One of the chief differences between religious Christendom and true grace Christianity is the erroneous manmade religious idea of divine punishment inflicted on disobedient Christians during today’s “dispensation of the grace of God.”

• How many times have ministers accused Christians of having ‘unconfessed sins,’ having backslidden, having apostatized, and so on in order to explain their suffering?
• How many sincere, God-fearing, Jesus Christ-believing Christians have had sickly children, accidents, financial hardships, miscarriages, divorces, and prolonged illness, only to have religion add to their pain by beating them up by saying, “You are under God’s punishing hand?”

These religionists are legalists, quoting assorted Bible verses about God’s wrath supposedly being poured out on sinful Christians in this age of “the grace of God.” Sadly, people usually never bother to read the contexts of those verses quoted during such circumstances. We need to look at the Bible verses often used to teach that God “chastens” us today, and see what those verses really teach. The pure Holy Bible is our final authority, not some denominational interpretation of it.

Why This Issue Is Important?

One of the cleverest ways the Devil confuses “the church… the Body of Christ” is to quote Bible verses that have nothing to do with us today. Many say, if it is in the Bible, it must be true for and us, right? Wrong!

We may claim Israel’s legalistic passages in the Bible and still be outside of God’s will because those passages are not God’s will for us during today’s Gentile age of the pure “grace of God.” Such deception of being Scriptural but not being dispensational is so subtle that it often goes undetected by those believers who do not understand their grace relationship with the Lord during this age.

It is abundantly clear that God in time past dealt with Israel on the basis of the works and the Law, and He will do so again in the age to come. James says, if Israel wanted to be blessed of God, Israel had to do good works by faith (James 2:14-26). When Israel disobeyed God, she received the curses, judgments, and chastisement (cf. Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26).

Back in Exodus 19, God offered to make a covenant with Israel.

Exodus 19:5-8: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant (Law), then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: [6] And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. [7] And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him. [8] And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD.”

Israel agreed to enter into that Covenant of “Law,” and she was under it even during the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry (Gal. 4:4). Israel entered into a contract whereby she could only be God’s people IF she obeyed Him (cf. Exo. 19:5, above); otherwise, Israel would be cursed, and under Satan’s control. God’s judgments on Israel were His attempt to reform her (cf. Lev. 26:23), and teach her to do right in His sight, just as a parent would lovingly discipline his or her disobedient child.

Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 15: “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: [2] And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. … [15] But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee...”

Deuteronomy 27:26 “Cursed be he that confirmeth (riseth) not (to do) all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.”

He then lists the curses—sicknesses, wars, famines and other economic hardships, pestilences, and so on. Unfortunately, Israel “enjoyed” more of the curses in her history than the blessings.

The Law proved that sinful man could never measure up to what a holy God wanted. God proved to all the world that our performance will never get us anywhere before Him (Rom. 3:19-20). That is why God offers to us His grace—what we do not deserve—in order to give us what we do not deserve, mercy and salvation from our sins. Law and grace are antithetical: they do not mix. To say we are saved by grace but that we must do good to avoid God’s punishment is to mix law and grace, and the whole book of Galatians refutes that combination. You destroy God’s grace when you mix it with law. If we allow even just a little leaven—a little legalism to creep in (cf. Gal. 5:9), as seen in Israel’s performance-based acceptance system—then we will begin to question all of God’s grace to us in Christ, we will begin to undermine the very life that God gave us in Christ. We start fearing God, we forget His love toward us in Christ, we think we have to work to please Him, we begin to doubt if we are even going to heaven, and on and on with the false doctrine Satan wants to use to distract us with.

Unfortunately, there are many inconsistent dispensationalists. Some recognize Paul’s special ministry as the apostle of grace to the Gentiles and “the Church… the Body of Christ” and “the Dispensation of the Grace of God.” But then they still go to various other parts of the Bible to apply Israel’s passages to “the body of Christ.” I don’t question their sincerity, but I question their theology and hermeneutics.

To properly separate Peter from Paul… law from grace… the nation Israel from the Body of Christ… prophecy from mystery, in rightly dividing the world of God, and THEN to combine all of the Bible into one buffet by taking Israel’s verses and making them apply to us, is doubletalk. In fact, it is even worse than people who do not even know about Paul’s special ministry. To claim to understand the Bible rightly divided and then to combine its various dispensations is being dishonest with God’s Word, and such shoddy Bible handling undoubtedly causes unanswerable confusion in the lives of millions of Christians.