As I see it, from both Scripture and attempting to live the Christian life now for 25+ years now, there are two “vials” before us that we must drink to understand, accept, and live the Christian life. Not only must we drink both vials, but both vials must be drunk in their undiluted form. That is the key: Undiluted. The first vial is the vial of sin. What I mean by this is understanding, and also experiencing, just how deep our sin resides within our own hearts. Most of us are pleased with ourselves whenever we have changed or reformed our outward actions in some measure. Our “record of good” (outwardly, at least) is “improving,” we think. We are doing “better” than we have in the past. Our good deeds are increasing, while our bad deeds (outward sins) are decreasing. We are proud of this success. One problem with this is that we have not drunk the “vial of sin” in its “undiluted” form. We do not know how sick our hearts really are. We do not realize that sin has seeped its way into our motives and our desires even if we were to perfectly reform or change all of our actions. We are, in fact, not that good. In fact, we are “THAT BAD” and worse. As Jack Miller, the late pastor and professor said: “Cheer up! You’re much worse than you think!” Until we realize that we are “much worse” than we think, we will continue to delude ourselves into thinking that we are “not that bad” and won’t fully believe or apply the Bible’s teachings about indwelling sin in our lives. We must believe that we are worse off that we can see, think or imagine. We must drink the vial of sin “undiluted.” While we do not see it on the face of it, drinking this vial of sin “undiluted” results in much good in our lives. Our relationships with others improve, and it is because we see ourselves rightly. Most of all, we are able to understand ourselves better before God.
The other vial is the vial of God’s grace. You might also say that, included in this vial, is God’s love, forgiveness and acceptance of us in Christ Jesus. If we drink this vial diluted, then we will never believe (or experience!) God’s full love for us in Christ Jesus. We will always believe that God “frowns” as He dispenses His grace towards us. A diluted vial of God’s grace says that we believe God dispenses forgiveness “partially” and that He loves us only “in part” and not “in full.” From this viewpoint, God’s love is more conditional than unconditional. If we are acting good, then God will smile a little more; if we are acting badly (sinfully), then God withholds His love from us in some measure. We are on a treadmill that never ends. We are in “performance mode,” always trying to live up to a standard to which we will never achieve. In order for God to love us, we think that we must always achieve “Gold Medal Status” and that anything less than that will disappoint God and might even cause Him to “retract” His salvation from us. We will always feel like “less” than a child of God with this mindset. This is an exhausting way to live, but this is the result of drinking the vial of God’s grace in its diluted form.
Instead, we must drink this vial of grace undiluted, in full, and believe that God’s love for us (in Christ Jesus) is not based on our behavior, not based on our efforts, not based on how well we live the Christian life, but is based on what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross. Ironically, whenever we drink, undiluted, these two “vials” (of sin and of God’s grace), our need to justify ourselves dissipates. The defensiveness we have towards others for pointing out our sins, is more silenced than not. The lack of love or acceptance we feel whenever we fail will not be as acute because we know our status before God apart from Christ (worse than we could ever dare to imagine!) and we know our status before God in Jesus Christ (far better than we could ever dare to imagine!). Our identity is no longer found in our “record of good” (per David White), but in what Christ has done. We must believe that, because of Jesus Christ, God’s acceptance for us is fully unconditional apart from what we do or don’t do. This doesn’t mean that what we do or don’t do doesn’t matter, nor does it mean that we shouldn’t strive to be changed, by the power of His grace, but it simply means that our identity is not based on what we do or don’t do. Our identity is based on what Jesus Christ has already done, freely, out of love for us. As a result, we can “take” criticism (warranted AND unwarranted!) better from others. We have no reputation to uphold or defend because our label as “sinner” apart from Christ is the worse anyone could say about me. On the other hand, God’s acceptance of me in Christ Jesus, and His labeling of me as His child, is the greatest thing anyone could ever say about me. No good word anyone could say about me is greater than what God has said about me at the cross. His love for me is greater than the love anyone could show me, and His acceptance of me is greater than anyone else’s acceptance (or rejection!) of me. At this point, once we drink the vials of sin and grace, undiluted, we can agree and walk in the freedom pastor R.T. Kendall mentioned in his book on the Sermon on the Mount: “The greatest liberty is having nothing to prove.” What a glorious freedom that is and will be once we understand the gospel message in its undiluted form.