The “alleylon” (one another) passages in the New Testament, Part 6: And so fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2b)

(In which we take a brief hiatus from our normal program to revel in a bit of theology)

If I were Miss Judy from Romper Room* we could have a show of hands in response to the Big Question for this week: Who out there LOVES theology and thinks that we could actually revel in some of it? Where’s Miss Judy when I need her and her magic mirror? We’ll have to do without them, it seems.

But not without that theology thing, even though it often gets a bad rap as dry, academic, stultifying, or worse. How many angels fit on the head of a pin, dancing ones or otherwise kind of stuff. No doubt we Christians have divided and/or embarrassed ourselves over our differences in belief or practice, some pretty weighty (believer or infant baptism) others truly inconsequential (Can we have deviled eggs in church? Pot luck or pot blessing? Organ or guitars for worship?). So maybe theology has suffered from CDS – Constant Dispute Syndrome. That’s a true shame, since the study of God is essentially how we could sum up the whole biblical enterprise. And it’s an even greater misfortune given that the aim of theology is to inspire worship among God’s people.

So what kind of theology is on the docket today? I said last week that the beauty of God’s truth was that it revealed the master dialectician bringing seemingly opposite and even opposed elements together: justice and mercy, faith and works, transcendence and imminence, activity and rest, freedom and responsibility, love and wrath, law and grace. When we allow the Spirit to lead us into the fulness of each one of these divine unities our lives reflect more and more fully the character of the Lord in whom they all exist perfectly.

If you’ve read the last couple of posts, you know that I’ve been hung up on the outcome of Paul’s exhortation to “bear each other’s burdens,” which is that doing so fulfills the law of Christ. I expressed the concern that uncareful Christians might tend to misread Paul’s use of law and see it as antithetical to grace, which would have the effect of throwing us down one slippery slope or the other – the one precipice being legalism or moralism and the other being antinomianism or relativism. To me (and I only follow in the footsteps of far greater thinkers than I) this is one of the two or three most crucial complementarities in God’s world, and one that can be the most destructive when we are out of balance with it.

If law and grace are that important, then we will need more time and space to treat them than one or even 100 blog posts would allow. So, instead of attempting to begin what I would never finish, this week I want to make four points about the subject, and next week three more. And then maybe we can apply all seven to the question of fulfilling the law of Christ. For now, here are 1-4:

1. God is committed to both law and grace, perfectly embodies both, and consistently applies them to human life. It is common for people to see nothing but Law in the Hebrew Scriptures and only grace in the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. This is a mistake that it is difficult to avoid unless we see, from the very beginning of time, that grace operates with law at the foundation of creation, at the promise of salvation, and at the choice and formation of Israel.

The first transcendent moment of grace occurs in the commandment for light to appear and in every subsequent manifestation of divine creativity; the first appearance of redeeming grace comes in the promise of “one who will crush the serpent’s head” and in God’s decision not to destroy his human creatures; the signature appearance of universal covenant grace is God’s decision to form a people out of Abraham, through whom every nation under heaven would be blessed. God reveals the same spiritual covalence between law and grace in the Prophets, where extravagant assertions of divine love accompany even the strongest denunciatory language (take a few moments to read through Hosea for a perfect example).

The fundamental reason for law and grace being inseparable is that they are equal and equally expressions of God’s nature. If we look at the Ten Commandments, it becomes clear that none of them exist as decrees outside the character of the Lord. He prohibits adultery because he is unerringly faithful. He proscribes deception because he is never false. He commands us to keep Sabbath because he rested from his labors. It is the same with grace, one of the words that most often highlights phrases that describe who God is: Chen, v’chesed, v’rachamim – grace, steadfast love, and mercy – form the triumvirate of terms that encompass the love of the Lawgiver.

2. Without law, the world destroys itself through a descent into chaos and disorder, but without grace, the world destroys itself under the weight of judgment and impossible-to-fulfill moralism. The consequences of living in a lawless society are becoming more evident by the day. At the low end of the spectrum are things like the simple lack of courtesy and regular displays of rudeness.  But each step up the scale displays an increasingly damaging array of moral dysfunction that almost defies comparison with prior generations. It appears that we have come to the state of affairs that 2 Thessalonians 2:7 describes when it speaks of the “mystery of lawlessness” that is restrained until God allows it to be taken away. It may not be clear what or who the restrainer is, but I seem to see no sign of him or it doing much restraining these days.

