"It is a great irony that the people who cultivate a two-stage Christianity do so in the name of grace, but in effect nullify grace. They say there is a faith stage necessary for getting to heaven, and then an obedience stage not necessary for getting to heaven (but perhaps for getting better rewards there). This looks like grace because they say obedience is not mandatory. But in fact the whole Christian life is gradually transformed into an experience of something other than a life lived by faith. Having cut the root of faith away from obedience to make obedience optional and exalt grace, in effect they define the life of obedience as a life of works which we are to produce not by the effectual power of saving faith, but by some other kind of effort. But this effort to obey by some other power than faith is not an event of grace. GRACE IS POWER, NOT JUST PARDON Underlying this mistake is a misunderstanding of grace. Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon. This is plain, for example, in 1 Corinthians 15:10. Paul describes grace as the enabling power of his work: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me.” Grace is not simply the pardon of Paul’s sins, it is the power to press on in obedience. Therefore the effort we make to obey God is not an effort done in our own strength, but “in the strength which God supplies, that in everything God may get the glory” (1 Peter 4:11). And doing something by relying on the strength which God supplies simply means doing it by faith. Therefore the obedience which gives God pleasure is by grace through faith. It is the obedience of faith."


Piper, John (2012-01-17). The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God (Kindle Locations 4947-4957). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

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