This beautiful aspect of God’s way with man can be summarized in the phrase: “grace before law.” Now that may sound strange to those of us who are accustomed to thinking of law as something which condemns, something which must be followed by the good news of saving grace. In that way of thinking, law is, of course, bad news. Furthermore if that is the way I insist on looking at law and grace, I will never make peace with law; it will always rub me the wrong way. What then does “grace before law” mean? Just this: When God comes to us, his first approach is not law, but grace. Before we ever do anything for him or even in response to him, grace is there as his free gift. The classic New Testament passage in this respect is Romans 5: ”While we were still weak” (vs. 6), “while we were yet sinners” (vs. 8), “while we were enemies” (vs. 10), ”we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (vs. 10). We did nothing to merit such a gift. While we were yet shaking our fist in God’s face he did something that could touch our lives and make us whole. Once our lives have thus been touched by his goodness, we are able to recognize that this great God also wants to show us how to live and that his law is part of his plan for our life. But now the sting has been taken out of law because we have first been touched by grace. As the Gospel of John records: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” John 14:15). If we let ourselves be touched by his love, we cannot help but love him and then the natural result is to follow in the path that he has given us for our happiness.
Now since this is a book about the Old Testament, I should hasten to add that the familiar picture of grace before law in the New Testament is paralleled in the Old, and right at the focal point of the Old Testament record, Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. The amazing story of God’s deliverance of his people shows that they had not one shred of merit to offer him. Even their faith was very much smaller than that of a mustard seed. But God delivered them from Egypt. He rolled back the waters of the sea. Then and only then, did he bring them to Sinai and the law. But it was the memory of God’s mighty deliverance that placed that smoking mountain in perspective. Even though the people did not always see the full glory of the law nor recognize God’s gracious purpose in speaking with them, there was at least one man who did. The man who was right at the heart of it all, the man who led Israel out of slavery and through the sea, that man Moses, did see the glory and beauty of the law. His heart had been touched by the grace of God so he could exclaim:
”For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?” (Deut. 4:7-8).
Yes, all those strange laws in the Old Testament were still good news. They did not represent God’s ideal, for God was not dealing with ideal people. His great desire for them, as for us, is to be able to inscribe his law on the heart. Then we will no longer face that potential aggravation which is always lurking in the imperative. Then we can revel in the new covenant experience, an experience which enables us to live from the heart and with joy.
In the meantime, whenever I find myself chafing under the divine imperative, I find it so very helpful to retrace the steps from Sinai back to the Red Sea and there catch a fresh vision of the great God who first delivered his people and then brought them to Sinai. Or in terms of the New Testament, I find the sting of the imperative simply vanishing in the knowledge that while I was still his enemy, he died for me.
This article has been updated as a response in the series Discussing the Law in Scripture. See that page for a detailed directory of articles in this discussion. The initial article in that discussion is The Law as Gospel.
There is something about having a mission statement for a mission that says, “Helping Christians act like Christians.” Such a mission statement creates mental images of Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible for me as I picture Tom Cruise jumping over motorcycles, walking down the side of a multi-story glass building, and other insanely impossible stunts. Yet, our minds are often so focused on Do that such a mission statement is the way we usually think.
This type of thinking once so predominately ruled my life that when faced with not being able to DO, I found myself standing on a bridge one night ready to jump, late one evening. An award-winning artist, my life was defined by being able to do DO. Now, I was facing not being able to be the man I once was. The very thing my identity and significance were found in I was faced with losing.
Dozens depended on my ability to perform for their livelihood and the ability to feed their families. As my church’s largest employer, I was also a leader among men known for his ability to help Christians act like Christians. This was who I was until diagnosed with a crippling disease. A disease that left me with an uncertain future, wondering why God was mad at me, and feeling like I would let dozens and my church down. Entering a world of silence with doctors predicting I may never be able to walk without some aid, much less DO again!
As I stood on that bridge, there were five prominent thoughts in my mind;
I wanted to end the tremendous emotional and physical pain I was in.
