Law and Grace

Four common errors in understanding this relationship

I’ve been preparing for another Rule of Life workshop this coming Friday, which is to say that I am tinkering with the slideshow and notes I have prepared for past workshops. It doesn’t matter that I’ve done this workshop many times before. I am a constant, incorrigible improver.

For one, I am hoping to be clearer this time on why a rule of life is not a form of legalism. (Incidentally, I don’t think this hesitation was addressed in the recent online conversation at Mere Orthodoxy about a rule of life practice, though it’s a common question I field.)

In the past, when I show participants some of the possible ways they might conceive of their ordinary, everyday faithfulness to God and to neighbor—commitments like “I will practice Sabbath weekly” or “I will not check my phone for the first hour of my day, which I will dedicate instead to prayer and Bible reading” or “I will invite my mother to lunch every Sunday”—many assume we’re dancing a little too closely to the line of “salvation by works, rather than grace.” They are tempted to cry legalistic foul. They have distaste for—and suspicion about—effort in the spiritual life, as if raising a finger or bearing a load is antithetical to trusting God’s work on our behalf.

I think this is mistaken and unhelpful.

It makes me think of a recent essay I read in Plough, which details a man’s descent into (and out of) addiction. The turning point comes when he meets a Christian who commends to him a course of prayerful action. Not just action, mind you—and not just prayer. The author, Jordan Castro, describes the excruciatingly slow and painful process of change. “It involved making many small decisions over time. My will and perspective were deformed, so it also involved doing things I did not want to do. . . . But I had to take responsibility for myself and stop blaming others.” Recovery involved habits of prayer dependence, of gratitude, of truth-telling.

“In order to do this,” Castro writes, “I had to get comfortable with paradox: freedom in discipline, power in humility; self-esteem in repentance, expansiveness in the apparent narrowness of specific and definite choices.” You may know that I’ve written a whole book on paradox, one section of which deals with the larger paradox of faith’s relationship to works: “God works in us, to will and to work for his own good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:12). So who does this working: God or human beings? Yes.

To reject the role of grace-empowered effort is a sore misunderstanding of the life of the Christian. It misunderstands the nature of salvation by grace through faith and the transformation that grace intends. As Dallas Willard said, grace is opposed to earning, not effort. If anyone thinks the Christian never has to exercise self-control, never has to exert himself in any real and material way for the love of God and neighbor, then he is likely to fall, not into legalism, but other errors.

At the risk of sounding like I’m teaching a theology class (which I would be ill-equipped to do), I want rather to bring you some ideas from a helpful book I read this year and continue to think about. It’s J. de Waal Dryden’s A Hermeneutic of Wisdom: Recovering the Formative Agency of Scripture. I’ve mentioned this book before, which you may remember, but I don’t think I engaged it in any meaningful way.

Today, I want to reflect on Dryden’s insight into the 4 common misunderstandings of the relationship between faith and works. Bear with me because I think this really does have practical implications. It answers the question: what role do I play in my own transformation? What responsibilities are mine?

First, Legalism.

This is likely the error we most readily recognize, especially if we’re Protestants. Most simply stated, legalism is currying God’s favor through law-keeping. Drdyen argues this isn’t really about earning our way into heaven as much as believing that God is reluctant to show grace. God needs to be buttered up, and we will gain his notice by our careful, even extravagant measures of obedience. We will be good—and God will be good to us. There is a focus on rigid external conformity to the law of God, and the ultimate savior is oneself (and one’s faithful efforts).

In a legalistic frame, law-keeping releases more grace.

Second, Antinomianism.

Unlike legalism, which seizes upon God’s law as a means of releasing grace, antinomianism represents a rejection of the law (antinomos). It does not grant any understanding of the law’s “continuing function” or right relationship to faith. An antinomian reading of Scripture emphasizes humanity’s sinfulness and “gross inadequacy” to meet the “demands of God’s righteousness.” Forgiveness (and salvation by grace) is the endpoint, the destination of the Christian life. There’s less talk of transformation—and far more emphasis on the good news that our sin is forgiven, our debt cancelled. Freedom is understood as freedom from the demands of God’s law, rather than freedom for newness of life.

