The Gap

Christianity can easily degenerate into moralism. As such, it presents our relationship with God along the lines of a kindly moral policeman. God tells us what to do and we're supposed to do it. Sure, this is done while talking about relationship and God's love, but the nature of that relationship is often distorted - distorted by the way it's defined. God is love by declaration alone. Our relationship with Him is more like one with an authoritarian parent. It lacks the qualities of freedom, openness, mutual respect, and unconditional acceptance that are essential to healthy relationships. Even when God's love is characterized appropriately, we often lack the understanding of how to experience that love in a practical way.

So how does God bring us to a proper understanding of our relationship with Him? He continues to use the law as a pedagogue. Remember, the pedagogue made sure that his masters children got to school and that the teacher did his job. But the pedagogue simply supervised, he did not teach. The law then, acting as a pedagogue, takes us by the hand until we get the proper picture of God. The law creates the circumstances that cry out for a relational, or new covenant way of dealing with right and wrong.

When we obey or follow someone, there are two major issues we encounter. First, there is the "what." In the Biblical sense this is the law, the right we should do. However, there is a second issue that is often overlooked. The "what" creates an attitude gap - how does the "boss" relate to us in the context of "what" we're supposed to do. That gap will be filled by one of two moral atmospheres. One is a legalistic way of relating to our performance, refered to in the Bible as the covenant of law, the old covenant. The other, referred to as the covenant of grace, the new covenant, is simply a perfect, loving relationship. If that gap is filled by the covenant of grace, there will be a sense of freedom, understanding, and support. If filled by the covenant of law, there will be pressure, demands and judgment. Therefore, following God creates an ongoing need for defining the nature of grace in our lives. Unless the atmosphere defining our relationship with God is seen appropriately, it will fail to heal us.

Too often we default to the old covenant mentality when we obey. It's simply the natural way our fallen moral self relates to right and wrong. It creates a judging and punitive atmosphere around our choices. This distorts how we see God, for we often see Him as speaking through our moral self or conscience. We therefore, attach punitive, dogmatic, and judgmental qualities to Him without really seeing what we are doing.

So how can the law lead us to another perspective? As we read the truths in God's word, it enlarges our sense of moral obligation. That sense of obligation comes from our moral self. Not that we necessarily act morally, but we have a conscience that holds us accountable to the standards we accept as true. Our conscience then judges us by those standards.

This is one reason that the secular world so often attacks Christianity. It sees Christianity as the last bastion upholding the authority of puritanical laws. That secular mentality does not want to be held accountable to these standards. They are seen as a threat to personal freedom. Secularists point to those standards as the basis for inappropriate guilt as well as a host of other psychological problems.

Paul was aware of this problem. He stated it this way: "The law brings about wrath" (Gal 4:15). However, blaming the law is simply shooting the messenger. The problem is not the law. We all need standards and appropriate guidance. Rather, the problem is the way our moral self relates to the law. That judging self tends to be rigid, legal, and demanding. Our conscience plays the dictator, the moral policeman. Few want to be around a policeman, even if they're behaving. They are uncomfortable with the oppressive atmosphere of legal scrutiny.

Paul alludes to this problem when discussing the issue of meat blessed before idols. Unable to experience the appropriate flexibility in grace, some Christians could not eat this meat in good conscience. Their moral self failed to allow them the freedom needed for appropriate flexibility.

This same problem surfaces in Romans 7, where "right" is simply pressed upon the person through the conscience. "Right" that is experienced under moral pressure and judgment will only result in distorted behavior. In Romans 7 there is a failure to see choices in the context of the new covenant relationship. The result was frustration and defeat. However, this issue of a rigid verses relationally based morality is more fully developed in the concept of the covenants of law and grace. (Gal 4:21-26, II Cor 3:6).

Why two covenants? The old covenant of law simply parallels the natural way our moral self deals with right and wrong. Unless softened by good parental models and a proper picture of God, our conscience naturally plays the moral policeman with our standards. That covenant is also the only way of restraining inappropriate actions for those outside of a personal relationship with God. It functions like our civil law. The police don't ask you why you did what you did - bad hair day, wrong side of the bed - that's not their focus. They simply lay down the law.

When seen through the demanding eyes of the old covenant, even the call to love can become a taskmaster. Our moral self can take any right and make it a demand. It also knows no limit to those demands. If you donate one night to your church or charitable group, it will press for more. On and on it goes until what was once done freely, and in love, is now done out of a sense of obligation.