Was God mad at me?
Hadn’t I done everything right?
Why did it not seem enough? Why did I get the feeling that it wasn’t enough?
Was God throwing me on the trash heap of life, was he done with me?
How could I face anyone? What would they think of me now that I couldn’t DO?
My dear friend Henry said it best recently. “The devil is a gambler; he gambled on the jump. Grace won that night.”
I didn’t have the answers that night, and the pain of not knowing the answers to those questions was as painful as the physical pain I was feeling. Yet, looking back, it was not the bright lights that hit me in the face from the emergency road crew keeping me from jumping that night but God’s loving sovereignty. It was God’s loving sovereignty as he broke my self-righteousness, my idea of obedience, my self-sufficiency, and my idea of what a Christian should be to instill a different message. A message of hope and change.
One Without The Other Doesn’t Work
A message that focuses on both the gospel and the Law and reveals the necessity for both. Without a correct understanding of the Law, the gospel is not valid. Without the Law, we cannot express what we have discovered through the gospel in our life. Yet, the Law without the gospel is nothing more than a powerless to-do list unable to accomplish anything but make one weary from living life. I know firsthand about being tired from trying to be enough, to be right in the eyes of other Christians and God. My team and my family were indeed weary from my to-do lists and my insistence they perform to an unreachable standard.
I had grown up with a Christianity that was all about DO. That night on the bridge, tens of thousands of hours of study and what is now sixteen years later has brought a different message. A message that has created what my family calls Dadisms. “It isn’t if you don’t get the gospel right, you don’t get anything right. It is if you don’t get the Law right, you don’t get anything right, including the gospel.”
The Breakdown Begins
The first breakdown in getting the Law right occurs in the game “Whose Standard Is It?” Where contestants are left to themselves to set the standard of God’s Law. After deciding the standard, each contestant can then use their determination to judge themselves and others. As one can see in this game, the law’s standard becomes subjective to each contestant’s subjective judgment.
Creating a Law that now has a consistent change variable, a change determined by each player’s external circumstances and life experiences. When the standard of the Law is changed, we are left with no choice but to change God’s character. Instead of a God who acts independently, and perfectly we are left with a God defined by each player’s life experiences in the game. Here’s the catch though, all of us are playing the game.
The Game We All Know And Play
This is the game of life we all play. Once, we had no choice but to play this game, as we defined not only God but ourselves by our ability to play. Thus, it is the most natural thing to accept an ever-changing subjective law as we expect everyone and ourselves to hold to these standards. When we don’t, we live out of fear, we labor to control, suffer shame, loss of love, loss of connection, and we create divisions, even within ourselves.
When we change the standard of the Law from one objectively demanding utter perfection from us to one of being subjective, we also change the gospel. Instead of a gospel that tells us that we are all moral failures, and none of them are enough, we find a gospel that pushes us to be more, do more and do better. Instead of a gospel that tells us our answers lie elsewhere outside of us, its message now places us on a tireless hamster wheel. When we rob the Law of its objective demand of perfection and thus robbing of its voice so that it ceases to scream at us of its impossibility, we will quickly fall into that which is most natural to us.
We Must Let It Scream
It is natural to us to want to be right, to find sufficiency and rightness in ourselves. This leads one to Find One’s significance in being obedient and walking the right life. Only by trusting in a law that no longer defines God, His character, or His actions can we even begin to lay claim to finding significance in such a life. Only a Law that screams failure at us can break us of such a natural bent to find significance or reason to matter in what we do, rather than what Christ did.
Those who ignore the voice of the Law screaming failure at them find no reason to run continuously to the gospel (Gal 3:24-25) or explore its depth to a deeper level (Romans 8). For them, the gospel is a one-time done event. Such thinking, as previously noted, always leaves them imprisoned on the hamster wheel, running to be enough within themselves.
