The Both/And Gospel: Holiness and Grace

I have been back and forth about posting this. I worry that it comes off condescending and self righteous. I promise this is humbly given, not as an attempt to embarrass anyone who may have reposted this video, or an attack on the man in the video himself, but given by the Holy Spirit through me. I am equally guilty of committing the sins I am pointing out (and I am adamant about that point). If it does not come across that way, I welcome comments either privately or on this blog.

Recently, facebook has been blowing up with a youtube video made by a man who claims that Religion and Jesus are not only mutually exclusive, but also completely opposing ideas. Here is the video:

Here is another version told live:

Now there have been many blog posts about this (many critical over the semantics of the word "Religion") but I do not plan to discuss that. However, I would like to discuss the idea of holiness AND grace. In order to do that, we must discuss the differences between holiness and legalism.

Allow me to first explain legalism. Legalism has two definitions, one in terms of political and social philosophy and one in terms of religious theology. These two ideas, while not mutually exclusive, have different connotations when used in context. Legalism as a school of political thought is essentially a strict dictatorship with defined rules and harsh punishments, with power being held based on the position one holds in the hierarchy of the State. Legalism as a school of religious theology is similar. There is a strict adherence to the rule of law in the Bible, with an over-emphasis on conduct and little or no emphasis on the work of the Spirit and/or the grace of God. Legalism, in my opinion, tends to be a response of fear to sin, and a lack of faith in Jesus' grace. Legalism is NOT merely a strict interpretation of the Bible, but rather an over-emphasis on the law. Having a strict interpretation of scripture without the leading of the spirit can lead to legalism, but a strict interpretation in and of itself is not indicative of legalistic views. I consider myself to have a strict interpretation of scripture, but I do not consider myself to be legalistic.

But there is another facet to legalism, often times legalism is adopted as a means to impress those around you. Not always, I would say the Amish have adopted legalism with the opposite intention, but in most churches legalism is adopted on Sunday morning but immediately forgotten by Sunday afternoon. I may come to Church in my best suit, sit in the front row, and hurry to participate in the Eucharist, but Sunday afternoon I'm cursing out the cable guy because I can't watch my football. It may even be more subliminal than that, perhaps it's having stamped out lust, but turning a blind eye to pride when I smirk and think "HE'S at church? I KNOW he's still sleeping with his girlfriend. Why even bother?" or false humility, "Well, I know I'm evil but at least I didn't do THAT!"

The speaker discusses legalism throughout the poem, but I'd like to highlight a verse:

"The problem with religion, is that it never gets to the core. It's just behavior modification, like a long list of chores" (1:07). 

Now, in the information about the video, he says that this is in regards to "false religion" and not religion itself. He is equating false religion with legalism and self righteousness which is a fallacy, but I'm not going to dive into the logical errors. So, for all intents and purposes we will make the poor (and dangerous) assumption that he actually means legalism and self-righteousness when he says "religion". For the definition of true religion we must look to James 1:27 which says,

"Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their time of distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (NIV)

As a Christian, I must accept James 1:27 as a true definition of religion. If this is the case, then religion is not the process of becoming holy, religion is the the practice of changes made. Legalism would be caring for the widows and the orphans, but only because you HAVE to, or self-righteousness because it looks good. Religion is caring for the widows and the orphans because you WANT to and whether people recognize it or not is neither here nor there. Faith without action is dead (James 2:17) just the same as action without faith does not mean salvation (Romans 4:4-6). However, where I must disagree with the speaker is this idea that behavior modification is bad. We are still called to be Holy.

In 1 Peter 1:13-16, Peter says:

"Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (NIV)

For those of you not familiar with the Old Testament, Peter is quoting a verse from Leviticus where God tells the Jewish people to "Consecrate [themselves] and be Holy because I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 20:7) and "You are to be holy because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the Nations to be my own" (Leviticus 20:26). This is fitting because earlier in 1 Peter, Peter discusses how Christians are now being set apart by God as the Israelites were set apart. He is drawing the connection to the fact that the God of the Old Testament sent Jesus and that Jesus came "not to abolish the law... but to fulfill it" (Matthew 5:17). My interpretation of what Peter is saying is basically that our actions are a reflection on God. In Leviticus, God wants the people to be holy because HE is holy, and if we are his chosen people, then people who have not yet been called will see how we act and assume that that is how God is. But does that mean that we become hypocrites? Showing off our white washed tombs while inside our bodies wither and die? Obviously not. We are also called to "bear with each other in love, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).

