Law & Grace

On April 14, 2021   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

John 1: 17

For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

Jesus told the Pharisees that they would be judged by the law they served. He was trying to show them a paradigm of grace. Jesus not only represents a changed paradigm but also, he ushered in salvation by grace. The Apostle John opens his book making this distinction about Christ. He understood that Jesus caused a shift in the way we were to think and to live. As I pondered this verse I began to question, what does this shift mean us? How does the church of grace and truth differ from a church of law. We don’t deny the law Moses brought down from the mountain, do we? So, what does Jesus’ ministry do to alter our spiritual and ecclesiastical experience. Ultimately the question would seem to be, “What does a life, and a church, of grace and truth look like?” The follow up question is, how are we doing with that?

I am a lawyer by training. I like my rules. They tell us where to step and where not to step. However, we have all experienced times where the rules frustrate other purposes. This points out an important concept. The laws are made according to guiding principles. When the rules, or law, run afoul of the principles we have a problem. That is what Jesus encountered. The Pharisees criticized him for breaking the rules, but he was fulfilling God’s guiding principles. When is the appropriate time to heal? Jesus’ coming was a fulfillment of the law. He actually ushered us back to a time before the law, when we were supposed to be led by the Spirit rather than by codified rules.

Tomorrow, I will carry this a bit further as we all attempt to picture what a church of grace and truth is.

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Fallible

On March 26, 2021   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Luke 6: 37

Do not judge.

Simply said, not so simply done. It is easy to be judgmental. Why? Because people are fallible. Look at even some of the great Biblical heroes. Take David, for example. God said of him, “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.” (Acts 13: 22). What better testimony can one have? God has never said anything like that about me. None the less, we find it pretty easy to judge David. He messed up big time and, for some, that sin has become David’s legacy more than the years and years of trusting God and doing his will. Is he remembered as the man who wrote most of the psalms or as the man who sinned before God and country?

What of Moses? Here is another great heroic figure. He essentially created a new nation out of a group of slaves. He rescued his entire nation, millions of enslaved Jews but, he, too, was fallible. In the end, he failed and, subsequently, didn’t get to go into the Promised Land. He rose to prominence in his own eyes rather than trusting in God’s power and God forbade him entrance to the Promised Land. Wow! Are you kidding me?! This is the guy who parted the Red Sea, who got water from a rock, and more. He, too, had faults, and in the end suffered a major failure.

The point? People are fallible. It is easy to be judgmental because every person you know has faults and weaknesses. The harder thing is to be the instrument of grace. Grace is the opposite of judgment. “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ,” (John 1: 17). The problem is, like the Jews of the New Testament, we get stuck in the law. Jesus told us if we live by the law, we will die by it. That is not what any of us want. We all want God’s grace and that is a major reason we should live by grace.

We can look at a person and see their flaws or we can see the work of God. We can cover them with a mantle of grace such that what we see is through the veil of Jesus’ work in us and them. I do not say this is an easy thing to do. In fact, I believe it can be quite challenging. The easiest thing in the world is to focus on the many flaws each of us presents. The grace of God is acceptance in full view of our shortcomings. If Moses failed and didn’t get to go into the Promised Land because of it, what is the likelihood that many of us will fall short of God’s best? Thus, we are all easily judged as failures and miscreants. We don’t show the fullness of Christ’s love. So, if you want to judge me, or most others, it’s just not that hard. What Christ is looking for, though, is the for the love he has poured out on us to be used to spread grace, forgiveness and understanding for others. I think his instruction is pretty clear, “Do not judge.”

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