James Carroll's Reviews > Believing Christ: The Parable of the Bicycle and Other Good News

Again, this review is in answer to someone else's review who thought that the book was bad, and lead to spiritual decadence because we no longer worry about striving for perfection if we trust in Christ to perfect us. After I took the time to respond to their review, I decided that the response deserved to be posted here as my review:

The real question is, if the book is so bad, then why did Elder Oaks so strenuously praise it? It is one of a very few books actually RECOMMENDED in the Ensign by one of the Apostles. Sometimes we want to "stand up" for the Brethren, and take things further that they do, or worse, sometimes we take them in the opposite direction than they do.

Balance is the key, and we have been out of balance in the "works" direction for too long. The scriptures do not agree. Their balance is actually much further on the grace side if we read them carefully. I remember being in Brother Robison's new testament class, and we were reading Paul, and he stopped, and turned to the D&C, then to the Book of Mormon, and pointed out each of them saying the same thing as Paul about Grace, and then he said... I have to do this, because you never know, Paul just might have been a Baptist! Of course he was joking, but experience has taught him that people who actually think like that tend to show up in his classes. The move towards a more grace centered theology in the Church has been driven primarily by a return to the scriptures. The more we read the Book of Mormon (primarily King Benjamin) the more we realize that Paul was right about grace all along. It is the idea of "cheep" grace that is false doctrine, but not the idea of salvation by grace. Please read "what think ye of salvation by grace" by Elder McConkie, and you find that Brother Robison is very much in-line with the feelings of the Brethren. He has had the opportunity on many occasions to ask them what they thought about his book, and the response is overwhelmingly positive. Apparently the Brethren like it.

True, it would be wrong to un-balance in the grace direction, but it would be equally wrong (or perhaps worse) to un-alance in the works direction. I believe that this book has brought us as a people back in balance, not thrown us out of balance.

As for a scripture that says that we cannot keep all of the commandments in this life try Romans 3:23. That is the context in which Brother Robison gave those statements about not keeping all the commandments. As for Brother Robison's statement about becoming perfect many years after we reach the Celestial kingdom, remember that it was Joseph who said that it will be many years after we have departed this life before we even LEARN all the commandments, let alone keep them. True, Joseph said that no unclean thing can dwell with God, but we are made clean through the atonement of Christ, and then we can dwell with God. This cleansing comes on condition of repentance, not perfection. Lack of perfection is BY DEFINITION not keeping all of the commandments perfectly.

This means that we must STRIVE for perfection, or we can never enter the kingdom of God. But we must also know that as we strive for perfection we will fail. When we do, repentance is required, and then we must have unwavering trust in the Grace of Christ to save us, not on our merits, but on His.

Do a word search for the term "merit" in the Book of Mormon, it is fascinating what you find. You are right about one thing though, the parable of the Bicycle is false doctrine. Salvation is FREE according to the scriptures, which means that the little girl's few cents actually are 0 cents i.e. the parable of the bicycle is false because it doesn't go far enough, or, at least, it doesn't go as far as the scriptures go.

That salvation is free doesn't mean that we don't have to repent (cheep grace) rather it means that repentance is the process whereby we "receive" the "free" gift of the atonement. It means that we don't pay for our salvation, with Christ making up the difference here and there. It means that our process of repentance is such a small part of salvation that it is essentially nothing compared to the staggering weight of what Christ has done. This is King Benjamin's point.

When we realize these facts, and when we understand them correctly, we do not go farther from Christ as you suggested, instead we recognize the extent of His hand in our salvation, and it is then that we begin to really keep the commandments with gusto.

Further, the atonement is not just a bar of soap, that cleanses us from past sins (grace), leaving the keeping of future commandments up to us (works), rather, the atonement is an enabling power, that enables us to keep the commandments. Thus I am cleansed from past sins by the Grace of Christ, and enabled to keep future commandments by the grace of Christ. This happens IF I choose (agency) to allow Christ to change me (the process of being born again). This is what Paul means when he says that his good works don't save him, because they aren't his good works, they are God's good works, working through him.

The real problem of "cheep" grace is what it does to agency. Once we understand that it is our agency that determines whether Christ can change us, then we understand that we must strive for absolute total perfection. It is this striving that invites His power to enter us and change us. But I can't and shouldn't take credit for the end result of the change. The change happens by the grace of Christ, through the power of His atonement and blood.

You asked what the Book of Mormon means when it says that we must be saved "from" our sins and not "in" them. The answer is that it means that we cann't be saved without repentance. But you suggested that salvation comes by repentance AND perfect obedience, which it does not, or no one would be saved. It comes by repentance and STRIVING for perfect obedience, with further repentance when we fall short next time.

You also took issue with Brother Robison's statements that we are perfected IN Christ IN this life, yet that is what the Scriptures say. We are made perfect after this life, and we are perfected IN Christ NOW. To be "sanctified" is to be made holy (in Hebrew "holy" and "sanctified" come from the same root, and a quick usage study of the word Holy, especially in the Old Testament indicates that we are to be "holy" because God is "holy", in other words, to be holy is to be like God, who is perfect). Note, that in the Book of Mormon, we are sanctified IN THIS LIFE, at the reception of the Holy Ghost, which "sanctifies" us (i.e. we are perfected IN Christ) at that moment. The word "sanctified" can have many meanings, if it means to be completely change (perfected by Christ) then it is something that happens after this life, and many of the Brethren have appropriately used the term to mean this and have implied that sanctification happens after this life. But words often have multiple meanings, and in the Book of Mormon, it is clear that sanctification means something slightly different as it happens IN THIS LIFE, at the reception of the Holy Ghost. In other words, when we are made perfect IN Christ. If we then endure to the end, we will be perfected BY Christ in the eternities. Brother Robison's discussion of being perfected IN Christ was never intended to imply that we do not have to "endure to the end" (read "Following Christ" if you have any question about that!)

Thus, once we correctly understand the doctrine of Grace, we must still strive for perfection. Correctly understanding Grace doesn't do as you suggested, and cause us to stop striving. But what it does do, is it stops us from taking credit for the outcome of that striving. We call that humility, or as Paul said, not by works "lest any man should boast." Lest we think that Paul was wrong about this, remember that it is the Book of Mormon that teaches that God gives us weaknesses (lack of perfection) so that we can be humble (lest we boast), and then, if we humble ourselves, HE (not you or I) makes weak things strong (Ether 12). Since humility is the key to this change, understanding Grace, and giving Him the credit for the change (a correct understanding of the doctrine of Grace) becomes essential to our salvation and exaltation.