The Scandal of Grace
“What makes the gospel offensive is not who it keeps out, but who it lets in.” Rachel Held Evans
Public Theology is based on the work of Zach W. Lambert, Pastor of Restore, an inclusive church in Austin, Texas. Zach’s first book, Better Ways to Read the Bible, will release on August 12, 2025 and is available to preorder today. All of the content available at Public Theology is for those who identify as Christian, as well as those who might be interested in learning about a more inclusive, kind, thoughtful Christianity. We’re glad you’re here.
The book of Hebrews is filled to the brim with beautiful depictions of God’s grace. Interestingly, no one knows who wrote the book of Hebrews. I think it was written by the great Gospel preacher and missionary, Priscilla, and I think she left it unsigned because a woman writing a divinely-inspired book of the Bible in the 1st century would have been beyond scandalous.
But regardless of who wrote it, the letter has a lot in common with other New Testament writings in that it is constantly correcting misunderstandings about who God is and what God is like.
I like to call this kind of discourse, “You’ve heard it said, but I say to you…”
This is how Jesus often corrected misunderstandings about God’s character and purpose.
“Here is what you believe now, but here is what you should believe.”
“You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:43-45
“You’ve heard it said that God is like this, but I say to you God is actually like this…”
The author of Hebrews (and essentially every other author of the New Testament) picks up the “you’ve heard it said, but I say to you” mantle from Jesus to help people know the truth about the nature God.
In Jesus’ time, it was often assumed that God was okay with or even endorsing of a religion that loved neighbors but hated enemies. Jesus says that’s not true. God calls us to love everyone.
Quick side note: This has always been a core part of what it means to be a Christian and the heart of the Jewish Scriptures as well. The false narratives about who God is or what God is like may change over the years, but our call to remind people of the truth about God hasn’t, especially when these false narratives are coming from other Christians.
So when you see a Christian using their faith to be hateful, remind them of the words of Jesus we just read—love your neighbor and love your enemy, too.
When you hear a Christian declare that God prefers one country over another or one people group over another, remind them that the clearest picture we have of heaven is a place where every tribe, tongue, and nation is represented.
When you come across a Christian claiming that God’s grace is only for certain kinds of people, remind them that the scandal of God’s grace is that is available for absolutely everyone.
I like to share this quote when people try to limit God’s grace: “What makes the gospel offensive is not who it keeps out, but who it lets in.” Rachel Held Evans
This is exactly what we see the author of Hebrews do over and over again: repeatedly confronting the false narrative that God is vengeful, vindictive, and stingy with grace.
God sees our hearts, our thoughts, our motives, and what we do when no one else is watching. That’s all true. The author of Hebrews puts it like this:
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Hebrews 4:13
Nothing is hidden from God. Even the stuff we think we’ve kept concealed is uncovered and laid bare before in God’s presence.
The false narrative says that, because this is true, God is angry with us. The false narrative teaches that when everything about us is revealed, God is disgusted and we should be ashamed.
But that’s where this false narrative about God needs some serious correction. And the author of Hebrews does just that in the next verse:
Therefore, [because all of that is true] since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Hebrews 4:14-15
The author is saying, “Not only is God not disgusted by you— even in your worst moments, God gets it.”
God gets it because Jesus, God in the flesh, has been through what we’ve been through. Jesus empathizes with our weakness, he understands our pain and our problems. Even though he never sinned, he knows what it’s like to be a human trying to make our way through this broken world.
The author of Hebrews implores us to “hold firmly to the faith we profess.” Notice they didn’t say, “Hold firmly to the dogma you prescribe to,” or “Hold firmly to the religion you practice.” They say, “Hold firmly to the faith you profess.”
The effectiveness of faith isn’t based on the person professing, it’s based on where our faith is placed. It’s not about the quality of our faith, it’s about the quality of what we’re placing our faith in.
We can hold firmly to the faith we profess, not because we have some remarkable amount of belief, but because we have a remarkable God, one who loved us enough to come to earth and make a home with humanity. No matter what comes, the one we’re placing our faith in is faithful.
And Scripture says: even when we are faithless, God is faithful. God sees us, God empathizes with us, and God is faithful to us. In Christ we are fully known and fully loved. But that is only part of the Good News. Here’s the rest of it:
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence. so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4:16
Our God is a God of gracious access. A God whose throne is open for us to receive mercy and grace every moment of every day. That, my friends, is good news.
