For those of you who don’t know, Bryan Chapell is the president of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. I was listening to a podcast the other day, and Bryan quoted John Bunyan (the guy who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress), and the simplicity of it blew me away.

He described how Bunyan was in prison in England because he would not undergo ordination by the state – he believed that the church, not the state or state-church, should ordain its ministers. While in jail he befriended lots of other folks who were there for similar reasons. Some of them were Anabaptists, and their theology differed greatly with Bunyan’s. They would debate in the wee hours of the night. The Anabaptists would say: “You can’t keep preaching grace to people. If you keep preaching grace in the church, people will think they can do whatever they want.”

Bunyan’s famous reply was: ”No, not at all, for if you preach grace to God’s people, they will do whatever God wants.”

Bryan went on to describe how the motivation for obedience to God is counter-intuitive: when humans want other humans to obey them, they threaten them with consequences for disobedience; but when it comes to God, he changes a sinner’s heart and then requires obedience, not under the threat of punishment, but in the context of unconditional love. In other words, God saves us and says, “I love you, forever, unconditionally, unchangeably. You are my child, and I will never let you slip out of my loving hand. Nothing can separate us – nothing, nothing, nothing. Now, follow me, obey me, live for me because…I love you.”

No threats. Just love. That’s grace.