What is truly remarkable – but perhaps entirely predictable – is that our culture of lawlessness is also one of heavy moralism. The impetus toward immorality and degeneracy also pushes people to stark and implacable judgments of any and all who practice different kinds or levels of depravity. An entire movement of sexual liberty has sprung up from the deceptively humble trappings of Playboy Magazine and its ilk and has given rise to ubiquitous pornography, easy divorce, and legal abortion, which initially only “benefitted” unbound and sometimes predatory males. After several decades of this false freedom, new movements (such as “me, too”) have appeared that exhibit extreme levels of self-righteousness. It is, of course, absolutely right that we condemn and punish abusive and exploitative behavior; on the other hand, it is almost laughable that people claim the high road when they support the same libertine environment that gave room for what they justifiably censure.

We see the same dynamic with attitudes toward alcohol use, economic issues, diversity – pretty much anything that involves social mores. This is the way of a world separated from God: neither law nor grace in their full, complementary glory. Unfortunately, Christians are not immune from the confusion, which leads me to the next point …

3. Legalism, which devalues and limits grace, is a perversion of the law. Legalism is a sometimes subtle misrepresentation of God’s commandments. It usually involves setting forth a comprehensive set of rules and regulations to follow, as the Pharisees and certain Christian sects (and as most believers – see the next point) have done. But the resulting behavior tends more toward figuring out the very least that we need to do to fulfill the standards and how much we can get away with and still be law-abiding. Jesus’ upbraiding of those who came up with ways to circumvent the commandment to care for their parents (Mat. 15:) comes to mind. As I said last week, questions like, “What must I do to be saved?” regularly are not about the relationship of faith and surrender to Christ – which is what he invites us to – but about getting good enough grades to pass the ultimate existential test. Am I ever good enough has a simple answer: No!

On the other hand, antinomianism (literally, anti-law), which devalues and keeps us from fulfilling the law, is a perversion of grace. Antinomianism is a sometimes subtle misrepresentation of God’s gift of freedom. If being free means I don’t have to follow a bunch of rules to have God’s life, then I guess I don’t really have to do much of anything. Forgiveness is easy, so I don’t need to engage the work of repentance. Fasting and formal prayer? They seem so Old Testament, as do all the hangups about sex and food. After all, didn’t Paul say that the Kingdom of God wasn’t about eating or drinking? I’m not sure that the most concerning problem is that Christians scoff at the Law of God – which some do – but that large numbers of us are not even familiar with it.

4.) Until the appearing of Christ, God’s “best” people labored under the burden of legalism, which is why Jesus denounces the spirit of religion and Pharisaism, but after the gospel revelation of grace through Christ, God’s people were at least somewhat tempted by the spirit of antinomianism, which explains the apostolic denunciations of lawlessness. Over time, and until recently Christians have generally favored the legalistic approach to discipleship. The theological struggle has been against what evangelicals would call works righteousness.

The last fifty years have been more mixed, with a growing tendency to become muddle-headed over such issues as how believers should view the Ten Commandments, whether sexual prohibitions were merely debatable cultural norms, and if churches have the responsibility to impose discipline on their members. As the parent of two teenagers, it has become clear that a much softer view of how a disciple lives is gaining traction among many Christians. There are powerful reasons for why a deterioration of core biblical principles is occurring (I see another blog post on the horizon), but it is impossible to ignore the fact that it is.

All the same, I’m guessing that most of you who are reading this don’t fall prey to the antinomian thing, but are more prone to carry the burdens of duty and judgment. After a good deal of hustle and bustle, though, we end up stuck in an in-between place where we know we can’t do something or be something perfect, so we throw up our hands in the wrong kind of surrender and pretty much do nothing out of discouragement.

So while we wait for next week’s blog, I encourage us to rebuke the false division of law and grace and to indeed revel in the glorious theology of their unity, which is a theology that promises power and liberty not to just do as we please, but to do what pleases God – which we will find is what will truly please us.

In Paul’s words (Gal. 5:13), let’s not use our freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love, let’s serve one another.

*If the reference to Romper Room makes no sense to you, have fun watching this clip of a 1980 episode. It’s probably not Miss Judy from my childhood, but she’s good enough: