Sermon Central
One of the most misunderstood relationships in all of Christianity is the relationship between God’s law and God’s grace. At first glance it’s easy to see where there may be tension between the two. After all, if God’s law instructs us not to do something and we do it, can we really expect him to overlook out indiscretion because of grace? If he’s going to give us what we don’t deserve every time, what’s the point of giving us any laws?
But the debate between law and grace goes beyond the practical and very quickly becomes part of a debate about salvation. There are those who argue that the Law was given to provide us with a way of earning our way into God’s good favor, and maybe even earning heaven. Most world religions ascribe to some form of earn-your-way theology. But as I’m sure you are aware, there are a great many Christians who argue that salvation is by faith and grace alone. According to this view, keeping God’s law is not a means of earning salvation. But even within the faith-alone camp, I’ve heard plenty of preachers and evangelists argue that if a person isn’t consistently keeping God’s law, he isn’t really a Christian! This take on law and grace implies that keeping the law is proof of salvation by grace. In other words, real Christians will obey God’s law (at least most of the time). They usually don’t consider breaking the speed limit a make-or-break infraction, in spite of what the New Testament says about obeying laws instituted by government. Oh well.
So where does that leave us? The Bible has its share of thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots. But at the same time, the Bible talks an awful lot about grace. So which is it? Or if it’s both, how do they fit together?
Grace and the Big Ten
Good news. This is not as confusing as people in my profession make it. The easiest way to understand the relationship between God’s law and God’s grace is to take a look at the most famous list of laws in the history of mankind and the story behind where they came from. The list I’m referring to is, of course, the Ten Commandments.
Almost everybody’s heard of the Ten Commandments. In fact, most people would agree that we should abide by them. But almost nobody can name them. When I was in graduate school, the dry cleaner I used was operated by a middle-aged woman named Agnes. From time to time I would try to engage Agnes in a conversation about religion. She was quick to remind me that she kept the Ten Commandments. That was her default response to all things religious. And that was also her way of saying that the conversation was officially over! So one day I asked Agnes if she actually knew all ten of the commandments. Without even looking up she said, “No. But I keep ’em.”
Agnes is not alone. Just for fun, our church conducted a man-on-the-street type interview to find out what people actually knew about the big ten. Armed with a camera and a microphone, they hit the pavement and asked people to name as many of the Ten Commandments as they could. No one could name them all. Most could only name two. The most astute commandment-keepers could recall only these four:
- Do not kill.
- Do not steal.
- Do not commit adultery.
- Do not lie.
No one could remember the first four commandments. Everyone jumped straight to the thou-shalt-not rules of conduct. And that’s sad. It’s sad because our predisposition toward the thou-shalt-nots supports a universal myth regarding God and his feelings toward the human race. Simply stated, obedience gets you in, and disobedience keeps you out. Or another way of saying the same thing is, God’s approval is reserved for the rule-followers. But nothing could be further from the truth.
As rare as it is to find someone who can recite all Ten Commandments, it is even rarer to find someone who knows the story of how they came to be in the first place. The story is just as important as the commandments themselves. The context surrounding the giving of these commandments resolves the tension we feel between God’s law and his grace. As we are about to discover, the Ten Commandments do not stand in contrast to grace; they are introduced within the story of God’s grace.God’s law is featured heavily in the Old Testament, but only as the subtext of a grander narrative that highlights his grace toward a helpless, undeserving group of people.
The Story Behind the Law
You can tell a lot about a person or a government by the rules they establish, and even more by the rules they enforce. For example, you can learn a lot about who I am from the number one rule that I have established and strictly enforce in the Stanley household: “Thou shalt respect thy mama.” There’s a lot of freedom and grace in our home, but if one of my children violates that simple rule, things get more than a bit unpleasant. I let my children know that I will overreact. My discipline will not be fair, but it will be thorough! While I think it would be a good idea if every family made that rule a part of their domestic policy, that’s not really my point. My point is that particular rule reveals something about my values. We protect best what we value most.
The same is true of God. His rules reflect his values. God’s display of power over the Egyptians revealed his ability but very little of his nature. Egyptian mythology described gods that were capricious and cruel. What kind of deity was the God of Abraham? The people needed to know. The Ten Commandments reassured the Israelites that their God was not only powerful but good.
Before issuing the first rule, God said something that must have stunned as well as reassured Moses. He said, “I am the LORD your God …” (Exod. 20:2). Moses must have thought, Wait! Did you say the Lord your God? Don’t you mean the Lord the God?