Christ's Death and the Law
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the May 10, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“Is the law, therefore, opposed to
the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could
impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.”
Galatians 3:21, NIV
Since the
time of Christ, His followers have often been divided into two camps over the
relationship of grace to law. Those who are of a more forgiving nature want to
see God as made of similar stuff, a being that extends compassion even in those
situations where compassion might not seem appropriate. For these individuals,
the Parable of the Workers[i]
is a perfect allegory for such a God.
They feel that love is displayed by imparting
the blessings of grace even to those who do not deserve such a blessing, just as
the vineyard owner paid the same wage to all without respect to the amount of
work they did in his vineyard. Those who had worked the longest and hardest
felt this was unfair. The owner felt the workers had no right to question his
fairness and seemed to feel that his desire to be compassionate overruled their
sense of justice. Perhaps those who see God in this way are more likely to be
inclusive, welcoming all to the “vineyard” and trusting God to sort it all out
at the end of the day. However, those, who feel God is like this, struggle with
a God who would destroy all of humanity for their wickedness except for eight
people floating over tempestuous seas in a frail wooden craft.[ii]
Those who
feel that justice and obedience are primary attributes that define deity would
perhaps use the story of the flood as prima
facie evidence that justice ultimately overrules compassion, and that God
is obligated to make all things fair one day. These look forward to an
apocalyptic denouement when an unfair world will be forcibly re-booted and made
eternally fair. As part of that scenario, those who have not been obedient
enough will be destroyed with fire. For some denominations, the sense of
offended justice is so strong that they insist that burning will go on for all of
eternity. We might ask, “What sin would be so great that it would demand such
harsh justice?” Instead of modeling Christianity this seems to echo a more
pagan punishment like that of Prometheus, who was chained to a rock with an
eagle eating out his liver each day, only to have it regrow and be eaten by the
eagle the next day. A God who possessed any compassion at all would be expected
to one day release such a sinner from his eternal torment. At the very least, just
as for Prometheus, a Hercules should necessarily arise to free him from his horrible
fate. Justice without any sense of compassion may stand in danger of becoming
cruel despotism.
Perhaps like
the old fable about the blind men who each felt a different part of an elephant’s
body and then described the animal differently based on the singular
perspective they each had, Christians are doing the same thing with God. This
does not mean that those perspectives are wrong or cancel one another out.
After all, the blind man who felt the elephant’s tail and determined elephants
are like a strand of rope was right about the part of the elephant he felt. But
the blind man who felt the elephant’s leg and decided that elephants are like
trees was also right based on his encounter with the animal. Perhaps if we go
looking for a God of justice, we will find Him, and if we go looking for a God
of grace and compassion we will also find Him. But are these concepts exclusive
of one another?
Perhaps the
God who created the vast universe with its many, many billions of stars and
planetary systems transcends such simple characterizations. A God who dwells in
such vastness is infinitely more difficult to grasp than an elephant’s tail. We
may chuckle at the naiveté of those blind men who were unable to see how truly magnificent
an elephant is. Do we also have the ability to see how naïve we may be in
presuming to adequately explain the character of God based on a human
understanding of either grace or justice? Maybe, being made in God’s image, we
have been inappropriately trying to return the favor ever since.
Some might
feel that while God is transcendent, the corporeal Jesus was well within the
realm of human understanding. They might even wish to make the point that this
was the whole purpose of Jesus’ incarnation, to reveal the character of God.
However, even though he might be just the Hercules to free our justice-bound Prometheus,
the paradoxes appear to continue even with the character that Jesus demonstrated.
On the one hand, He told people to stop sinning,[iii]
implying a need to be obedient to avoid a just fate for disobedience. Yet on
the other hand, He seemed reluctant to judge people for those sins, even
healing or forgiving them for the very same events that caused Him to tell them
to stop sinning. Perhaps there is a depth of character here that goes far
beyond the simplistic and maybe false dichotomy between grace and justice that
we continue to perpetuate.
In the first
century CE, a Jewish Jesus was initially accepted by Jewish believers within a
Jewish culture. That culture venerated obedience and ongoing debates over what
character that obedience should take. Whether it was how far one could travel
on the Sabbath day, or how one might carry a kerchief without bearing a burden
during the Sabbath, many theological discussions centered not so much on what
constituted salvation but rather what was transgression. Of course that
transgression meant disobedience to law.[iv]
But because the law was the foundation for all understanding of the character
of God, the only salvation that could be offered to the sinner was to be
obedient. To put it simply, the answer to law breaking was more law. This concept
is not unfamiliar to us in modern times as we also tend to multiply laws in a
vain attempt to promote obedience. In the United States, this has resulted not
in more obedience, but less, as our astronomically high incarceration rate
shows.[v]
Maybe this very focus on obedience and justice kept them from seeing a Messiah
instead of simply another law breaker.
Perhaps the
reason for Jesus’ visit to our little planet out on the edge of the galaxy was
to demonstrate something different about obedience. Perhaps it had something to
do with a flaw in our understanding about grace and compassion. In the Parable
of the Sheep and the Goats,[vi]
He is sorting out those who would be saved (the sheep) from those who would be
lost (the goats). The lone criteria that the sorting appears to be based upon is
did they show compassion to others. If we take the Jewish perspective that
obedience is what saves and disobedience is what destroys God’s people, then in
the context of this parable, we might understand that compassion is obedience,
and failure to show compassion is sin. If sin is law breaking then perhaps compassion
is law keeping. This compassion then may be that love that Paul wrote to the
Roman church about when he told them that love is keeping the law.[vii]
Could it be
that when we indicate to someone that God’s justice is going to get them for
their disobedience that the very same hand that has a finger pointing out such
a fate to them also has four fingers pointing back at us indicating how many
ways our behavior is failing because of its lack of love and compassion? How
can we see this when such darkness colors our attitude toward others? Perhaps a
good indicator is when we see ourselves multiplying standards by which to judge
others, and then if that were not enough, when we fine tune those standards even
further in an attempt to eliminate any possibility of wriggling while under the
stern gaze of justice.
The Epistle
of James is often quoted by those who focus overly much on obedience for saying
“Faith without works is dead.”[viii]
But does this in anyway justify the cold legalism of a “God-is-going-to-get-you-for-that”
justice? If we look at the context in James, we discover that he also is
talking about compassion or mercy[ix]
as opposed to a cold, legalistic calling down of justice upon our neighbors. He
even goes so far as to say that mercy trumps justice.
In conclusion,
perhaps we can say there is no real opposition between the law and grace as
grace is the summation of all that the law is. Therefore any justice implied in
obedience might simply be a return to us of the very lack of compassion that we
have shown to others. It is a universal principle that when you plant something
that is what you can expect to get back. If you plant corn in your field, you
do not expect to get a harvest of pumpkins. That is not a matter of justice. It
is simply a principle active throughout creation. If our lives are lived in an
attitude of compassion toward others, we can then perhaps expect to find
compassion returning to us. Perhaps the vial we find God offers us on the stereotypical
judgment day can only be filled with what we have placed in it over the course
of our lives. Perhaps if we find only wrath there, it is not so much God’s
wrath as what we ourselves have sent ahead to fill it. Perhaps this is why
mercy trumps justice.
