September 22, 2009: Nothing You Can Do Can Make God Love You More?

It is possible that I offended or disturbed some people last week by suggesting there was something we could do to “get on God’s good side”. (What I suggested was building up - rather than tearing down - the assembly of believers that is called the church, the bride of Christ.)

Whom did I offend? People who have been taught to believe that there is nothing you can do to get on God’s good side, that no action on your part can have any effect on God’s love for you. This doctrine is widespread and gathering steam in North American evangelical circles. I will call it the Yancey Doctrine in honor of its most eloquent proponent, Philip Yancey. In his bestseller What’s So Amazing About Grace, Yancey writes,

Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more... And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less... Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.

I have heard this quote several times in sermons over the past few years, and have seen it in devotional writings. Sometimes it is edited to “Nothing you can do will make God love you more; nothing you can do will make God love you less.” But I have never seen the Yancey Doctrine attached to a Scripture reference. That is because there are no Bible verses that support it! In fact, the Bible teaches the opposite with such clarity that I’m tempted to consider it a sign of biblical illiteracy that so many evangelicals regard the Yancey Doctrine as a worthy characterization of the grace and love of God.

Start with John 14:21, where Jesus says, “He who loves me will be loved by my Father.” That flatly contradicts the Yancey Doctrine. Read it again. If you want God to love you, love Jesus.

Go to John 15:10, once more from Jesus: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.” There is no subtlety in these words, no need to struggle hard to absorb a difficult thought. If you want to remain - stay, abide - in the love of Jesus, if you want him to keep loving you, and you don’t want him to love you any less than he does now, then obey his commands.

Now John 16:27: “The Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” The Yancey Doctrine crashes against this verse like a balsa wood plank against the rocks of Thunder Bay. To maintain the Yancey Doctrine you would have to edit this verse to read “The Father himself loves you regardless of whether you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” But of course Jesus’ words must be allowed to stand as spoken. He was telling his disciples that they had indeed done something that made God love them: they had loved and believed in Jesus.

For a concrete example of a man who elicited Jesus’ love by something he did, go to Mark 10:17-22. There a rich man approached Jesus and asked how he could inherit eternal life. He said he had been obedient to the 10 commandments since he was a boy, but evidently he felt he needed to do more. (It turns out he was right.) Verse 21 says “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” Why did Jesus love him? A fair reading of the text suggests it was because he really was a pretty good man (at least by human standards), and was sincerely seeking the eternal favor of God. That is good - very good! - so good that it inspired the love of Jesus. Consider this: the Bible never says that Jesus looked at scheming murderers like Caiaphas or Herod and loved them. Now, if only that wealthy seeker had gone on to the next step and parted with his money (verses 21-22), Jesus would have loved him even more.

Can you really get God to love you more by being generous? Of course you can – the Bible teaches that when it says, in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “God loves a cheerful giver.” Those five words are impossible to reconcile with the Yancey Doctrine, which teaches that God loves you exactly the same whether you give cheerfully, or grudgingly, or not at all. What rubbish. In order for it to be true that “God loves a cheerful giver”, it is necessarily true that God loves cheerful givers more, or better, or to a higher degree, or with more intensity, than he loves cheerless stingy tightwads.

Bad doctrines have bad consequences. It seems to me that the Yancey Doctrine is not simply “wrong, though harmless” but “wrong and dangerous.” It is dangerous because of the way it stimulates moral license and hinders spiritual growth. We poor fallen sinners have a hard enough time doing the right thing without someone whispering in our ear, “You know, even if you succumb to that sin, God will still love you just as much as he does now.” Oh please. I don’t know about you, but I’m so weak I need every motivation possible to help me to be good. The prospect of receiving more of God’s love is a great incentive for me, even as the prospect of losing some of it provokes righteous fear. God knew that, which is why he filled his Word with admonitions that - contrary to the Yancey Doctrine - link our obedience to his love.