The Law IV

Jay: Joyce said last week that it was important not to use the law to judge others, but it was essential to use it for community. Harry opined that such a community would not be true community. Rimon said that just as it is impossible for humans to keep the law perfectly, it is also impossible for us to demonstrate god’s grace perfectly.

We tried (but failed) to answer the question of whether law and grace are equalities, or whether one was more important than the other. Is it a zero sum game? Is there a balance? And what do law and grace have to do with child-likeness?

Here are three passages giving food for thought on these issues:

Galatians 2:17-21:

But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

Galatians 5:1-6:

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

Ephesians 2:1-10:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

It seems there is a large division between grace and the law. Is the chasm bridgeable?

David: The answer seems to be in the last sentence of the Galatians quote: “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” No, the chasm is not bridgeable.

Don: We say we believe in grace and its power of salvation; nevertheless, law seems to be indelible. We just can’t erase it. If it is truly negligible, in relation to grace, why are we so drawn to it?

Jay: And why have law in the first place? The bible starts with the law (the Old Testament) and ends with grace (the New Testament). Why not start with just grace? Was the law important once, but later on, a transition was necessary?

Don: Children seem to understand law, but not grace. A child might look upon grace as meaning that there are no consequences to anything you do, so using the law to mold their behavior perhaps helps them transition to adulthood. Perhaps the law helps us start a journey, but ultimately we must transition from it.

David: The one thing that grace requires is faith. Without faith in god, there can be no god’s grace. There is then nothing left but law. In the Garden there is no mention of law—all that existed was god’s grace. The law exists for people who have no faith.

Alice: They go together. If law were not important, god would not have given us the ten commandments. Somewhere in Romans it says that the law came to increase sin, and increased sin leads to salvation through faith. The law was given for us to know what sin is. If not for the law I would not know what sin is, I would not know that I am a sinner. So plan B is: Jesus will save you.

David: Knowledge of sin is precisely what god excluded from the Garden of Eden. Original sin is the acquisition of knowledge of good and evil. To regain the kingdom, we must lose our knowledge of sin, there fore we must lose our knowledge of law.

Jay: Romans 7:7-12 does seem to suggest that knowing good and evil is the problem:

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

David: To believe that sin will creep in betrays a lack of faith. Faith—and only faith—will tell you that grace is infallible. It will be there to save you every time. So the law is not necessary, and is in fact the cause of all the trouble.

Don: Does this mean that there is no such thing as evil?

David: If knowledge of good and evil caused the fall, then they must both exist, but not in ways that we can possibly comprehend. We cannot understand god—ultimate good—and we cannot understand evil. The law that we have is against evils that are essentially petty. Just as human acts of goodness are by no means the ultimate acts of goodness that god is capable of.

Alice: This is so deep. I wonder if we are meant to discuss it at all. Real life does not have to be dependent on law. I don’t feel I am tied to the law, yet I am able to live in peace, without much guilt. I used to feel much more guilty, even when I read the bible much more often! It seems too complicated to discuss.

Don:  Alice’s journey is perhaps the one that god wants us all to have, but perhaps most of us are plagued with guilt and uncertainty about our relationship with god and whether we are in good standing with him. Yes, it is complicated, but having the faith that makes the acceptance of grace operational is the important step that is difficult to understand but important to take.

Alice: I did not choose this. I don’t know how I got to this point.

David: We cannot know how grace happens or why it is given to us, but to receive god’s grace cannot be just not a matter of luck. It is deserved, somehow. One of the values of discussing it is that it unifies. Our own group seems to be uniting around acceptance that grace trumps law. That unity logically then extends beyond our group to all who believe in god, all who have faith, no matter what religion they belong to. So it is good to discuss it, and it would be better if many more would discuss it!

Don: Alice, will you share with us more about your journey?

Alice: I used to think that as long as I read the bible, follow the law, try my best, teach myself, immerse myself in the bible, and so on, then I had everything I needed. But I was being hurt by someone, and I started to think: What is the use of all this if I cannot love someone who is hurting me?

