Grudges and The Gospel

For us, so many of our relationships—at work, in our fami- lies, with our friends and neighbors—eventually sour and spoil because of the grudges we hold. You owe me, you’ve let me down, you’ve hurt me—so now I’m done with you.

By holding grudges, we count others’ sins against them. That’s the terminology Paul uses when he says, “God . . . through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:18–19).

This is the gospel—the good news that God doesn’t count our sins against us. So then, who does God count our sins against? Paul goes on to tell us: “For our sake he [God] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (5:21). This is what came to be called—from the days of the church fathers onward—the “great exchange” or the “glorious exchange.” In his infinite mercy, God exchanged our corruption and sin for Christ’s righ- teousness and perfection.

Here we see the stark difference between the way the world operates and how God operates. The world has no posture of grace in this regard. Everyone and everything in this world that you might give yourself to or entrust your heart to will eventually hold grudges against you, at some level, in some way. Your sins will be counted against you.

But the gospel gives us something remarkably different. Through the gospel God counts your sins against Christ, not against you. He offers us acceptance based not on what we do or don’t do, but on what Christ has already done. It’s an acceptance that can be neither gained by our achievements nor forfeited by our failures. Nothing in this world can promise you such total acceptance and favor—nothing. And that’s what makes his grace so amazing.

- Tullian Tchividjian, Surprised by Grace: God's Relentless Pursuit of Rebels, p. 87, 88