In an antinomian frame, grace opposes law-keeping, as if it’s antithetical to the gospel.

Third, Moralism.

Similar to legalism, a moralist observes ethical imperatives. However, the standard of “righteousness” is not God’s law but rather, universal principles of love and justice and rightness. A legalist hews closely to the Bible, while a moralist hews closely to other ethical sensibilities and priorities (likely derived from culture). A secularist can be a moralist, insisting on inviolable laws and harsh judgment for those who breach them. There is even the case of the Christian moralist, who does not root the call to kindness, as one example, in the story of the gospel and the work of Jesus Christ but rather in the social imperative of courtesy. For the moralist, the law is self-evident—and it is not grace that helps one conform to this law but rather education and self-improvement.

In a moralist frame, grace and divine law are exchanged for self-help and the ethics du jour.

Four, Authenticity.

It’s here readers in this space might want to pay the most attention—because the error of authenticity feels so right. Authenticity, as Dryden says, is a close cousin of antinomianism. It is against the law as a source of external demand. The authentic person wants to live from the inside-out, not the outside in. They want their actions to align with their deeply held convictions and values, and they reject duty as a form of hypocrisy. If they don’t feel it, they don’t do it. Here’s Dryden: “Faith in this context, understood as a description of an inner emotional state, will always be more important than rules or habits.”

In an authentic frame, the only reliable law is one’s inner desires—and grace is less important than emotional conviction.

Here’s where Dryden’s formulation is particularly perceptive (and I do hope you’re following along). Antinomianism and authenticity are both rejections of external demand. I won’t have slavery to the law or be made to feel dutiful! I am free! By contrast, legalism and moralism reject grace and the promise of the gospel. I will try harder, and by trying harder, I’ll have a righteousness about which to boast.

All four are errors.

Dryden again: “Gospel proclamation promises not only forgiveness but the redemption of human agency” (72). It’s to say that the gospel is BOTH forgiveness AND effort. To the legalist and moralist, the gospel says: reckon with your moral inadequacy. Apart from Christ, you were dead in your trespasses. Confess your sin, and receive God’s forgiveness. This is the only stable place from which to begin and sustain the efforts of Christian discipleship, lest you become proud and self-righteous or broken and despairing.  To the antinomian and seeker of authenticity, the gospel says: forgiveness is the beginning, but it is not the end. You are free, not from the demands of the law of love, but for its demands. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. God has predestined you, not simply for eternal harp-strumming, but that you might be conformed to the image of his Son. Train, not try.

We come now, full circle, to a rule of life practice. A rule of life isn’t meant to earn you brownie points with God (legalism), nor is it meant to increase conformity to social codes of justice and love (moralism). But neither is it a rejection of the role of dutiful effort (authenticity) and obedience (antinomianism) in the spiritual life. In fact, a rule of life appreciates the idea that sometimes your heart doesn’t change until your hands and your feet go ahead of you. Lunch with your mother won’t change your heart of resentment towards her—but it may be the occasion for a new prayerful dependence, even an occasion for the proximity that allows for a changed perspective. An hour without your cell phone so that you are free to read the Bible and pray won’t transform you overnight—but it will immerse you in a different story than the one Instagram is telling. Practicing the Sabbath weekly is no magic formula—but it just might grant you the rest from your hapless and harmful addition to productivity and inspire new loves.

As with the case of the addict in the Plough essay, a new freedom was discovered in Christ: not to do as he pleased but to be conformed (and also conform himself) to God’s reality. “There are things that thou shalt not, and things that thou shalt. The path is narrow. We are characters in the great drama written by the author of life: free to stray from the logic of the story —from what is proper given our personhood, circumstance, and so on — but when we do, this makes for something incoherent and unreadable.”

Castro was baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—and then daily, he walked, by the help of the indwelling Spirit, in the promise of his newness of life. He chose, even as he was chosen. He received forgiveness—and also power for obedience.

As I write in Surprised by Paradox, “The curse of the law is that we cannot keep it. The evidence of grace is that we should want to.” This is the truth that challenges the legalist, the moralist, the antinomian, and the seeker of authenticity.

In other words, you and me

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