How do we as American Christians understand the grace of God? For many, grace has become a cheap commodity whose value is indexed against the personality of whatever man is peddling it. Case in point: tuning in to an oldies station recently, I heard these words:

Never been a sinner I never sinned

I got a friend in Jesus

So you know that when I die

He's gonna set me up with

The spirit in the sky

Oh set me up with the spirit in the sky

That's where I'm gonna go when I die

When I die and they lay me to rest

I'm gonna go to the place that's the best

Go to the place that's the best

“Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum (The story is that the Jewish Greenbaum, after seeing Porter Wagoner sing a gospel song on television, decided he would also write one. Fifteen minutes later “Spirit In The Sky” was written and quickly became a worldwide hit.)

Greenbaum’s ‘friend in Jesus’ is sentimental—a necessity for producing emotion from a gospel song penned in fifteen minutes. It wasn’t written to get at the truth of the real value of Jesus sacrifice; it was written simply to appeal to an audience.

Most American Christians would resonate with the concept of having a ‘friend in Jesus’ and, while they wouldn’t say they had never sinned, their understanding of Jesus’ friendship is sentimental and incidental, rather than indispensable.

And they really don’t want to talk about sin. When it’s brought up they quickly bring out the grace blanket and throw it over the conversation, so that everyone will quickly remember that we’re no longer under law. Para-church leaders, postmodern pastors, and evangelists like Joel Osteen do their part, depreciating the value of sin’s debt to such an extent that now, with them, we feel free to describe our rebellion with words like ‘mistake’ and ‘poor choice’.

But these words do not convey the implications of sin. They devalue our agency. Then they devalue our hope, for when we devalue sin we devalue grace.

So what’s missing? The fear is missing. There is no fear of God in Greenbaum’s song and there is no fear of God in the American church. God is simply the one who sweeps our sins under the carpet when we pray and ask Jesus into our heart during the youth group meeting. He loves us, and so it doesn’t matter what we’ve done, are doing, or will do. We’ve got a friend and a grace blanket.

No fears.

…No fears just so long as we don’t consider who God really is and what we have really done.

Our sins are monstrous, horrible and to be abhorred. They are various, frequent and recent. The debt incurred through any one of them—including sins in our thoughts, and sins committed when we fail to do “the right thing”—is so absolute as to require eternal hell. The Holy God is the very one who will send us there, and our “friend” Jesus is the very one who will do the sentencing.

What of the grace of God through Jesus Christ? What does it mean when the Scripture says that “He made Him who had no sin to ‘become sin’ on our behalf”? What does it mean that, “He has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all” or, “The Lord was pleased to crush Him”?

What it means is that God the Father laid every single, particular sin of His chosen people—sins past, present and future—upon the sinless Jesus. Then, seeing His son saturated with our imputed wickedness, He took His heel and ground Christ into the place of His judgment. Seeing His son bearing the mass of our unrighteousness, God placed His curse upon Him, and all the wrath of Almighty God was hurled at the only one who never deserved it.

When we appear at the Judgment Seat before that Father and that Son, and the secrets of our hearts are laid bare, we will finally realize the depths of our depravity. But we will find that it’s an inconvenient time to discover the terrible holiness of God.

I don’t want a friend in Jesus.

I’ve committed capital crimes, and a friend is not enough.

I need a Friend in Jesus.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

(Romans 5:6-11)