Much More Versus Much Less

“But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20).

A great deal of the comfort in our religious lives depends on the view we take of things. Our view doesn't change reality, but it changes how we experience it. Our safety comes from what is real, but our comfort comes from what we believe to be real.

There is an expression used repeatedly in the Bible to describe the salvation of Jesus Christ: “much more.” It tells us that there is no human need that cannot be "much more" than met by His salvation. Yet we are often tempted to think “much less” would be a truer term—that in actual experience, salvation is much less than our needs. This “much less” view makes our spiritual lives miserable.

If what we have learned about the fullness of God’s salvation is true, “much more” should be the only language we use. Because some Christians act as though “much less” is more realistic, let’s look at what the Bible actually says. If God says His salvation is more than enough and we insist it is less, we are calling Him untrustworthy and creating our own misery.

“Much less” is the language of what we can see; “much more” is the language of the unseen.

“Much less” seems more reasonable because our weakness is visible, while God’s strength is invisible. Our needs are right in front of us, while God’s supply is hidden and must be realised by faith.

To see unseen things, we need our "interior eye" opened—the ability to see below the surface.

This eye looks not at the temporary things we see, but at the eternal things we cannot see. The vital question is: has that eye been opened in you?

Consider the story in 2 Chronicles 32:1-15. An enemy had threatened to overwhelm Judah. This enemy had been successful everywhere else and was sure he would conquer Israel too. But King Hezekiah looked at the unseen God and saw He was stronger. He told the people: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him, for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles” (2 Chronicles 32:7-8). On one side was human strength; on the other, the Lord our God! No wonder the people felt encouraged.

When the enemy king, Sennacherib, saw their faith, he mocked them. He asked, “How much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand?” since no other god had saved any other nation.

“How much less”—what a temptation to doubt! It looked impossible. But Hezekiah kept the people’s eyes on the unseen, and the Lord sent a great deliverance. The “much less” of the enemy became a “much more” victory.

Do we ever feel like God is “much less” able to deliver us than He promised? Does it feel like trusting the Lord alone is a desperate last resort? I once heard a Christian in great trouble say despairingly, “Well, there is nothing left for me now but to trust the Lord.” His friend replied in shock, “Is it possible it has come to that?”

We might be horrified by that, but honestly, we often feel the same. Yet God's “much mores” of grace are equal to any emergency. The apostle tells us that God is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). This is what “much more” means. We can think of wonderful blessings, but God can do far more than even those.

We are told that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). If He has prepared more than we can even imagine, surely we can trust Him for the things we can imagine, and much more besides.

Let’s decide that our language will be the “much more” of faith. “For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many” (Romans 5:15). This reaches the depths of human need.

We know for a fact that death is real; are we just as sure that grace abounds much more? Do we believe the remedy is greater than the disease?

One of our deepest needs is to be saved. Is there a “much more” for this? “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:8-10).

The question of salvation is settled by these “much mores.” Since Christ did the hard part— dying for us while we were enemies—He will certainly do the "lesser" part of keeping us now that we are His friends. Having done the greater, much more will He do the rest.

Now the practical point for us in all this is: Do we really believe it? Have we got rid of all doubts regarding our salvation? Can we speak with assurance of forgiveness and of eternal life? Do we say with the timidity of unbelief, “I hope I am a child of God”; or do we lift up our heads with joyous confidence in God as our Father, and say with John, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are”? Is it in this respect “much more” with us, or “much less”?

We long and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit, but it seems all in vain. We feel that our prayers are not answered. But our Lord gives faith a wonderful “much more” to hold onto for this: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” There is not one of us who does not know how thankful and eager good parents are to give good gifts to their children—how they often press them upon the children before the child is even ready to receive them, or even knows that it has a need. And yet, which of us really believes that God is actually “much more” eager to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Is it not rather that many feel secretly that He is “much less” willing, and that we will have to beg, and plead, and wrestle, and wait for this desperately needed gift? If we could only believe this “much more,” how full of faith our asking would be. We should then truly be able to believe that we actually did receive that for which we had asked, and would find that we were in actual possession of the Holy Spirit as our present and personal Helper and Guide; and all our weary struggles and agonising prayers for this promised gift would be over.

Sorer, perhaps, than any other need is our need of victory over sin and over circumstances. Like unstoppable vehicles, they roll over us with irresistible power and crush us into the dust. And the language of “much less” seems the only language that our souls dare speak. But God has given us for this a most triumphant “much more”: “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

We have known the reigning of that spiritual death which comes by sin, and have groaned under its power. But how much do we know of that “much more” reigning in life by Jesus Christ of which the apostle speaks? That is, do we now have greater victories than we used to have defeats? Do we reign over things “much more” than they once reigned over us?

I mean this: that in the Gospel it is promised that we shall be “more than conquerors” over the very things that once conquered us, and the question is whether we really are. We have been reigned over by thousands of things: by the fear of man, by our peculiar temperaments, by our outward circumstances, by our irritable tempers, even by bad weather, by our environment of every kind. We have been slaves where we ought to have been kings. We have found our reigning to be “much less” rather than “much more.” Why is this? Simply because we have not “received” enough of the abundance of grace that is ours in Christ. We have let unbelief cheat us out of our rightful possessions.

