The Gospel Coalition

Robert Kolb and Charles Arand wrote an incredibly engaging book called The Genius of Luther’s Theology: A Wittenburg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church. I highly, highly recommend it.

Of the book, Michael Horton writes, “Aside from a few slogans and provocative quotes, Luther’s theology is largely unknown in the land that Bonhoeffer called ‘Protestantism without the Reformation.’ Christianity in America desperately needs the wisdom and penetrating insight into gospel logic that is winsomely introduced in this rewarding volume.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Buy it. Today.

I was especially gripped by these sentences written in the context of discussing Luther’s categories of passive and active righteousness (I’m absolutely convinced that if the church understood these two crucially important categories, most of our confusion with regard to law and gospel, faith and works, would go away. For more on passive and active righteousness read this).

Kolb and Arand write:

Living on the basis of Christ’s righteousness involves the recognition that God’s judgement contradicts the judgement that others make about us, as well as the judgement we render on ourselves. Daily life–the home, workplace, community, society–provides the context for an unending series of performance evaluations in which our capabilities and competencies are under constant critique. In these settings and relationships, we are forced to consider how others see us and judge us.

We also have to live with the image that we have of ourselves as we enter the world around us with respect to education, promotions, finances, popularity, and social mobility. Such daily audits of our own self-evaluation and the daily audit of how others evaluate us will continue until death. Nevertheless, the balance sheet does not have the first and last say about my existence.

The passive righteousness of faith ultimately frees us from being determined now and finally by such an audit. It frees me from pronouncing final judgement on myself. The passive righteousness of faith also frees me from what others say about me, for what they say is not the final judgement, but is always provisional.

For faith believes God’s gracious judgement despite all empirical evidence to the contrary. In other words, we cling to the promise regardless of how many times instant replays of our weaknesses and failures flash before my eyes.

Indeed, the gospel not only frees us from what others think about us–it frees us from what we think about ourselves.

Amen!

When talking about “the law”, we need to make an important distinction. We can call it big “L” Law and little “l” law. Big “L” law comes from God and is outlined in the Ten Commandments, reiterated in the Sermon on the Mount, and summarized by Jesus as the command to “Love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength…and love our neighbor” (of course, one could say more but that’s the gist of it). But there’s another law (little “l”) that plays out in all kinds of ways in daily life. Paul Zahl puts it this way:

Law with a small “l” refers to an interior principle of demand or ought that seems universal in human nature. In this sense, law is any voice that makes us feel we must do something or be something to merit the approval of another. For example, what we shall call “the law of capability” is the demand a person may feel that he/she be 100% capable in everything he/she does-or else! In the Bible, the Law comes from God. In daily living, law is an internalized principle of self-accusation. We might say that the innumerable laws we carry inside us are bastard children of the Law.

No one understood the dynamic of how the accusation of the law functions in the human psyche better than Martin Luther. He characterized the Law as, “a voice that man can never stop in this life,” one that can be heard anywhere and everywhere, not just on Sunday morning. It takes any number of forms, but its function remains the same: it accuses. Indeed, the “oughts” of life are as numerous as they are oppressive: infomercials promising a better life if you work at getting a better body, a neighbor’s new car, a beautiful person, the success of your co-worker- all these things have the potential to communicate “you’re not enough.”

The other day I was driving down the road near my house and I passed a sign in front of a store that read, “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” Meant to inspire drivers-by to work hard, live well, and avoid mistakes, it served as a booming voice of law to everyone that read it: “Don’t mess up. There are no second chances. You better get it right the first time.” Again, Paul Zahl chimes in insightfully:

In practice, the requirement of perfect submission to the commandments of God is exactly the same as the requirement of perfect submission to the innumerable drives for perfection that drive everyday people’s crippled and crippling lives. The commandment of God that we honor our father and mother is no different in impact, for example, than the commandment of fashion that a woman be beautiful or the commandment of culture that a man be boldly decisive and at the same time utterly tender.

The world is full to the brim with law. Not just laws of Scripture, laws of science, and tax codes, but lesser, subjective laws. And they cause us enormous grief. Indeed, identity is an area of life frequently mired in legalities: “I must be __________ kind of person, and not ___________ kind of person if I’m ever going to be somebody.”

An environment of law, as we all know, is an environment of fear. We are afraid of the judgment that the law wields. Or as the poet Czeslaw Milosz describes in his poem “A Many-Tiered Man”: “[Man] frightened of a verdict, now, for instance, or after his death.” We instinctively know that if we don’t measure up, the judge will punish us. When we feel this weight of judgment against us, we all tend to slip into the slavery of self-salvation: trying to appease the judge (friends, parents, spouse, ourselves) with hard work, good behavior, getting better, achievement, losing weight, and so on. We conclude, “If I can just stay out of trouble and get good grades, maybe my mom and dad will finally approve of me; If I can overcome this addiction, then I’ll be able to accept myself; If I can get thin, maybe my husband will finally think I’m beautiful; if I can make a name for myself and be successful, maybe I’ll get the respect I long for.”