I knew I needed to forgive and forget, but it was a struggle. Rimon, Dr. Weaver, this class… all have helped me along this journey. I started seeing something I never thought of: grace; and as a result, I have less guilt and life is easier. I pray constantly to overcome my anger at people and the hurt they have caused me.

Faten taught me that when I am angry I hurt only myself. It is my ego that is to blame, not the person I am blaming for the hurt. So I started to accept that I have faults just like others have. The world is the way it is because we all cannot help causing problems for others (more often than not unintentionally) and we are not sensitive enough to understand and forgive.

So I started seeing the people who hurt me in a different light, and then I had less hurt, less anger, and less guilt. Recently I have been feeling that I have nothing to account for. I feel completely free. Maybe this is god’s grace. I am no longer so rigid in my beliefs. I read the bible less often, but when I do, I read it with a passion I never felt before. I am sad I have lost my old ability to be able to quote chapter and verse, but that seems a small price to pay.

David: What a wonderful example and description—a wonderful witness—of how god’s grace works!

Jay: There seems to be a pendulum swinging to law on one side and grace on the other, and Jesus came to push the pendulum away from the law and back toward grace, but again, how far did he want the pendulum to swing? We seem to agree that there can be too much law, but can there be too much grace?

Alice: What is the point of god’s grace if it does not change us to be more like him? If it does not change us, then he would have no right to judge us at the end. If I am saved by grace, why is there still judgment at the end? Didn’t god already do the job (through his grace)? You can see that I remain confused!

I listened to a fire-and-brimstone pastor the other day who was so adamant that “their wounds would never die and the fire would never be quenched, for ever and ever.” I just could not relate to what he was saying, though he was quoting the bible. He was not getting though to me. How come? If I know god, I know he is merciful. So why isn’t the bible? I believe in the bible. It is the truth. But am I wrong in that belief? Should I just follow what my heart tells me?

Don: You sure ask the right questions. You are also asking, like Jay, is there such a thing as too much grace? I do think the scripture is fairly clear that judgment is associated with the law, and that those who live by the law will die by the law; whereas grace does not require judgment. John 3 says there is no judgment if you believe. There is a sense that grace suspends judgment; mitigates it.

David: To me, there can be no middle ground. One has grace or one does not. One is hot or cold. One does not have “some” grace. We humans beings can slip from grace, but we should not be striving to retain some middle ground “cool” region. There is no such place. You either have faith or you do not have faith. You either have grace or you do not have grace.

Don: That is of course the story of the Laodicean church in the Book of Revelation, which was rebuked by Jesus for being lukewarm. He told them that was unsustainable, that they had to be either hot or cold. I also feel there is no such thing as “cheap” grace, in the sense that you can’t buy it by trying to be good.

David: To me, the concept of grace is expressed most beautifully in the Beatitudes. It is precisely because the poor, the meek, etc., are utterly passive that they deserve and receive god’s grace. If we think we can do something actively to get in god’s good graces we are wrong!

Don: In a community, Alice’s point needs re-emphasizing: One of the aspects of true community is to keep witnessing to one another, as Alice has just done, about what grace has done to us personally and what it can therefore do to you personally. This kind of community, with a strong emphasis on god’s grace, becomes an enabling community; unlike most churches, where the opposite is true—it exists to show you only what is right and wrong.

David: The value of Alice’s witness today is worth so much more than reading a passage in a bible or a Koran or anything else. What she said touches me with a power that is way beyond the power of any book to impart.

Don: At the same time, if we ever slip and fall, grace is still there.

Victor: If I can’t do anything actively to earn god’s grace, then why do some people have it and other’s don’t?

Don: Everyone is offered god’s grace. It is a matter of whether we accept it.

David. Victor asks a very important question. God cannot (perhaps I should say will not) force his grace upon us. We have to be open to it. We have the free will to choose.

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