Recently, I took my grandsons to VBS. We arrived five minutes early. About fifteen other children, ranging in age from five to twelve, were already there. When we walked in, the lady in charge told the kids they would have to wait those five minutes before going to their classrooms. The teachers were praying in their rooms, preparing for their classes.
The lady had made a long line from wide tape and laid it on the floor. She told the kids that they needed to stay behind the tape until it was time to go to their classrooms. Even though it was a short period of time, and the rational thing to do would have been to stand behind the tape and talk with one another, what do you think the kids did?
Every one of those kids kept one foot behind the tape and stretched the other foot out as far as possible on the other side. They tried to outdo each other to determine who could place one foot the farthest from the tape. After a minute or so, when the woman in charge wasn’t looking, they began to jump past the tape, then quickly jump back. They were employing a “two-second rule.” If you crossed the line for two seconds or less, you were not violating the rule the lady had made.
I don’t doubt that if we had been thirty minutes early, those fifteen kids would have found other ways to break the rule. I imagine that some of the girls who were cheerleaders at school would have done splits, showing they could extend their legs farther past the tape than any of the boys could hope to.
I am sure that a group of them would have formed a chain. As long as one of them kept one foot behind the tape, the others could grab hands and extend way past the tape. If enough of them joined in, the last kid in the chain might even make it into the classroom.
I have to admit, those kids were funny. Their actions made no sense. What was the big deal about staying behind the tape? It wasn’t hard. It didn’t cost anything. But there was a rule, and they wanted to bend it as far as they could, or even break it, as long as the consequences weren’t too bad.
But I have a confession. I wanted to cross that tape, too. The only reason I didn’t do it was that I was trying to set a good example. I was the adult in the room. If my grandkids had not been there, I’m afraid I would have been the worst culprit. The lady in charge would not have been happy with me.
Paul explains that this is a problem for all of us, not just me and those kids at VBS. He says that when we hear a commandment not to do something, we want to do it all the more. He is talking about our flesh. It causes us to do the things we shouldn’t do, and not do the things we should (Rom 7:7-22). We can hear a commandment of God and say, “It is wise to follow this. I should follow it. But I won’t.”
That’s the problem with all works-based methods of gaining eternal salvation. That is also the problem with any system of Christian living that says, “Just keep the commandments.” That is the problem with any theology that says you find assurance of salvation by keeping the commandments. We all look for exceptions and loopholes. We all excuse ourselves when we violate the commandments. Sometimes we just say, “Forget it. It’s a stupid commandment anyway.”
The Bible gives us the answer. We are eternally saved by grace, through faith in Christ’s promise of eternal life. In Romans, Paul tells us how to do the things God tells us to do after we believe. We are to ask that His Spirit live through us (Rom 8:4), giving us the strength to not act like the kids at VBS.
