Monday, October 22, 2012

Galatians 5:13-15 – Ditches, Ditches, Everywhere



Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

13For brothers you were called upon freedom. Only [do not use] that freedom into an opportunity to the flesh, but be serving one another through the love; 14for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15But beware, if you are biting and devouring each other, lest you are consumed by one another.

As I went back and read my first post on this passage, I think I kind of got off my point. “Freed to what?” I asked and I was enjoying the realization it is “freed to love.” However, as I mull it all over, that wasn’t exactly the question that was lurking behind the scenes. I figured out earlier in the book that our “freedom” is a freedom to love. That is actually already clear to me. What I couldn’t put my finger on is this whole problem of antinomianism. How do I say very clearly that I am freed from law to live a life of grace, without the danger of falling into the other ditch of antinomianism? On the right side of the royal road we have the ditch of legalism. I now feel I see that ditch very clearly. But, it would seem, as soon as we try to extricate ourselves from that ditch, if we aren’t careful, we end up driving off the left side of the road into the ditch of antinomianism.

Obviously it would be true today, as all down through history, that some will take emphatic teaching of grace to mean they can literally “go wild.” I suspect our natural response to that excess is to quickly assert, “But we are still under law,” perhaps saying things (like I used to) that Christ’s death freed us from the “ceremonial” law, but we’re still under the “moral” law. That sounds very comforting to our incorrigibly legalistic hearts, but is, in effect, putting us back under law. It is no wonder that most churches go on in their legalism by teaching vast arrays of rules, “standards” they call them, in spite of on the other hand supposedly teaching grace. They like grace but then fear that their people need some system of rules to keep them (especially the youth group) from “going wild.” So then, they can go on teaching grace while very comfortably living in legalism and never realizing they are missing the whole point of it all.

But then again, how do we say it? How can we really assert grace without on the one hand freeing people to “go wild,” while on the other hand not slyly adding back in some form of law to prevent that? Grace is grace. It needs to be taught for that. It is freedom from law. To say otherwise is to teach the very error Paul is so passionately arguing against.

I found it interesting that Martin Luther himself struggled at exactly this same point. I’ll quote him at length: “Satan likes to turn this liberty which Christ has gotten for us into licentiousness. Already the Apostle Jude complained in his day: ‘There are certain men crept in unawares … turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness’ (Jude 4). The flesh reasons, ‘If we are without the law, we may as well indulge ourselves. Why do good … when there is no law to force us to do so?”

He goes on to say that in spite of that wrong antinomian response, “… we are obliged to preach the Gospel which offers to all men liberty from the law, sin, death, and God’s wrath. We have no right to conceal or revoke this liberty proclaimed by the Gospel.”

He concludes, “It is not an easy matter to teach faith without works … Both the doctrine of faith and the doctrine of good works must be diligently taught, and yet in such a way that both doctrines stay within their God-given sphere.”

Obviously Luther had to wrestle with these very same issues. Obviously too, we like him, need to let the Scriptures be our guide. To that end, once again, I think verses 13 and 14 are a giant mental hinge pin for the whole book and I believe in a nutshell they answer our question. The whole book from 1:1 to 5:12 has asserted the doctrine of grace which he summarizes in the opening words, For brothers you were called to freedom”. This is what could be misconstrued as the left ditch of antinomianism. Paul cautions against that ditch saying, “Only [do not use] that freedom into an opportunity to the flesh,…” Clearly he is painfully aware of the two ditches and would have us avoid both. And so what is his prescription? “…but be serving one another through the love; 14for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

I would suggest that our problem is thinking we must choose between the two ditches. We are in effect thinking, “I must either be a legalist or an antinomian. I either totally embrace grace and go wild or, to guard against that, I resort back to some form of legalism (grace with an asterisk), and that keeps me being ‘good.’” I believe Paul’s prescription would tell us that neither of the above solutions is our answer. Our answer, “serving one another through love” is something totally different from either.

And let me insert here that I think the problem of pondering these two ditches is that we still haven’t repented of our legalism. The basic question is still about law. “Am I under law or not?” The antinomian says, “There is no law,” while the legalist (even if he denies it) is saying we are still under law. But they’re still both thinking the big issue is law. Therein is the problem, I would suggest. They’re both missing the point of it all. What they’re saying is that the only alternative to legalism is license (hence grace with an asterisk) or the only alternative to license is legalism (If I give up my “freedom” [to do as I please] that makes me a legalist).

What they’re both missing is walking in the Spirit. They’re both missing, in a sense, one of the greatest gifts Jesus’ death and resurrection purchased for us – the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love, and the very possibility that He can be my spirit, the very dynamo of my human existence. As I have said before, Jesus did not die to give us better rules (more legalism) but to free us from them. But what He freed us to is not a life of “doing as I please” (antinomianism) but rather a life of embracing the very heart of God, seeing the world (and our “neighbors”) through His eyes – and Paul sums up that world with the concept of “serving one another through love.”

I guess let me be specific. Why shouldn’t I get shame-faced drunk and run off with the neighbor’s wife? One could say, “Because that’s wrong.” True. It is wrong. Drunkenness is sin and obviously running off with the neighbor’s wife is adultery. If the fact those things are wrong is the best defense I can offer, it certainly beats falling into sin and wrecking one’s life. It is always better not to sin, no matter what kept me from it. However, what I believe grace offers us is something far better, far higher than the simple legalism of “that’s wrong.” Walking in the Spirit gives me the opportunity to see how unloving those choices would be to God and to my neighbor and to actually make my choice based on that love, not on “what are the rules?”. As Martin Luther stated above, the legalist, offered the freedom of grace, thinks he’ll reason, “Why do good … when there is no law to force us to do so?”  He (the legalist) isn’t realizing there is an entirely different alternative – that I could actually do good, not because I have to, but because I want to. The indwelling Holy Spirit does not just help me do good, He helps me be good. He is the new heart in me.

Let me say again, if the only thing that stops me from falling into sin is the recognition it is wrong, I would say, “Hallelujah. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That’s great. Your wife will be glad. Your kids will be glad. You’ll save yourself untold heartache, but … the fear of the Lord is only the beginning of wisdom. The end, the goal, of wisdom is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Anything is good if it helps me do right, but what God is offering us in grace (without the asterisk) is the very, very best – a genuinely changed heart, a heart yielded to the Spirit, a heart that loves.

I believe this is what we see in verses 13 and 14, this very vacillation between legalism and antinomianism solved not by picking one or the other but rather by embracing something far better than either – real grace.

This feels very familiar to me. It seems as if my whole life studying the Bible has been like this. It seems everyone is shooting at each other from the ditches on either side. When I finally figure out what God thinks, it turns out to be neither. It turns out to be a royal road, far better than I could have dreamed. Hmmmm. That’s just Him – immeasurably more than we could ask or think.

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