Restraint and obligation are poor substitutes for genuine goodness. Proper growth requires that our conscience bow under a new influence, a new covenant. However, this new covenant cannot provide freedom until we enter into a trust relationship with God. Trust is the basis for the new covenant for it is the foundation of all good relationships.

A story may help clarify here. There were two sons. One, headstrong and rebellious, saw his parents as clueless. To him they were stiff and out of touch. This son careened through life. He was always in trouble. To restrain his harmful, self-destructive behavior his parents were compelled to make firm rules backed by reward and punishment - an old covenant approach. This was the only workable way to deal with him. The boy didn't want a relationship. He didn't want to communicate and therefore never really developed the basis for trust.

On the other hand, his brother was different. This son spent time with his parents, talking with them, learning to respect their wisdom. His parents didn't need to enforce their requests for cooperation. The boy acted appropriately, in the context of proper standards, without those constraints. He could be freed from the legal relationship to the rules that bound his brother. He was on board, a willing member of the team. Why the difference? One child trusted his parents; the other did not. The key here is how he saw his parents and the nature of his relationship with them. His trust was a response to their reasonableness and love.

Christianity has this issue of the covenants somewhat confused. It teaches that the old covenant is simply a law-based system, while the new covenant of grace is focused on love. Although there is truth here, this approach fails to see the function of law in grace. Remember, the law is a pedagogue. Law and grace play off each other. Each is relatively useless by itself. Grace without law is empty verbiage or sentimentalism. Law is the vehicle creating the need for, and the circumstances within which grace is most clearly experienced. Grace without law becomes permissiveness, a rudderless ship. Law without grace becomes rigid and legalistic, a foundation for intolerance and bigotry. Although law is not the only context in which grace can be seen, understanding law's function in the covenants is critical to managing our natural legalism.

The covenants are really two different relationships to law. In the old covenant, God assumes an authoritarian persona, putting teeth into the law. This parallels the story above, where the parents needed tough love in dealing with their wayward son. Yet, for those desiring right, the impotence of the old covenant to instill real love underscores its inability to do anything more than foster moral responsibility and behavioral restraint.

Let's restate how the law fosters this transition from the old to the new covenant. The law sets the standard to which we hold ourselves accountable. The call to obedience presents us with choices in the context of this standard. We are then confronted by the rigidity and pressure our moral self often brings to the issue of obedience. We are now in a dilemma. We can't really disobey without guilt and the expectation of the negative consequences of our actions. Yet we are not free or comfortable with a pressured obedience either.

The new covenant offers an entirely different manner of dealing with things. As we embrace this, our growth becomes more than simply trying to implement change in our lives. It becomes an opportunity to define real love. It "forces" us to wrestle with our understanding of God. As we begin to see the freeing nature of God's love, we discover its power to change.

Sentimental notions of God's love, though comforting, are not as effective in drawing the heart to God as seeing the nature of the way He deals with us with respect to moral issues or issues of obedience. It is here that grace relieves the burden of our legalistic old covenant and thereby draws our hearts to Him in a profound way.

It's love that makes us happy. Yet, we can only appreciate the beauty of giving love when we have needed and experienced it ourselves. Only then will we be able to give it from our hearts.

But what about those who are comfortable, unchallenged by their moral self? They go with the flow, accepting the standards of the group finding little in their lives to create this gap. The momentum of society carries them along. If you feel little responsibility to your standards, or your standards are superficially defined, my words here have little meaning. The old covenant never did its work. The unconditional acceptance of grace is meaningless to the complacent person. Their conscience has been lulled to sleep by the acceptance of mediocrity and the failure to take responsibility for their actions.

Complacency can also be a problem in the church. We learn basic truths and become satisfied. We accept a superficial goodness and our Christian friends fail to challenge us to higher standards. We are unaware of the shallow nature of our relationships. We're blind to our lack of understanding and compassion and fail to own our pride and materialism. We miss the reality that the ultimate standard is Jesus. Yet, apart from catch phrases, most don't even see this Christ standard as reality. The end is often a self-satisfied moralism.

Remember Paul's statement, "For through the law I died to the law"? The law shows us our dependence on living in the awareness of God's mercy and love. This, along with "letting go and letting God", must be the power behind our actions. Law works with grace to humble us and rid us of self-righteousness and bigotry. Yet, if our standards are defined superficially, if their authority is weakened, or we see them simply as symbolic and unattainable, we fail to be convicted. Grace is simply a theory.

Copyright 8/04, Patrick Fagenstrom - edited 4/10

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