin. When man begins to perceive that he has the capability to decide what is good or what is evil (living by a law), he opens himself to be ruled by that which he perceived to be good or to be evil: “how that the law hath dominion [to rule] over a man as long as he liveth” (Rom. 7:1). The very thing to which man turns to find life soon controls his life.

To the Romans, Paul then wrote,

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God (7:4).

By the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, man can become dead (cause to be put to death) to all laws of life that he “should be married [cause to be] to another” (Christ). Jesus Christ is the only “Cause To Be” of life, the only Way of life that does not produce destruction.

Deception of Frustrating Grace

After establishing the fact that Jesus is the only Cause To Be of life, Paul then told how his face was turned from Jesus which eventually produced the hell of being wretched. He wrote,

For sin, taking occasion [literal meaning of the word translated occasion is “starting point”] by the commandment, deceived [to seduce wholly]] me, and by it slew [to kill outright] me” (7:11).

The starting point of all sin is deception. Or, the seeing of a new way.

For example, although everyone keeps making “choices” to live, they keep experiencing death because they have been deceived into thinking they have the capability to make decisions that actually affect the production of true life. It is not what they choose that produces death. It is the perception, the moving into the belief that they can see or they can choose, that produces death.

Or, as Paul wrote, “Is the law sin?” Is what he chose to try to experience life, living by the law, sin? Is what anyone “chooses” to try to experience life sin?

In reality, everything that is ever chosen by man to attempt to experience life has been created by God (Col. 1:16). Moreover, as the writer of Genesis declared, all things that were created are good: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (1:31).

Paul even carried it one step further. He implied that it is even the good thing that the individual has “set his heart upon” to try to experience life that eventually causes the individual “to see” sin. He implied that he would have never known sin, if he had not “set his heart upon” something other than Jesus:

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known [“to know”] sin, but by the law: for I had not known [“to see”] lust [“a longing” from “to set the heart upon”], except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet [“to set the heart upon”]. But sin, taking occasion by the commanded, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence [“longing” from “to set the heart upon”]. For without the law sin was dead (7 :7,8).

It is only the outworking of hell in one’s life stemming from the choice of a wrong road that finally brings man to see the error of his deception. Trying to live life by a law of life other than Jesus will always produce the hell of sin; thereby, producing the knowledge of sin by the actual experiencing of sin. It is always the results of frustrating grace.

Mystery of Frustrating Grace

Paul continued:

For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life [as all things that were created], I found to be unto death. For sin taking occasion [“starting point”] by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful (7:9-13).

Again, the problem of sin is not the thing chosen. It is the perception that man can choose that which is good or evil for his life that causes the problem.

The hells of life always occur when man moves into the perception that he can direct his life by the decisions of his own mind. When man eats of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he will die. Destruction will always occur because man does not, neither does the thing he chooses, have the capability to produce the life he desires.

Life is only within God:

For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man (John 5:26,27).

Again, it is only when man begins to perceive that he can make life happen by the choices of his mind that hell occurs. In fact, the real hell of life is being caught in the never ending cycle of making choices and those choices never producing the life that is desired. It is living life in a continual series of one dead end street after another.

Paul lamented over this condition:

. . . I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died . . . For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me” (7:9,11).

It began with deception. It would end with death. The illusions of his mind, the mystery of frustrating grace, would take him downward to wretchedness (7:24). The deception of the road would eventually take him to hell.

Downward Road of Frustrating Grace is Crowded

Unfortunately, he has not been the only one that has traveled this road. Many others have had their eyes turned away from Jesus. They, also, have fallen prey to the illusion that life can be experienced by the choices of the mind. The downward road of deception is crowded.

Paul described the process of this deception when he wrote

For we know that the law is spiritual [non-carnal]: but I am carnal sold [to traffic (by traveling)] under sin (7:14).

Everyone that has been deceived and not experiencing the life of God, Jesus, will be caught in the never ending travel of that to which the mind has turned to try to experience life. The perception of their mind will cause them to be caught in the traffic of their own thinking, trying to experience life by the choices the mind has made. They, too, will become travelers of the downward road of deception to wretchedness.

Apart from Jesus, the travelers of this road are trapped in never experiencing what they so desperately attempt to experience by the decisions of their minds. Or, as Paul wrote,

For that which I do I allow not: for what I would [“to determine”], that do I not; but what I hate that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good (7:15,16).