The law stifles and causes us to second-guess ourselves. Have you ever found yourself writing and rewriting the same email over and over again? Or procrastinating on making a phone call? The recipient almost inevitably has become a stand-in for the law. We put people in this role with alarming facility.

The idea of “law” simply makes sense, and universally so. The Apostle Paul even claims that it is written on the heart (Romans 2:15). In fact, those that don’t believe in God tend to struggle with self-recrimination and self-hatred just as much as those that do; no one is free of guilt—the law is not subject to our belief in it. Some of us even compound our failures and suffering by heaping judgment upon judgment, intoxicated by the voice of “not-enoughness”, not content until we have usurped the role of the only One who is actually qualified to pass a sentence. In a 2005 interview with journalist Michka Assayas, U2 frontman Bono spoke eloquently about Law and Grace in terms of Karma:

At the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. What you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics, every action is met by an equal and opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so will you sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff… I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

Against the tumult of conditionality-punishment and reward, score-keeping, Karma, you-get-what-you-deserve, big “L” Law, little “l” law, whatever name you choose—comes the second of God’s two words, His Grace. Grace is the gift that has no strings attached. It is one-way love. It is what makes the Good News so good, the once for all proclamation the there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). It is the simple equation that Jesus plus Nothing equals Everything.

The Gospel of Grace announces that Jesus came to acquit the guilty-he came to judge and be judged in our place. Christ came to satisfy the deep judgment against us once and for all so that we could be free from the judgment of God, others, and ourselves. He came to give rest to our efforts at trying to deal with judgment on our own. The Gospel declares that our guilt has been atoned for, the law has been fulfilled. So we don’t need to live under the burden of trying to appease the judgment we feel; in Christ the ultimate demand has been met, the deepest judgment has been satisfied. The internal voice that says “Do this and live” only get’s outvolumed by the external voice that says “It is finished!”

Yet there is nothing that is harder for us to wrap our minds around than the unconditional, non-contingent grace of God. In fact, it “defies our reason and logic,” upending our sense of fairness and offending our deepest intuitions, especially when it comes to those who have done us harm. Like Job’s friends, we insist that reality operate according to the predictable economy of reward and punishment. Like the elder brother in the Parable of the Prodigal son, we have worked too hard to give up now. The storm may be raging all around us, our foundations may be shaking, but we would rather perish than give up our “rights.”

Yet still the grace of God prevails! His gracious disposition toward us thankfully does not depend even on our ability to comprehend it. When we finally come to the end of ourselves, there it will be. There He will be. Just as He will be the next time we come to the end of ourselves, and the time after that, and the time after that.

As my dear friends Bert and Christine DeVries testify below, God’s grace becomes functionally real in the context of catastrophe.

Devries Testimony from Coral Ridge | LIBERATE on Vimeo.

“God’s office is at the end of our rope.” John Zahl

Hollywood is not known as a culture of grace. Dog eat dog is more like it. People love you one day and hate you the next. Personal value is very much attached to box office revenues and the unpredictable and often cruel winds of fashion. It was doubly shocking, therefore, when one way love—and its fruit—made such a powerful appearance on the big stage in 2011. The occasion for it was Robert Downey Jr receiving the American Cinematheque Award, a prize given to “an extraordinary artist in the entertainment industry who is fully engaged in his or her work and is committed to making a significant contribution to the art of the motion pictures.” A big deal, in other words. Downey Jr. was allowed to choose who would present him with the award, and he made a bold decision. He selected his one-time co-star Mel Gibson to do the honors.

To say that Mel’s reputation had taken a serious nosedive in recent years would be a severe understatement. An arrest for drunk driving in 2006 in which the actor-director spewed racist and anti-Semitic epithets was followed by public infidelity and a high profile divorce in 2009 and then culminated in 2010 when tapes of a drunken Gibson berating his then-girlfriend in the most foul manner imaginable were released online. Reprehensible does not even begin to describe it. Downey Jr’s ceremony took place a little more than a year after that final incident, the one that rightly cemented Gibson’s place as pariah numero uno in Tinseltown.

Of course, Downey Jr was no stranger to ostracization. In the 1990s, he became something of punchline himself as someone notoriously unable to kick a violent addiction to drugs and alcohol. Arrest after arrest, relapse after relapse, people both in Hollywood and elsewhere began to think of him less as an actor and more as a junkie. Professionally he became a liability—even those who wanted to work with him couldn’t because insurance companies wouldn’t underwrite a film if he was part of the cast. Bit by bit, and with the notable help of some good friends, Downey Jr eventually got sober and his career slowly got back on track. In 2008 he was cast as Iron Man and the rest, as they say, is history. Today he is one of the most beloved and highest grossing actors in the business. So the award coincided with the very height of his popularity and the nadir of Gibson’s. This was his moment of glory.

