What do you do with a passage like that in 1 Corinthians 10.23? Does Paul really mean what he says when he says that all things are permissible for me? Can he really mean that? Doesn't that fly in the face of just about every Christian sermon for the last 2000 years, which all end with: do this and don't do that?
I know people like to avoid those verses by saying that Paul is only quoting someone else, but I can't escape the nagging suspicion that he's quoting them and agreeing with them at the same time. But how is that possible in the context of the very real right and wrong that we see expressed in various places in the bible? Surely Paul doesn't mean that a little bit of idolatry is permissible, even though it's not beneficial? Surely?
I'm not going to pretend that I've got a complete answer to that question, but I do suspect that there is actually a great deal of truth here that our overly simplistic readings of God's morality have obscured. If I take seriously the claim that Christ's sacrifice has freed me from the law, then in some sense I'm accepting as truth, that the right and wrong of the law no longer apply to me. That doesn't mean that the law was anything but correct to speak of right and wrong, or that anything about that right and wrong have changed, only that living shielded by Christ's sacrifice the reality and consequences of that right and wrong no longer reach me. Rather I am free, free from fear of the law, free from fear of judgement, there is truly no condemnation for me in Christ. And at that point it becomes truth indeed that everything is permissible for me, though not necessarily beneficial.
Controversial though this will sound, I could theoretically sin and sin again with impunity, Christ's sacrifice has covered me. Everything is permissible for me, what freedom to be and do whatever I want to be and do!!!!
Now before anyone thinks I'm advocating an end to morality and an anarchist state, let me hold up for a moment the counter image. If I have been renewed by the Spirit, then while I have escaped slavery to the law and its categories of right and wrong, I have now become a slave to the Spirit, to seek that which pleases him. This is one of the great tests to see if the Spirit of Christ is living in us: do we long for that which God longs for, do we seek that which is good and right? If we have the Spirit, we will seek those things, even though there is no threat compelling us, but only the longing that there might be a smile on the face of God.
This leads me into a connected but fascinating area of reflection: discipleship and the impossibility of either success or failure in that context. If I am beyond the law and its threat, which I believe in Christ's sacrifice I am, and if I believe that God is sovereign in ordering my days and ways, which I do, and also that God's highest goal is my likeness to Christ and not simply whether I get several behavioural tests right, which I believe to be true, then it actually ceases to be possible to speak of success or failure in the life of the disciple.
Say I sin, in some way, is it morally wrong? Yes. But if it produces in me a longing for holiness I didn't have before and a seeking after the likeness of Christ, is it still wrong? Can the end justify the means in discipleship? I suppose another way of asking the question is: does the redemption of mankind justify Jesus going to the cross? Is there a sense in which that incredible evil is justified? It's not an easy question to answer, but in God's providence I think we have to say yes. And if we live beyond the law in Christ, then whatever leads to my giving greater glory to God and being transformed into his likeness is thereby more good than evil, though it might seem to contravene traditional standards of right and wrong.
Does that stretch your mind? It stretches mine, but it also frees me. Now when I sin, I pick myself up, praise God for the experience and try once again to be like Jesus where I am and with my new knowledge. How can I praise God in all things, including my sin? I can do it because I am beyond the law and as a disciple, all things are truly permissible for me.
Thank God for his inestimable gift in Jesus Christ!
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