The Chrisitian Walk

It is not the ordinary but rather the unusual experience of the consecrated Christian believer that in the ethical decisions of life he is stalemated as to what to do. The final word is not one of indecision and uncertainty about the will of God. In a time of almost universal fluctuation and relativism of standards, where the Bible prevails as a lamp unto the feet of the devout, they walk with sure step.

At the same time, there need be no pretense about infallibility of Christian life anywhere on earth. . . The Christian life is a growth, not an automatic machine; it is a spiritual walk, in which one advances in insight into the claims of revealed ethics, a walk in which conscience, still fallible even in the lives of the regenerate, is progressively conformed to what is good and right. . .

In the Christian life, grace and conduct are everywhere correlated. When the believer is aware of his failure before the moral standard, he is not doomed by the Law, since he knows salvation by grace. In the midst of his shortcomings he looks to the shed blood of Calvary and is thankful . . . The regenerate heart does not gain acceptance with God by good works, but rather expresses gratitude to God for the forgiveness of sins by doing them.

Carl F. H. Henry, Christian Personal Ethics, 349.