After posting a comment about how the modern church has tended to embrace grace and more grace instead of grace and truth, someone responded, ‘I’m leaning towards grace’. If the truth, or law, says sin is not OK, then the person who leans toward grace leans towards being soft on sin. On the other hand, the person on the side of law leans towards being hard and legalistic. The importance of balance is obvious. Favouring one side over another, on any issue, leads to error as Spurgeon demonstrates in the following quote:
Courage some will have till they become rude, coarse and intrusive; modesty will rule in others till they are cowardly and pliable. Not a few are so full of love that their talk is sickening with cant expressions, disgusting to honest minds; others are so faithful that they see faults which do not exist, while a third class are so tender that for the most glaring vice they make apologies, and sin goes unrebuked in their presence. - 365 days with Spurgeon, Volume 3
An appreciation of both grace and law is needed for a God-glorifying, consistent Christian life. When we neglect one side we automatically corrupt the other, as Spurgeon pointed out. It’s clear from looking at the western church that we have neglected God’s moral law, and this in turn has corrupted our understanding of grace. When grace has been corrupted sin plays havoc with our lives. We must restore the importance of God’s ways, His moral law, if we are to appreciate His grace and glorify Him with our lives.
I live at and volunteer a lot of my spare time to a Teen Challenge drug rehab centre. When some people learn this they say, ‘I bet you have learnt a lot about grace’. The strange thing is I have learnt a lot more about the importance of law. Much grace is needed believe me! But it is only obedience to the ways of God and coming in line with the moral law that changes lives. Letting the guys at our rehab get away with things does not help them in the slightest, nor is it showing them grace. It’s the application of law that brings about the change.
Law is what God has put in place to hold the universe together. Without laws there is no life, no physical reality. Whatever you see in this universe is held in place by a law, from stars, planets and solar systems to the electrons that move in a quantised orbit around the protons and neutrons of an atom. There are the laws of gravity, thermodynamics, and entropy. Laws of chemistry, motion, energy, the list goes on. The importance of law to reality cannot be overstated.
When we disregard the laws that hold our world together life will not go well for us. Be assured, we cannot break any law without consequence. Some people, while high on drugs, have jumped from tall buildings thinking they can break the law of gravity. Others have tried to break the laws of hygiene, nutrition and abstinence, all with disastrous results. The truth is this: we can’t break the law; it’s the law that breaks us (if we choose to defy it). If I don’t respect and obey the law of gravity it will crush or even kill me. Law is not the problem; it’s my attitude to it.
If obedience to physical laws is critical to life, how much more is obedience to the moral law? This may be a physical world but we live in a moral universe. Right and wrong existed before planets and protons. The moral law is more than an objective part of reality; it is eternal and reflects God’s very nature.
God has not left us in ignorance of Himself or His moral law. He gave us the Ten Commandments, affirming their importance both in the Old and New Testament. He gave us Jesus, who told us that He came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17). The Cross demonstrated most vividly that breaking God’s law (sin) has consequences. Jesus had to go to the Cross in order for God to accept us sinners because the moral law cannot be broken. The law broke Jesus on our behalf.
The moral law stands as a consistent, contradiction-free expression of God’s character. If I violate this law, I bring contradiction into my own life, and my life begins to fall apart. - Ravi Zacharias, The Grand Weaver, Pg 89
It’s true, Jesus has dealt with our sin but this does not mean that if we break the moral law consequences will not follow. For example, have you ever seen a joyful selfish person? What about a bitter person who is at peace? The reason selfish people are denied true happiness and bitter people become twisted and toxic are because the moral law has been broken and the effects have taken place. It matters not if you have been a Christian for 20 years or you speak in tongues or go to altar calls or read Christian literature or go on mission trips, anyone out of line with God’s moral law will suffer the consequences.
We must embrace God’s moral law. This is what Galatians 5:22 is all about. ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.’ There is no law against these things, but there certainly is against their opposites (impatience, unkindness, unfaithfulness etc). The apostle Paul encouraged the fruit of the Spirit because they are the power of the moral law. People who have the fruit of the spirit find true happiness, satisfaction, security, and stability. They are in line with the moral law which is a ‘contradiction-free expression of God’s character’.
Grace and truth work together. True grace affirms the importance of the moral law. The story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery demonstrates this wonderfully. After the scribes and the Pharisees dragged her before Jesus and asked about stoning her John 8:7-11 says, ‘And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”’
This story is not all about grace and more grace. It’s about grace and truth. Yes, Jesus saved her life but the grace he showed did not nullify the truth that her adultery was a sin. She was breaking the moral law and for her own good needed to stop. Jesus knew if she continued in that sort of behaviour the moral law would prevent her from having what she really wanted: a clear conscience and a long-term satisfying relationship. This story clearly demonstrates that grace does not excuse sin; grace is God giving us another chance to obey the law. Because until we do, it will continue to break us, and our society will fall apart.
Grace needs law and law needs grace. Jesus, who is full of grace and truth (John 1:14), did not ask us to choose between them. He wants us to appreciate both law and grace, for it’s in that balance a consistent God-glorifying life in Christ is lived out.
(all Bible quotes from the ESV)