The Law and Grace

Don: Last week Jason asked if law and grace are a zero sum game. Rimon had remarked earlier that fallen man may have as much difficulty accepting or keeping God’s grace as he has of keeping God’s law.

God’s love and grace seem closely related. How do they relate to the gospel, to the good news that god loves us and that grace is the love of god as we see it from our perspective? How god shows his love toward fallen mankind is what we call grace, but at essence grace is a product of, or is perhaps simply synonymous with, God’s love.

When the angel showed up at the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:10) the angel said: “Fear not, for I bring you good news of great joy….” The good news was that god loves us enough to sent his son to us and this should bring us a great deal of joy. Last week, Alice testified that religion brought with it a certain baggage, a sort of yoke, but joy can lift that burden. Surely we should be joyful. God loves us and gives his grace freely and without merit.

This latter is so difficult for us, especially Christians, to understand. It sounds like free money, getting something for nothing, and we tend to distrust such promises. Yet that is precisely the message of the gospel of grace, the gospel of good news.

Paul in Romans says the law is a good and productive thing insofar as it is a mirror showing us our clinical condition of being fallen. The bad news is that if you want to try to live by that law, if you view yourself in the mirror seeking to see a righteous reflection, then you must prepare for the impossible task of being Perfect.

All the great religions emphasize the importance of doing something to make ourselves pleasing and acceptable to god. Jesus talked about this in the Sermon on the Mount when he talked about the three great principles of man’s effort before god, three elements of religious ritual and piety: praying, giving of alms, and fasting. Those of us who are Christians feel we should fast more, pray more, give more, be more… for god, with god, and to god. Yet the good news of the gospel is that God’s grace makes this effort completely irrelevant, at least as a point of salvation.

What about making efforts to overcome our weaknesses, our tendencies to sinfulness, our natural inclinations toward selfishness, etc.? Should we not use our willpower to make good choices, allow god to work for us, and follow other common religious exhortations? If we do, does it make a difference? Am I a better person than I was ten years ago? Many, perhaps most, of us cannot honestly answer “Yes” to that question.

Even if I were to see a little bit of progress in myself, I would still be a long way from the mark set by Jesus in Matthew 5:48 where he said that “you must be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” Jesus is shining a great light on this issue of law-keeping, especially for the self-righteous, whereas for those who feel they are sinners who need God’s grace, he preaches a gospel of grace and freedom from guilt. Jesus is trying to dissuade the self-righteous from seeing self-assessed righteousness as a valid and viable route to salvation.

Grace is given freely and it is not possible to undo it. In the inescapable context of the “love chapter” (1 Corinthians 13) we see that love bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. Grace is the side of god’s love that we, in our state of having fallen from it, tend to see. This is the extent and the pervasiveness of grace: it is all embracing, it is all things to all people at all times, and it cannot be escaped.

If grace is so abundant and if God’s love is so all inclusive and all engaging, why can’t some people appropriate it?

Romans 8 can perhaps be thought of as “the grace chapter.” It is a moving portrayal of the grace of god and ends with some of the most encouraging words in the entire scripture. It comes at the end of Paul’s schizophrenic talk in chapter 7 about wanting and trying to do the right thing but being thwarted by his human nature. Chapter 8 is the saving grace. At the end he says, with an inclusiveness that is unfathomable (v 37): “For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels… … nor any other creative thing… can separate us from the love of god.” Here we see the ubiquity of God’s love and that it cannot be cheapened by our effort. This is a startling idea. It took some convincing for Paul, and it does for us.

Grace seems to be like oxygen: it’s all around us, it is free, it is essential for life, the supply is unlimited, there is enough for everyone, and its intake is a natural element of living. I see grace in this metaphor. Physically, effort and exercise require more oxygen, but here the metaphor for grace, which requires no effort, breaks down. Is there a spiritual equivalent to putting a plastic bag over one’s head to deprive oneself of God’s grace? Is this the unpardonable sin?

For many people, unearned grace amounts to cheap grace. But it seems to me that the grace Jesus describes is cheapened by effort. In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) Jesus specifically deals with the topic of cheap grace. We often think of grace as being about forgiveness, but in the parable, the father completely ignores his prodigal son’s request for forgiveness and instead immediately calls for a celebration. The “good” elder son comes and complains about unequal treatment and the father completely ignores that as well. To me, this amplifies the notion of the ubiquity of grace. It exposes the extravagance of God’s grace.

