Law and grace

184 law and grace

A few weeks ago, while listening to Billy Joel's song "State of Mind New York" while flipping through my online news, my eyes stumbled upon the following article. It explains that New York State recently passed a law banning tattooing and piercing of pets. It amused me to learn that a law like this is necessary. Apparently, this practice is becoming a trend. I doubt many New Yorkers took notice of the passage of this law as it was just one of many that have been enacted in the state recently. By their very nature, governments at all levels are law-abiding. Undoubtedly, they adopt many new do's and don'ts. For the most part, they're trying to make the world a better place. Laws are sometimes simply necessary because people lack common sense. Anyway, news channel CNN reported that 201440.000 new laws went into effect in the US in .

Why so many laws?

Mainly because we humans, with our tendency to sin, try to find loopholes in the existing regulations. As a result, more and more laws are needed. Few would be required if laws were able to make people perfect. But this is not the case. The purpose of the law is to keep imperfect people at bay and to promote social order and harmony. In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul wrote in Romans 8,3 about the limits of the law God gave Israel through Moses, the following (Rom 8,3 GN). “The law could not bring life to us humans because it did not work against our selfish nature. Therefore, God sent his Son in the bodily form of us selfish, sinful people and caused him to die as a sacrifice for the guilt of sin. So he put sin on trial in the very place where it had wielded its power: in human nature.”

By failing to understand the limitations of the law, Israel's religious leaders added additional provisions and additions to the Law of Moses. There was also a point where it was almost impossible to keep track of these laws, let alone obey them. No matter how many laws have been made, perfection was never (and never will be) achieved by keeping the law. And that was exactly where Paul was concerned. God did not give the law to make his people perfect (just and holy). Only God makes people perfect, righteous and holy - through grace. In contrasting law and grace, some accuse me of hating God's law and promoting antinomicism. (Antinomism is the belief that by grace one is redeemed from the obligation to obey moral laws). But nothing is further from the truth. Like everyone else, I wish people would obey laws better. Who would want lawlessness to exist anyway? But as Paul reminds us, it is vital to understand what the law can and cannot do. In his mercy, God gave Israel the law, including the Ten Commandments, to guide them on a better way. That is why Paul said in Romans 7,12 (NEW LIFE translation): "But the law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and good." But by its very nature, the law is limited. It cannot bring about salvation, nor free anyone from guilt and condemnation. The law cannot justify or reconcile us, much less sanctify and glorify us.

Only God's grace can do this through the work of atonement of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in us. Just like Paul in Galatians 2,21 [GN] wrote: “I do not reject the grace of God. If we could stand before God by keeping the law, then Christ would have died in vain."

In this regard, Karl Barth preached to prisoners in a Swiss prison:
“So let us hear what the Bible says and what we, as Christians, are called to hear together: It is by grace that you have been redeemed! No man can say that to himself. Nor can he tell anyone else. Only God can say this to each of us. It takes Jesus Christ to make this statement true. It takes the apostles to communicate them. And it takes our meeting here as Christians to spread it among us. It is therefore honest news and very special news, the most exciting news of all, as well as the most helpful - indeed the only helpful.”

While hearing the good news, the gospel, some people fear that God's grace does not work. Legalists are particularly concerned about people turning grace into lawlessness. You can not understand the truth revealed by Jesus that our life is the relationship to God. By serving with Him, His position as Creator and Redeemer is by no means called into question.

Our role is to live and share the good news, to proclaim God's love and to be an example of gratitude for God's self-revelation and intervention in our lives. Karl Barth wrote in "Kirchlicher Dogmatik" that this obedience to God begins in the form of gratitude: "Grace calls forth gratitude, just as a sound calls forth an echo." Gratitude follows grace like thunder follows lightning.

Barth further commented:
“When God loves, he reveals his innermost being in the fact that he loves and therefore seeks and creates community. This being and doing is divine and differs from all other types of love in that the love is God's grace. Grace is the distinctive nature of God, inasmuch as it seeks and creates fellowship through His own free love and favor, without precondition of any merit or claim of the beloved, nor hindered by any unworthiness or opposition, but, on the contrary, by all unworthiness and overcome all resistance. By this distinguishing mark we recognize the divinity of God's love.”

I can imagine that your experience does not differ from mine when it comes to law and grace. Like you, I would much rather have a relationship that springs from love than with someone who is committed to the law. Because of God's love and grace towards us, we also wish to love and please Him. Of course, I can try to obey him out of a sense of duty, but I would rather, as an expression of a true love relationship, serve together with him.

Thinking about living by grace reminds me of another Billy Joel song, Keeping the Faith. Even if theologically not precise, the song brings an important message: "If the memory remains, yes, then I keep the faith. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah keep the faith Yes, I keep the faith. Yes I do."   

by Joseph Tkach