The biblical narrative is full of people crying out to God for grace. Why? Because they had faith that God would provide it. They knew they could “approach the throne of grace with confidence” no matter what was happening in their lives or in their world, and God would give them what they need.
They also understood that God’s grace is so much more than just forgiveness when we mess up.
“God's grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word.”
Nadia Bolz-Weber
The lie about God is that when everything is laid bare, God is repulsed and we should be ashamed. This lie says God can’t wait to punish us when we step out of line.
The truth about God is that when everything is laid bare, God loves us without reservation or exception. We are fully known and fully loved by God.
It’s not hard to see how our view of God informs our view of others, and possibly more importantly, ourselves. I once heard a mom explain God to her teenage son in this way: “It’s like when you were a toddler and you threw a fit. I grabbed you up and spanked you, because I had to teach you not to act like that. That’s how God treats us— he has to punish us so that we’ll behave, just like I had to punish you to teach you how to behave.”
This description of God is heartbreaking, but it’s not rare. If you believe that God is watching and waiting for you to mess up, ready to punish you for your disobedience in order to teach you how to behave, you will see yourself (and everyone else!) as primarily bad. You know those Christians who are quick to point out everyone else’s sin? You can bet they see God, themselves, and others in this punishment-oriented way.
We can draw a straight line between how we believe God sees us and how we see ourselves. If we believe that God is critical of us, judgmental and ready to pounce, then we will see ourselves as one misstep away from God’s wrath. When we internalize this narrative, we see ourselves and everyone else as inherently bad. This makes it really easy to justify judgement, condemnation, and even violence toward others.
“The question of what God is like is not merely an abstract one. When we’re given a distorted picture of God, we end up with unhealthy practices that don’t impact only our personal lives. How we relate to God affects our systems, our politics, and how we practice our faith in the world.
If we can’t see the delight that God has in us as beloved children of God, we will also be blind to God’s delight in others. We’ll fail to see the reflection of God in the eyes of others. When we can’t see these things, we run the risk of dehumanizing others, sometimes even in violent ways, all while claiming to love God.”
Krispin Mayfield
We see God’s character revealed to us throughout Scripture, most vividly in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The word used for “grace” in the New Testament is the Greek noun “kharis” and it means "unconditional gift” with no expectation of repayment. Grace is love with no strings attached. And Jesus is God’s “kharis” in human form.
“The Word [Jesus] became flesh and made his home with us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14
Jesus is God’s grace in its fullness. Jesus is also God’s truth in its fullness.
I get frustrated at how many Christians today talk about Jesus being “full of grace and truth.” I constantly hear people say things like, “Remember… Jesus was full of grace AND truth. We can’t just be gracious, we have to be truthful too. We can’t be too gracious, we have to balance it out with truth.”
Have you heard this? This perspective presupposes that Jesus’ grace and truth are in opposition to one another. But to put it bluntly, that’s a lie. There is nothing in the accounts of Jesus life or in the entire 66 books of Scripture that would indicate God’s grace and truth are somehow in conflict with one another, or even that they balance each other out.
The truth is that God is gracious. The truth is that God is compassionate, faithful, forgiving, just, and loving. The truth is that these core characteristics of God compelled God to put on flesh and make a home with us in the person of Jesus Christ.
In a world where there are so many lies about the nature of God, Jesus is the embodied truth of who God is and what God is like. God in Christ put this truth on full display when he defeated sin, evil, and death by rising from the grave after being crucified on the cross.
The truth is that the fullness of life Jesus offers is a gift of grace. It’s available to anyone and everyone. And just like with any true gift, we don’t earn it and we can’t pay it back. As Frederick Buechner says below, all we do have to reach out and take it.
After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do.
The grace of God means something like: "Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.”
There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.
Frederich Buechner
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Thank you, Zach. As I’ve come to expect, your teaching does just this: nudges me, makes me think, and reveals something I’ve been wrestling with myself.
Today it was this: “We can draw a straight line between how we believe God sees us and how we see ourselves.” I struggle daily to understand how so many live lives filled with so much hate towards others. This sentence today was a revelation. It’s self- hatred that is rotting humanity. I have no solution, but I thank God for showing me this.
I was impacted by the words unconditional love -no strings attached. I keep focussing on my sinful behaviours and struggle to accept that love in the here and now only seeing it in the punishment of Jesus in my place. But I hear you. No strings attached I am loved