In 1731, Abbé Prévost wrote the French novel Manon Lescaut. It was one of the most controversial novels of its time and was quickly banned from publication.  

The novel tells the story of 18-year-old Des Grieux, a seminary student who is on his way to becoming a priest. One day, he meets the beautiful Manon Lescaut. They fall in love at first sight and run away together to Paris.  

What follows is a downward spiral of immorality. The young girl wants fancy clothes, which Des Grieux can’t afford. She repeatedly leaves him, prostitutes herself, and then returns to him. Each time, he blindly takes her back, falling further into ruin. Eventually, they turn to crime for money and are arrested. Murder, jail breaks, prostitution, and more follow. There are moments when Des Grieux considers returning to the ministry. His friends attempt to intervene and bring him back to school, but he repeatedly returns to Lescaut.  

In the end, the couple is deported to America because of their crimes. After yet another murder attempt, they run into the wilderness, where Lescaut dies from exhaustion. The novel concludes with the dejected Des Grieux digging her shallow grave while awaiting his own slow death. 

What is interesting about this story is the reason the French banned the book. They deemed it immoral. To be honest, when I first read about the novel, that reasoning confused me. Doesn’t the story demonstrate the perils of immorality? The consequences of a sinful life permeate the tale. The story is presented as a cautionary tale about what can happen when one follows the things of this world. 

I did a little research and discovered that the reason the French found the novel immoral was that Prévost didn’t include a redemptive arc to his story. The heroine dies, and the hero is left in ruins. Yes, there was suffering, but that suffering didn’t produce changed behavior. There is no moral pivot at which the couple finally comes to their senses and repents. 

The couple demonstrated the reality that people are often enslaved by their desires. In other words, knowing what is good doesn’t guarantee that a person will do it. 

The book demonstrated that virtue wasn’t something you could power up in your own strength. To the French moralist, showing the perils of sin wasn’t enough. The book needed to show that a person could overcome their sinful desires. While I am sure there are things about 17th-century French culture that I don’t understand, it seems to me that Prévost was too honest about the nature of sin. People fall—even when they know the truth—and not everyone gets out of the wilderness alive.  

There is an application today. Many in the church claim that once a person is saved, there is a guaranteed moral pivot. For example, Calvinism teaches the doctrine known as “perseverance of the saints.” According to this doctrine, a believer could never fall into the trap of Lescaut and Grieux. Once you are saved, you are sure to live righteously. Believers will eventually overcome sinful desires. There will be a redemptive arc in every believer’s life.  

Free Grace Theology teaches a more realistic framework. Believers are still in a physical body of death. Sin can, and often does, enslave the believer, and just because you are saved doesn’t mean you will be obedient. Scripture itself gives us examples of this. The generation of Israelites at Kadesh-Barnea, which included some believers, refused to obey the Lord and enter the land. Because of their sin, that generation spent the rest of their lives wandering in the wilderness. In the NT, Demas was a believer who abandoned righteous living (2 Tim 4:10). We all know examples of believers who ended up dying without a clean, redemptive story arc. Some believers will die in the “wilderness” due to their sin. 

Free Grace theology teaches that believers are capable of falling into sin. This teaching is deemed immoral by most in Christendom. We are called antinomian and accused of easy-believism. Some even say we promote sin. Like Prévost’s critics, some even strive to ban our teaching, calling it heresy. 

In the end, we, like Prévost, are simply too honest about the power of sin.