All You Need Is A Little More
As they labor to meet not only their expectations, everyone else’s but what they see as God’s as they run harder and harder to be more or prove themselves enough within their abilities. Only discovering, as John Paul Getty once remarked when asked how much money is enough, “just a little more.” Except now the question isn’t about how much money is enough, but “What more do I need to do?”
They may pretend that the law is not screaming at them or hear the law laughing at them running on the hamster wheel; they may even state such, as they remain caught up on the hamster wheel of performance and perfectionism. Yet as the law screams louder to the falsity of such claims, they run faster as they remain unwilling to walk into the light with one’s failures, weaknesses, and sins (1 John 1:5-10) with both God and man, hindering the fellowship of both.
The Struggle Is Real
Even sixteen years later, the idol of self pushes against what I know to be true about the gospel. As I labor with all of God’s elect to prove myself capable so that I might, I’m among those who are on the right side of Christianity—feeling the pangs of shame-driven guilt when I fall short of some imaginary standard. I find nothing that separates me from others as we labor in unison with a natural bent towards self-righteousness and self-sufficiency in our self-motivated efforts to be enough.
Those grace messages that do not call us to face our weaknesses or failures forget essential truths. Truths that remind us that there are two parts to the equation of “His grace is sufficient for my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).” The first part everyone seems to understand, but the second part of knowing one’s weakness either we or ignoring or unclear. Along with forgetting that grace is given to those who have heard the voice of the Law that they are not enough, nor will the most uprightness, the rightest person, the most together of us ever be enough alone (Psalm 138:6; Proverbs 3:34; Proverbs 29:23; Matthew 23:12; Luke 1:52; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).
These messages attract like moths to light, not realizing that such light may endanger them. The following statement regarding society as a whole reflects this truth.
“Bolstering, maintaining, and protecting self-esteem is the sacred cow of modern society. It’s a grievous evil to do anything that might cause others to feel bad about themselves or their performance.” – Dan Rockwell.
The Message We Want Is Not The Need
Those who long ago downgraded the voice of the Law in such a way that it only gives them instructions on how to run better on the hamster wheel of life hunger and thirst to hear more of the words that tell them how to perform better, do more, be more pleasing and more worthy. As they scream out, “Give me instructions on how to improve, how to do better, then I can surely hold on to the hope that I’m improving.” “Tell me what to do,” their ego screams as it clamors for that which it falsely believes makes them significant, makes them enough, makes them matter.
Of course, it is not their ego they think they hear, but simply directions on proving themselves pleasing, they will say.
Possibly never coming to understand that such behavioral, morality-based teaching only keeps hidden the real bread and water that will quench their hunger and thirst to be enough, to matter, to be counted significant (John 6:35). To their detriment, they have flocked to those teachers who have left them without knowledge, The knowledge that l rightness comes not from within themselves, but outside of them (Hosea 4). It is not instruction in how to do better, manage their behavior, perform better or do more they need first.
The Course They Need
It is a course on how to hear the bark of the Law daily as it robs one of all hope in improvement of oneself to be enough. Instruction in how to listen to the voice of the Law denies any attempt to find solace in thinking that God is quite satisfied, try-hard, do your best, or give it your best shot mentality. Anything short of such a course will leave them on the same tireless hamster wheel they’ve been stuck on.
Only such a course of instruction that leads them to grow less self-dependent and more dependent on the One who gave the ultimate performance enables them to change the questions that lead to new discoveries. Discoveries that point to the top performance that closed the application process for performers of the year. A performance that has now allowed all other performers to rest from the weariness of the hamster wheel (Matthew 11:28-30).
Change Always Requires Risk
Only when we take the risk to step off the hamster wheel of laboring to be special, significant, and made of the right stuff will our answers to the question of “Why Are We Significant” shift from; being about what we are doing and what others believe about us. When our lives are no longer based on making all the right calls, being right, or having it all together, only then will our focus shift away from ourselves to another apart from us. As our focus shifts, we discover life-changing beauty in the knowledge that because God has declared us His song of glory, the praise of His grace, His Crown Jewels, the reflection of the Trinity, and the beloved of the Son, we no longer need fear being exposed. Found out or seen as not having the right stuff.
