For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5.6-8)
Christ died for the ungodly. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In short, grace comes to those who don't deserve it. The logic of karma is interrupted. As the Old Testament declares, God does not treat us as our sins deserve.
And yet, there are some snarly issues we need to wrestle with here. Given the reality of grace, what are we to do with all the descriptions of judgment in Scripture? It seems that, in many of these descriptions of judgment, the righteous are rewarded and the wicked punished. If so, aren't we swinging back toward a karma-focused vision of Christianity?
At this point, the conversation can run off in a lot of different directions. But rather than chasing all those rabbits, I'll just share how I think about this.
Following Paul's declaration in Romans 5, I think everyone is already forgiven. Christ died for the ungodly which, it seems to me, means that grace is available to everyone. Everyone is already safe. The issue then becomes how I stand in relation to that grace and forgiveness. I can live inside that grace with gratitude and praise, or I can reject and spurn it. And here, with this rejection, we reach a critical theological moment. Christ died for you while you were ungodly, but if you reject that grace do you lose it?
This seems to be the rub: If you reject grace do you lose it?
This is an important question because if you lose grace when you reject it we're back to karma. If you face judgment for rejecting grace you are "getting what you deserve." Calvinists are alert to this problem, which is why they want to remove our "choosing" grace from the equation. "Accepting" versus "rejecting" the offer of grace sneaks "desert" back into the equation, bringing karma back into view. And yet, Calvinists face their own problems here. If Christ died for all the ungodly then why is God electing to save only a few? Plus, Calvinism has its own karma problem in how it sees God's punishment of the wicked as wholly justified, as the wicked "getting what they deserve."
We face different sorts of problem if we adopt a squishy vision of grace, where grace becomes a "get out of jail free card." For it is karma that gives weight to our actions, linking behaviors to consequences. Consider the cries of the oppressed. Are there no consequences for those who hurt or harm others? Will the bell of judgment not toll for them? Can I perpetrate any evil knowing I'll never face punishment? Is someone like Hitler not going to get what he deserves?
When we think about oppression and harm, karma starts to sound a whole lot more appealing than grace, and a lot more just.
So, how are we to make sense of all this?
I strongly believe that the only way to make sense of all this is to embrace the vision that God's judgment is an expression of grace. Simply stated, if God is punishing you, as terrible as that might be, you are not getting what you deserve. You are getting something better, something you don't deserve. You are getting grace. And the only way I can see holding those ideas together is to envision God's punishments as expressions of God's love, that the consequences we face have a restorative, rather than retributive, goal and end. Otherwise, if God gives the wicked what they deserve, we're back in a karma-oriented faith. A grace-oriented faith believes that behaviors do have consequences, even severe and awful consequences, but that those consequences, in the end, will be instruments of grace, as something so much better than what we deserve.
Drawing a contrast between karma-oriented vision of God's judgment versus a grace-oriented vision of God's judgment is, in my estimation, the only way to keep the message of grace from sliding back into karma.
