Grace is like a tree that a gardener plants in the middle of an orchard. Its fruit is sweet and brings healing. In the same garden stands the tree of sin, whose fruit also tastes sweet but is toxic—it can make you sick and intoxicated. People should refrain from eating from both trees at the same time, lest they die. For the believer is called to become more like the saints, not merely a better or worse sinner.
Grace is also like a fruit. It tastes bitter to those who follow the law, but far sweeter to sinners who have just received it. However, just as a fruit loses its sweetness the more you taste it, grace too may seem less sweet with each subsequent experience. This serves as a warning to believers: you should not seek to relive the sweetness of grace as a sinner does, nor should you help someone else do the same. Grace will not restore your reputation, nor will it undo the consequences of sin, nor can it make your heart holy on its own.
This highlights:
1. Eternal Security — as long as the heart remains transformed.
2. Temporal Responsibility — the mind must be renewed.
3. Divine Justice — Christ paid the penalty.
4. Human Consequence — sin still costs you your life and reputation.
A Word of Caution
The law should not make you legalistic or judgmental, but prudent and an advocate.
Though the heart is transformed, Christ Himself warned that you can defile your heart with your words.
People often underestimate the fire of a new believer and mistake it for comfort in this life.
Yes, believers must actively guard against defiling their hearts. That may sound like work, but it reflects the reality new believers face when confronted with despair, disillusionment, and doubt.
Should We Then Be Insecure About Our Salvation?
It is not that the believer must choose between being a sinner or being saved. sin was defeated at the cross—but the tree remains. The evidence of an unrenewed mind is visible, both in believers and in unbelievers.
On Using the Law to Prevent
It’s like any law: we don’t learn the law in order to prosecute ordinary citizens, but to live peacefully and respectfully with others.
In the same way, many people hold beliefs planted in their minds that go against the Word of God—and that is very dangerous.
Common Mistakes People Make
· Grace must feel consistently sweet to be real.
· The law must have a function I can define and limit.
· The trees must be either fully alive or fully dead, with no ambiguity.
Reality
Your heart matters.
There will be many moments when you are tested.
From the culmination of those events, will you become a worse sinner, a lesser sinner, a legalist, or a saint?
The weight of the law made the fallen cherub a legalist—he could no longer bear being number two.
The weight of grace can also make us legalistic.
Nothing was withheld from the fallen cherub, but he did not have the heart of a king—he had the heart of an emperor. Likewise, God is not enabling the fallen cherub to destroy mankind. Many simply do not have the heart of a saint, for he is already defeated.
Final Warning
Do not desecrate your heart—it is the holy of holies.