These discoveries help us understand that when Christ said, “It Is Finished,” he told us we could stop working to be enough. And accept that He had now made us enough. Here is where we discover the beauty that we no longer must find within ourselves the ability to be right or enough to have a sense of our righteousness but accept that we have Christ’s (2Corinthians 5:21). Our failure to respond and live life from the knowledge of these truths leaves our focus inward. As our focus remains inward, we are left with no choice but to maintain the predominant determining factor of our identity, worth, value, and significance based on our ability to run.
The Real Battle
This is the war that rages in us and why we, like Paul, are coveters. It is why we long to hear those “to-do” messages and why we focus so hard on being right, winning, and being seen as enough. Why is this so?
It is what we lost in the garden. In the garden, we lost the knowledge that we were accepted, loved, and known. Since then, our curvature has been inward as we covet that which we deeply desire and turn to other lovers (Idols) to recover lost love. A curvature inward is always sin, as we focus on ourselves. The more we accept that we are deeply loved in Christ and are enough is when we will slowly experience our focus shifting away from us towards God and others.
The Real Beauty Of The Law
Then instead of the Law being a vessel of self-service to regain what we lost, it reveals the grace contained within as it gives us instruction in the art of love—teaching us to love the One who loved us first (1John 4:19) back and love others. We no longer have to change the Law for our purposes, but now can choose to outdo others in love (Matthew 22:35-40; Romans 12:9-21). Instead of laboring towards what we feel are our rights, entitled to or deserving, we now can choose sacrificial labor on behalf of others.
With the transformation of our minds, we move away from finding hope within ourselves to be right to ask, “How do I express that which I now am?” Creating a mind shift that moves us from DOBE to BEDO. Grow to realize that Colossians 1:10 is not an instruction on how to do more, but because we are more instruction on how to exhibit that we believe we are. Only as we give up any hope in a righteousness of our own, can we help others find the real source of righteousness, beginning with ourselves.
This article is presented as the first entry in our series Discussing the Law in Scripture. To see responses or to learn how you can respond, please read that page. You will find responses in the comments, but they will be organized there.
For most of us, the word “law”is not a happy word. I have never heard anyone say, “It’s the law” in a friendly tone of voice. But let’s explore the issue against the backdrop of a practical modern example, “required” seat belts and I’ll start with some questions: When did you first start buckling up? What made you do it? Or maybe you are one of the few remaining renegades who insists on a life of unfettered freedom….
I don’t remember when or why I started buckling up. Typically I’m fairly obedient in practical matters – I only rebel when someone tells me I have to do something. Initially I buckled up faithfully when I was driving, but less faithfully when I was a passenger. But since the winter of 1963 I wear a seat belt all the time for in 1963 I was a passenger without one and popped my head through the windshield. I can still rub the scar on my forehead and feel it in the middle of my scalp. It’s a convincing argument in favor of seat belts.
But if seat belts are such a benefit, why doesn’t everyone wear them? Of course they restrict our freedoms and of course they’re uncomfortable. And yes, one can even cite examples of accidents where it was more dangerous to wear a seat belt than to be without. Still, the evidence in favor of seat belts is overwhelming.
So our elected officials have decided to help us wear seat belts. The first efforts were gentle: buckles in the shape of hearts with a “loving” message: “Buckle up – we love you!”
Didn’t work. Here’s a harder line: “Buckle up! It’s the law.” Stronger words, but still not much muscle. Sometimes the hard rhetoric was softened just a bit: “Buckle up! It’s our law.”
But only when it turned expensive – “Click it or ticket!” – did the habit begin to catch on. When I checked the fines a few years ago, in Washington State, where I live, the fine was $101 for riding without a seat belt. Next door in Oregon it only cost $94. But in both states the authorities issue tickets with no qualms of conscience. Still, I am amazed at how often the report of a fatal accident includes the line: “The driver was not wearing a seat belt.”