We are called to be kings and were created to have dominion, but here God declares that it shall be “much more” of a dominion than it was formerly a bondage; have we found it to be so? If not, why not? The lack cannot possibly be on God’s side. He has not failed to provide the “much more” of victory. It must be that we have in some way failed to make use of it. And I cannot help but believe that our failure arises from the fact that we have substituted our “much less” for God’s “much more”; and in our heart of hearts have not believed there really is a sufficiency in the gift of righteousness in Christ to enable us to reign. We have failed through our unbelief to “receive the abundance of grace” that is necessary for reigning.

What then is our remedy? Only this—to abandon forever our “much less” of unbelief, and to accept as true God’s declaration of “much more,” and to claim at once the promised victory. And according to our faith it must and will be done for us.

But these assurances of the “much mores” of God’s salvation are not for our spiritual needs only, but for our temporal needs as well. Do not be anxious, He says, about earthly things, for “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

I know that to many Christians this passage and others like it are so familiar that they have almost lost all meaning. But they do mean something, and something almost too wonderful for belief. They tell us that God cares for us human beings “much more” than He cares for the universe around us, and that He will watch over and provide for us much more than He will even for it.

Incredible, yet true! How often we have marvelled at the orderly working of the universe, and have admired the great creative Power that made it and now controls it! But none of us, I suppose, has ever felt it necessary to take the burden of the universe upon our own shoulders. We have trusted the Creator to manage it all without our help. Although I must confess, from the way some people find fault with the Creator’s management of things, and the advice they seem to feel it necessary to give Him in their prayers, one would think the whole burden was resting upon them!

But even where we have fully recognised that the universe is altogether in God’s care, we have failed to see that we also are there, and have never dreamed that it could be true that “much more” than He cares for the universe will He care for us. We have looked at the visible things of our circumstances and our surroundings, and at the greatness of our need and our own helplessness, and have been anxious and afraid. We have burdened ourselves with the care of ourselves, feeling in our unbelief that, instead of being of “much more” value than the birds of the air or the lilies of the field, we are in reality of infinitely “much less”; and it seems to us that the God who cares for them is not at all likely to care for us. We say with the psalmist: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Man seems so puny, so insignificant, of so little account when compared with the great, wide universe; what is he, we ask, that God should care for him? And yet God declares that He does care for him, and that He even cares for him much more than He cares for the universe. Much more, remember, not much less. So that every thought of anxiety about ourselves must be immediately crushed with the common-sense reflection that, since we are not so foolish as to be anxious about the universe, we must not be so much more foolish as to be anxious about ourselves.

In the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord gives us the crowning “much more” of all. “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

In this “much more” we have a guarantee for the supply of every need. Whatever our Father sees to be good for us is here abundantly promised. And the illustration used to convince us is one of universal application. In all ranks and conditions of life, among all nations, and even in the hearts of birds and beasts, the mother instinct never fails to provide for its offspring the best it can manage.

Under no conditions of life will a mother, unless she is wicked beyond compare, give a stone when asked for bread, or a serpent when asked for fish. And could our God, who created the mother heart, be worse than a mother? No, no, a thousand times no! What He will do is “much more,” oh, so much more than even the tenderest mother could do. And if mothers “know how,” as surely they do, to give good things to their children, “how much more” does He. But do we really believe this “much more”? Our hours of anxious tossing on our beds must answer. If God is actually much more willing and able to give good things to us than parents are to give good things to their children, then all possibility of doubt or anxiety as to our prayers being answered must vanish forever. All “good things” must be given to us when we ask, as inevitably as the mother who is able feeds her child when it asks her for bread. As inevitably, do I say? Ah, dear friends, far more inevitably. For it is “how much more shall your Father which is in heaven.”

Which of us has fathomed the meaning of this “how much more”? But at least this it must mean, that all human readiness to hear and answer the cry of need can only be a faint picture of God’s readiness, and that, therefore, we can never dare to doubt again. And if parents would not give a stone for bread, neither would He; so that when we ask, we must be absolutely sure that we do receive the “good thing” for which we asked, whether what we receive looks like it or not.

The mother of St. Augustine, in her longing for the conversion of her son, prayed that he might not go to Rome, as she feared its temptations. God answered her by sending him to Rome to be converted there. Things we call good are often God’s evil things, and our evil is His good. But, however things may look, we always know that God must give the best because He is God and could do no other.

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Since He has done the supreme thing by giving us Christ, “much more” will He do the lesser thing by giving us all things with Him. And yet we continually hear God’s own children complaining about their spiritual poverty and their state of spiritual starvation. Sometimes, it even seems they think this is a pious thing to do and a sign of true humility. But what is this other than glorying in the “much less” of their unbelief, instead of in the “much more” of God?

“Oh, I am such a poor creature,” I heard a child of God say once with actual complacency when urged toward a victory of faith; “I am such a poor creature that I cannot expect to reach the heights you great Christians reach.” “Poor creature,” indeed; of course you are, and so are we all!

But God is not poor, and it is His part to supply your needs, not your part to supply His. He is able, no matter what unbelief may say, to “make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” “All,” “always,” “every”—what all-embracing words these are! They include our needs to their absolute limit and leave no room for any question. How can we, how dare we, in the face of such declarations, ever doubt or question again?

We have only touched upon the wonders of grace hidden in these “much mores” of God. We can never exhaust their meaning in this life. But let us at least resolve from now on to lay aside every “much less” of unbelief regarding all aspects of salvation. Out of the depths of our utter weakness, sinfulness, and need, let us assert with a conquering faith, always and everywhere, the mighty “much more” of the grace of God!