See, the difference is not that we are to dress up the outside to look holy, we are commanded to ACTUALLY be holy! Now, I don't doubt that the speaker would agree with this statement. But what I think he fails to convey is that the grace of Jesus is more than just a "get out of jail free card". I fear that in his message to be authentic, one might misunderstand that as being permissive of sin and this is simply not true. There is a difference between not accepting sin and judging others. Now, I don't think he believes that sin is "okay", (though I must admit his video Rob Bell - love wins (remake - Jesus wins) leads me to question this assumption) *UPDATE: after watching his video about Rob Bell in conjunction with Rob Bells it makes more sense. I apologizes for taking the video out of context.* but I fear that he just does not fully convey the seriousness of sin except for his small, ambiguous note of "Yes I believe in sin". Please don't get it twisted that I believe myself holy. I believe the process of becoming holy is a long one, but there is a certain level of "following the rules" because God said so. Once you become a Christian, you are baptized into Christ Jesus' death (Romans 6:3-4) and therefore are dead to your sins (Romans 6:5-7) because the wages of sin  is death (Romans 6:23) but if we already died with Christ and then are made alive in Christ, then we cannot die again (Romans 6:11-14).

He seems to echo a similar sentiment of a haphazard feeling towards sin near the end of the clip when he says,

"See religion says 'do', while Jesus says 'done'. Religion says 'slave' while Jesus says 'son'" (2:50)

Now, this seems to be the same watered-down gospel that gets spouted to non-Believers so that they can be "saved", but ultimately creates a group of luke-warm believers. Jesus does say do. He says to "do onto others as you have them do onto you" (Matthew 7:12). Jesus says to "pick up your cross and follow me" (Luke 9:23). He tells us to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19, Acts 1:8). The Holy Spirit tells us to grow in our faith (2 Peter 1:5-9) and to build one another up in love (1 Corinthians 13), to give generously (2 Corinthians 8), to repent (Colossians 3:5-11) and to love each other (Colossians 3:12-14). The truth is that there is a lot to be done, but we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13). We do not do it alone, but by the grace of God, we are lead away from sin (Titus 2:11-12), given a way out of temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), and given a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26). It is not a matter of saying a prayer and believing that Jesus can save, it is a matter of following him! Yes, it is true that by grace, we do all of these things, and nothing can be done to earn grace, therefore it is the work of the Holy Spirit that allows us to follow Jesus, but once we're following him there must be action because, as stated before, faith without deeds is dead (James 2:17).

We are still a slave, but we were bought from the ownership of sin and taken into the ownership of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:20, Romans 6:15-22). We are not our own, and while yes we are loved by God and heirs to his glory, we are still a slave to righteousness. But these ideas are not mutually exclusive. I cited Romans 6:15-22 which discusses how we were once slaves to sin but then become slaves of God through Jesus. However, Romans 6:23 explains why being a "slave to God" is such a wonderful beautiful thing.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (NIV)

What we earn when we are slaves to Sin is death. What we are GIVEN when we are slaves to God is life! We are both son AND slave. That is the beauty of the Gospel, it isn't a story of either/or, it's a story of both/and. But yet we cannot comprehend these things with our finite understanding so we have to soften it so that non-Christians can understand. We take on the responsibility of conversion when the Holy Spirit is the only one who can make permanent change (Galatians 3:3) and we grab on to pieces of truth and turn it into a lie.

The Devils greatest victory is when he can plant just a small lie in a whole bunch of truth. We say that we are saved through grace not works, which is only true if we continue on to do great works because of the grace. We have boiled out the hard ideas or the "crucifying the sinful desires" part of Paul's letter to the Romans because it's harsh and not pleasant. We forget that God is not only perfectly merciful but perfectly just. We mold the Bible to match our faith and not our faith to match the Bible, casting out ideas such as the sinfulness of sexual immorality or drunkenness, because they don't seem "that bad". And I am not innocent of this! Please notice the use of "we" rather than "you", I am not better than anyone else! But that doesn't mean I shouldn't speak up. That doesn't mean I shouldn't encourage you all to change this as you are all encouraging me to change it myself!

To recap, yes we are freed from death by grace, yes we cannot earn that grace but that's not the end of the story. When Jesus said "it is finished", it was the end of death but the beginning of our work. I think the speaker WANTS there to be good works and I believe that he would agree with what I said, I just fear that, in his attempt to make a new and interesting way of presenting the Gospel and trying to obtain change, he has accidentally missed his whole message. But I would admonish those who had harsh criticism of him. Yes his message missed the mark, but we all do. I encourage him to keep spreading the word, keep pushing the Body, and keep doing God's work that God has set before him. Consider this a loving correction not an angry post. Let us build one another up in love, rather than spread division with anger.

Until next time, God bless.