Now let’s bring God into the picture. Should God be concerned about such things as seat belts? Why not, if God, like John, wants us to “prosper and be in health” (3 John 2)?
So God sets about the task of helping us protect ourselves and others. In short, to make us be good. Well, make is a bit strong. Encourage? Entice? Coax?
You see the problem. Paul lays it out – his dilemma, ours, and God’s: “What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?” (1 Cor. 4:21).
But now let’s come to the role of law in education. Does “law” help people think? In typical evangelical theology, law is an instrument of condemnation and points to the need of grace. But that doesn’t really help us see law as good news or to see law as a catalyst for exploratory thinking.
So let’s look at two Old Testament passages that paint a more balanced view of law. Both are from the book of Deuteronomy. In the first one (Deut. 4:5-8), Moses celebrates law as “good news.” So good, in fact, that Israel’s neighbors are said to admire it! After urging Israel to observe the God-given law, Moses argues that their obedience “ will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people.’” Then Moses enthusiastically adds a punch line: “For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?” (NRSV)
In short, even Israel’s pagan neighbors recognized the great value of Israel’s laws. And in Moses’ commentary after the second giving of the law (Deut. 5:22-33), he rounds out his argument by noting two additional and related factors: the role of fear, and the purpose of law.
After describing Israel’s terror at the divine voice out of the fire, Moses quotes their urgent words: “Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the fire. Today we have seen that God may speak to someone and the person may still live. So now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and remained alive?”
Their proposal? A mediator! “Go near, you yourself, and hear all that the Lord our God will say. Then tell us everything that the Lord our God tells you, and we will listen and do it.”
Moses then describes God’s reaction to their request, underscoring the importance of God’s use of raw fear: “The Lord heard your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me: ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they are right in all that they have spoken. If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with their children forever!’”
God grants their request to make Moses a mediator. Moses then urges once more an understanding of the purpose of law: “You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.”
According to Moses, obedience to law is not linked to eternal salvation, but to the good life here on earth. And he wasn’t squeamish about God’s use of fear to help them obey and live. In our “secular” age in the here and now, we understand the principle very well – without any appeal to God. If a youngster is at risk from a moving vehicle, the parent scares the kid half to death. It’s a life and death matter.
But shifting to the context of education, we must reckon with two additional factors: How does one move from fear to love, and how does one allow for the exploratory factor in a system that was originally motivated by fear?
In the first instance, love cannot be commanded. But 1 John 5:18 affirms a wonderful promise: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love” (NRSV). And the new covenant promises in Jeremiah 31 moves in the direction of affirming that same non-coercive ideal: “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34, NRSV).
The question remains, however: How does one from fear to love? If we look at our human world for examples, we could argue that it is experience is what enables the change. When we observe that the “lover” has only our best interests in mind, fear gradually vanishes.
But in the context of education, how does one come to the point where full exploration is encouraged, with no fear of authoritarian infringement on our freedom? Indeed, the goal is to establish a model within which both Scripture and the natural world may be fully explored – and not just allowed but enthusiastically encouraged?
Certainly the New Testament affirmation that “perfect love casts out fear” is crucial. But more surprising, perhaps is the role played by God’s skeptical friends in the Old Testament: Job, Abraham, Moses, and Habakkuk. Job boldly declared: “He destroys both the blameless and the wicked” (Job 9:22, NRSV), and over the potential destruction of Sodom, Abraham confronted God over that very point: “Far be it from you to . . . to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen. 18:25, NRSV).
Moses was perhaps the most successful of all God’s critics, for when God declared that he would destroy the idolatrous Israelites and make of Moses a great nation, Moses recoiled immediately: “‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. . . .’” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (Exod. 32:11-14, NRSV).
Habakkuk is equally blunt: “Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous – therefore judgment comes forth perverted” (Hab. 1:3-4, NRSV).
In short, God himself has published in Scripture all these complaints about seeming flaws in God’s administration of the affairs on earth. Should we not take these seriously in developing our models for education? We may ask all our questions – we must ask all our questions.
