There is a focus lately on a return to morality, def. “The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.” It seems to be many people’s answer to the problems that plague our world. Contrary to popular belief morality never helped anything, at least not long term and the story of the Bible is that morality never saved anyone. Morality was the emphasis of the covenant of law. In essence, God told the Israelites that if they would follow His laws they would be blessed and taken care of, but that punishment and consequences would come if they didn’t. Of course, God knew full well that they would never obey for long, and that no matter how many times they re-dedicated themselves and re-committed to following all the rules, they’d blow it again.

Yet, today we try to do the same thing, and most of the time it’s Christians leading the charge. We know we aren’t saved by being moral (works), but by faith, yet we still think following the right rules will ingratiate us to God and change our society for the better. Why is that?

I think it goes back to the garden. Eve ate from the tree because she wanted to be like God. In the relationship demonstrated in the garden Adam and Eve were dependent upon God. He gave them everything they needed, lavished them with love, and took care of them perfectly, but He was still God and they were still man. He was still in control, but He wasn’t controlling. They could do whatever they wanted save eat from one particular tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent appealed to Eve based on equality to God; she would be like Him and she would get to be in control of her own life and not be subject to anyone. However, she and Adam soon found themselves in a horrible mess, because they now had knowledge of good and evil like God but not His perfection, so they were unable to follow “the rules.”

God could have sent Jesus right then to atone for their sins and reconcile them back to God, but He didn’t? Why? I believe because He first had to adequately show mankind that they could never be moral on their own, and that any attempt to save themselves would not only fall short, but generally end up making a mess of everything around them. The Old Testament is full of stories of mankind failing to live up to God’s standards. No matter how many times people in the Old Testament said, “just tell us what to do and we’ll do it” they never did.

Jesus was sent to break this cycle by offering a better covenant (Hebrews 8). While still fully God, He would become fully man to do what we never could, live up to the perfect standard of righteousness. Then He would lay His life down as atonement for our wrongdoing, and freely clothe us in that righteousness. This is grace. But, for grace to be known and enjoyed (not for us to be saved, but for us to know abundant life), or lets’ say, “lived out,” we have to return to a place of complete dependence upon God. We have to go back to the garden.

We have to recognize that the only good we can ever do will be from Him living out His life through us, not by trying to do good for Him, or for society, or for anything else. We live from Him not for Him. Every time we try to take ownership of our own lives, even for something as noble-sounding as a return to morality, we will make a mess.

We don’t need a return to morality, we need a return to dependence. Understanding grace is always accompanied by humility because it is every way an acknowledgment that He is the only God and the only good.

Galatians 5:4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.