Can we contribute in some way to getting God’s grace? Or, can the oxygen be cut off?

Harry: We can see neither oxygen nor grace, we do not perceive them, we are not consciously aware of them. Yet we make an issue of grace. It reminds me of the passages where god says words to the effect “You don’t know me, I’m not where you think I am.” The mystery of grace is that it just is. There is no way of finding it or manufacturing it. We should just be at peace with that. I think god just wants us to accept it.

David: We do become aware of oxygen by its absence! But grace is ever-present, whether we recognize it or accept it or not. Grace is in no way linked to behavior (unlike law). It is not linked to want. There is nothing you can do to earn or deserve it. It is linked purely to need. Grace is more like the oxygen mask, which descends from above only when you need it. You don’t have to put on the mask–you could decide the airplane is going to crash anyway, you’re going to die anyway, and the oxygen isn’t going to prevent that, so why bother? This is where the metaphor breaks down, because the mask of grace is self-affixing. It will fix itself to you eventually, when the chips are really down, and it will save you. That is my understanding of the scripture. And it is indeed good news.

Alice: Romans 5:20: “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,…”

Mr. Singh: Those who believe in Jesus Christ are given the grace of a second life after death. Those who do not die, like animals.

Harry: Indeed, Grace does not bestow us earthly life upon us. If our plane is going to crash, we are going to die like the animals we all are.

Robin: The part of the Prodigal Son that has always conflicted me is the fact that the father was apparently watching for the return of the prodigal son—Luke 15:19: “…But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him … and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” We see a humbled son who admits he is not worthy to be called a son, yet by calling for the fatted calf the father appears to reject or at least ignore his son’s argument. The father is there with all the grace in the world but first the son had to admit that he was undeserving.

Harry: I think the prodigal’s self realization was immaterial. It’s all down to the father, who could not care less [Editorial comment: Or, as my American friends, God bless them, are wont most perplexingly to say, he could care less!—DE] whether the son was contrite or not. He just wanted his son back. The message is that it doesn’t matter what you want. You will get grace, no matter what you do, no matter what is done to you.

Don: The statement in verse 17 of the parable: “But when he came to his senses,…” suggests that self-realization might be prerequisite to grace. What is the quality of our self assessment? In the Garden of Eden, god asked Adam why he was hiding, and how did he know he was naked? How could Adam make that self assessment of his nakedness, when only god should know? Is there a spiritual equivalent to putting a plastic bag over our heads? Is this the unpardonable sin?

Mrs. Singh: [Long comment; unfortunately, audio quality was too poor for me to transcribe. Everyone please note: Speaking loudly is vital—the microphone just does not pick up sounds well otherwise.]

Don: In the parable, there is no mention of the prodigal’s character. All the emphasis is on his spending, his profligacy, not so much on his character.

Jay: What if the prodigal had said “I want to be your son again” rather than “I am not worthy to be your son, so I want to be your servant”? If grace is freely given, then the father’s response should be exactly the same in either case, should it not? Yet… that does not seem right.

Can one deprive oneself of spiritual oxygen? Is there such a thing as a spiritual plastic bag? Perhaps there is oxygen in the bag, but we change it into carbon dioxide. There is grace in the bag to begin with, but we change it into something else, and what we change it into cannot (unlike grace) sustain spiritual life. We cannot survive on anything man-made. We can only survive on grace.

Rimon: What if evil wins the war against good? If too few people accept god than humanity is doomed, is it not?

David: it seems to me a pitfall of scripture that so much depends on interpretation of the words that were put into the prodigal’s mouth by the parable’s various scribes and interpreters. You could interpret that the prodigal came home actively to seek his father’s forgiveness, but I don’t interpret it that way.

I picture the son returning because he has nowhere else to go. He has reached the end of the line. He stands there, head hung low, barely able to speak in his self-realization that he is a worthless son. The father understood that. He understood that the prodigal needed grace, needed the banquet. The good son did not need grace. He was already breathing the oxygen—everything his father had was already his—while his brother was dying for lack of it. So I see no proactivity on the part of the prodigal. Grace is not to be sought or found actively; it is a passive gift.

Harry: Given that grace is a free pass to do whatever we want, the immediate question becomes: What, then, do we want? I think the answer is: We want peace.

David: For sure, wanting grace will not get us grace. I am interested in revisiting the question of the unpardonable sin.

Don: There are some who think that you can put a spiritual bag over your head; others who think that god will snatch that away from you if you try. We will examine this in greater depth next week.