One remarkable sidelight relative to education is suggested by the memory text for this week’s lesson in the official study guide: Deuteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (NKJV). All three of the New Testament parallels for this passage add the word “mind,” a word missing from Deuteronomy: “all your mind” (Matt. 22:37), “all your mind” (Mark 12:30), “all your mind” (Luke 10:27). The mind is central in the New Testament passages. That’s worth pondering.
One other corrective to the typical evangelical view of law as primarily an instrument of condemnation, is hiding in plain side in both testaments. It is the idea of “grace before law.” While typical evangelical theology sees law as condemning and grace as saving, one can argue from a “motivational” perspective that grace comes before law. Consider Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Did they deserve deliverance? No. Yet God delivered them “by grace,” touching their hearts so that at Mt. Sinai they could appreciate the law, in all its thunderous glory.
The New Testament parallel is in Romans 5, with a three-fold emphasis: 1) “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . 2) But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. . . . 3) While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. . . .” (Rom. 5:6-10, NRSV).
In sum, grace is God’s wonderful gift – and so is his law. Indeed, as noted above, Jeremiah 31: 33-34 tells of a time when God’s law becomes so much a part of us that we are unaware of its presence.
For better or for worse, I have been blessed/cursed with a rebel soul. I hate to be told what to do. God’s promise is that someday I will live in a kingdom where nobody will tell anybody what to do because the law is written on the heart.
Yet the idea of law as good news, as a liberating guide to life, which is so exciting and helpful for me, does not have that same effect on everyone. So the New Testament shows us how God has developed two different ways, two different paths to God’s kingdom. Both ideas are biblical, but are not greeted with equal enthusiasm by all believers. Indeed, some believers are wholehearted supporters of one view while viewing the other perspective with suspicion, even hostility. And that’s true of both extremes. The ideal, I believe, is for each of us to find the nourishment that meets the needs of our soul – while praying for the gift of God’s Spirit to understand the other perspective. Why snatch away from a fellow believer that which nurtures that believer’s soul?
Now when describing the two views, I try to use explanations that are as neutral as possible, explanations that avoid offending those who do not yet understand one view or the other. Unfortunately, the best explanations involve words of many syllables. But in what follows, I mix simple words with pictures in order to get the point across.
I’ll start with the view that I grew up with, but which didn’t really work for me. It pictured Jesus pleading his blood to the father on my behalf. One could say that the cross is pointed heavenward and the demands of the law. I felt that if Jesus had to plead with the Father on my behalf, God must be reluctant to accept me. If Jesus talked long enough and hard enough, the Father would finally reluctantly agree to let me in the back door. That’s a distorted view to be sure, but that’s how I felt. That view we can call the “objective atonement,” a view of the cross that sees an objective standard in heaven that somehow has to be satisfied by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Romans 8 is a good source for that view.
The other view sees the cross pointed earthward, toward the human heart. No price is demanded; Jesus simply teaches us that God gave everything to save us. This view can be called the “subjective atonement.” I discovered it from John 14-17 and it transformed my view of God. In John 14-17, we hear Jesus telling the disciples that if they have seen him, they have seen the father (John 14:8). In other words, Jesus is God in human flesh. God didn’t just send someone else to earth, God himself took human flesh and came to show us what God is like.
I made that discovery while I was at the seminary and I remember excitedly telling my colleague Jon Dybdahl, “Guess what, Jon! Jesus is God!” He already knew that. I was just slow on the uptake.
Since then, I have gone back to Romans 8. Indeed, I have memorized it, seeking to understand those who find the objective atonement so helpful. Put another way, I was wanting to be blessed in the same way that others have been blessed by that chapter. And the light has begun to shine, for which I am very grateful.
Some of you will find Romans 8 more helpful, the cross pointed heavenward to the demands of the law. Others will be blessed by John 14-17, the cross pointed earthward to the needs of the human heart. By God’s grace, you will find what nurtures your soul best.