When the travelers of this road attempt (try to do what they would) to keep their new law of life and yet fail (they do that which they would not do), the fact that they desired to keep the law gives consent that the law is good.

Although man can never say (except in the illusion of his mind) a good thing has produced the good life, his failure to experience the good life in the good thing, nevertheless, accentuates the goodness of the good thing. In other words, when man desires to experience life and fails to experience life, the fact that he desired to experience life testifies to the goodness of life. The ultimate object of every desire is always good. It is only in how one attempts to satisfy that desire that deception can occur.

No Excuse for Frustrating of Grace

Paul continued with his description of the deception of this road,

Now then it is no more I that do it [the wrong thing], but sin that dwelleth in me (7:17).

When man does that which he does not determine to do, he can say it was not him, it was not a choice of his mind. However, the curse of the fall (Gen. 3:14) declares that once man attempts to live in the illusion that life is determined by the choices of the mind, he must “live” in those choices that the mind has made:

For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them (Rom. 10:3).

Amazingly, yet not so amazingly, man actually loses the opportunity to experience life, which he (by the choices of his mind) so desperately desires to experience, by making those very choices. Thinking he actually has the freedom to make choices, he becomes a slave to the sin of his choices. He becomes “entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1).

Becoming a slave to the deception of whatever road he has chosen to attempt to experience life, he now becomes totally controlled by the road. The road itself becomes his god and dictates to him his every action. He now preaches the road as the way to life. Jesus is no longer the essence of his life or the essence of his message.

Since Jesus is no longer the essence of his life, he becomes a slave to sin. Being in slavery to sin, acts of sin will occur in his life even though he does not want them to occur. Moreover, when an act of sin occurs, he can actually say it was not him (the act of sin did not occur by his own decision) “but [from] sin that dwelleth in [him]” (Rom. 7:20).

However, even though it was not an act of sin that occurred because he made a decision to sin but was in fact the results of his slavery to sin, he still suffers the consequences of any sin that is found in his life. Man is always without excuse. He is without excuse because any act of sin can only occur as a result of the sin that separated him from God. The sin (the awakening of self to its own perception by the perceived choices of the mind) which separates man from the Way of God, Jesus Christ, is what makes man inexcusable. Or, as Paul stated, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants [slaves] to obey, his servants [slaves] ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16).

There are only two classes of people in the world: those who are slaves of God and those who are slaves of sin. When an act of sin occurs in one’s life, it occurs because he has become a slave to sin. The perception of the mind has become the sinner’s master, the illusion that the choices of the mind can produce his life. He becomes a slave to sin.

This truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ is difficult, if not impossible, for the mind of western man to comprehend. The perceived freedom of the mind has been in control of man’s thinking for so long that man has become deceived into thinking he is something that he is not. Man lives his entire life, unless set free by Jesus Christ, in the fantasies created by his perceived choices.

Only religion will allow a man to think he is something other than what he is. Then, religion will further convince him into thinking that if he will just keep believing that he is something other than what he is, he will actually become that which he is not. It is the classic deception of the mind, which will always divert attention away from itself as being the real problem of man. By the constant offering of new and better ways to life and to God, the mind stays in control of the sinner.

Paul concluded:

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (7:18-24)

Apart from Jesus, Paul rejoiced in himself (the literal meaning of the word translated delight, [7:22]) that “with his mind [he, himself], served the law of God . . .” (7:25). Serving the law of God with the mind, however, automatically moved him into the arena of the flesh: “bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” Man cannot have one without the other.

Being in the flesh, Paul now found himself controlled by sin. Being controlled by sin, this traveler of the road now finds he can do nothing else but experience the wretchedness of the end of the road. Sadly, the deception of the road, the rejection of the gospel, always produces the chambers of death.

A Meditation on Frustrating Grace:

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Dr. James Stone is the founder and President of Christian Ministries, Inc., a ministry for personal, family, and church growth. He travels extensively across America and several foreign countries sharing his experiences with Jesus. His over 40 year career in ministry has included individual counseling, family counseling, church pastor, Bible college/seminary professorships, leader of revivals, Christian growth seminars & church growth specialist.

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