Instead of using his acceptance speech to give an “aw shucks” to the crowd of adoring colleagues, and doff his hat to his agent and family, Downey Jr did something unprecedented. We’ll let him speak for himself:

I asked Mel to present this award to me for a reason. Because when I couldn’t get sober, he told me not to give up hope, and he urged me to find my faith—didn’t have to be his or someone else’s—as long as it was rooted in forgiveness. And I couldn’t get hired so he cast me in the lead in a movie that was actually developed for him. He kept a roof over my head, and he kept food on the table. And most importantly, he said that if I accepted responsibility for my wrongdoings and embraced that part of my soul that was ugly—”hugging the cactus” he calls it—he said that if I “hugged the cactus” long enough, I would become a man of some humility and my life would take on new meaning. And I did and it worked. All he asked in return was that some day I help the next guy in some small way. It’s reasonable to assume that at the time he didn’t imagine the next guy would be him. Or that some day was tonight.

Anyway, on this special occasion… I humbly ask that you join me—unless you are completely without sin (in which you picked the wrong… industry)—in forgiving my friend his trespasses, offering him the same clean slate you have me, and allowing him to continue his great and ongoing contribution to our collective art without shame. He’s hugged the cactus long enough. [And then they hug].

The short speech not only testifies to the amazing power of one-way love, it is itself a beautiful example of the ‘fruit” of one-way love. At his lowest point, Downey Jr. was shown mercy by Mel Gibson. He didn’t deserve it, his track record was abysmal, but Mel, for whatever reason, took a risk—at great cost to himself. He personally paid down the massive insurance premium for Downey Jr. on 2003′s The Singing Detective so that his friend could get back on his feet. You don’t forget something like that.

Downey Jr’s response was one of gratitude and generosity. His speech may have phrased things in terms of repayment, but Mel’s injunction was obviously an after-the-fact suggestion rather than a condition. Downey Jr’s gesture goes so far beyond any sense of “owing”, especially considering the choice of moment and venue. To associate with Mel in such a public manner, indeed to advocate for him, meant putting Downey Jr’s own reputation on the line. It was a self-sacrificial and even reckless move. There was no possible gain for Downey Jr.; such was the antipathy that Mel inspired. No, his defense of the indefensible was the uncoerced act of a heart that’s been touched by one-way love. There is a direct line from the love Downey Jr was shown to the love he then shows. His supreme generosity is the fruit of grace.

Mel clearly had no idea about what Downey Jr. was planning to do. And Downey Jr’s tone and demeanor make it very clear that he was not putting himself out there under duress—he did it because he wanted to. His ability and desire to show mercy seems almost directly proportional to his personal experience of it, his firsthand knowledge that he is just as much in need of mercy as “the chief of sinners”. His plea, in other words, was rooted in humility about his own sin and gratitude for the love he has been shown, which asserts itself in kind. Belovedness births love. Grace accomplished what no amount of court-ordered, legal remedies ever could: it created a heart that desires to show mercy to the “least of these.”

Of course, as powerful of a story as it is, the episode is not a one-to-one analogy for the Gospel—no story could be. As impressive as Iron Man is, he is not God. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t close. Thankfully, when it comes to God’s grace, there is not even a hint of exchange. No suggestion of payback, or pay it forward. There are no strings attached. Only grace can change a heart and produce law-fulfilling works of mercy, but grace is not dependent on a changed heart or law-fulfilling works of mercy. Grace alone produces the conditions that induce change, but grace is not conditional on change. It is pure gift. Our greatest hope. Our only comfort. Our deepest relief.

It is one way love.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World)

Boldness, security, generosity, love, peace, confidence, courage, compassion. This is what life begins to look like when your heart is grasped by the fact everything you need, in Christ you already possess:

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The Apostle Paul (Romans 12:9-21)

At LIBERATE 2013, my good friend David Zahl (Founder and Director of Mockingbird Ministries) delivered an incredibly insightful talk on grace and media. This truly is a must see:

Liberate 2013 – David Zahl from Coral Ridge | LIBERATE on Vimeo.

In 2012, The Guardian published an excoriating email sent by retired Royal Navy officer Nick Crews to his son and two daughters. It quickly became a viral sensation. The letter lists, in remarkably colorful language, all the misery that the three grown children had put him and their mother through, from failed marriages and careers and poor finances and fears about their grandchildren’s well-being. The final paragraph is particularly vicious:

I can now tell you that I for one, and I sense Mum feels the same, have had enough of being forced to live through the never-ending bad dream of our children’s underachievement and domestic ineptitude’s. I want to hear no more from any of you until, if you feel inclined, you have a success or an achievement or a REALISTIC plan for the support and happiness of your children to tell me about. I don’t want to see your mother burdened any more with your miserable woes — it’s not as if any of the advice she strives to give you has ever been listened to with good grace — far less acted upon. So I ask you to spare her further unhappiness. If you think I have been unfair in what I have said, by all means try to persuade me to change my mind. But you won’t do it by simply whining and saying you don’t like it. You’ll have to come up with meaty reasons to demolish my points and build a case for yourself. If that isn’t possible, or you simply can’t be bothered, then I rest my case.

I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

Dad

Wow! Any parent can relate to Mr. Crews’ frustration. And many of us can probably relate to his children, and the disapproval they must have felt. It does not sound like Mr. Crews is making things up. He and his wife apparently have every reason to be so bitterly disappointed and angry. Like the Law itself, the content of his missive may be well-founded, and their standards for their children may be perfectly reasonable (and righteous). But expectations, as they say, are planned resentments; law and bitterness are frequent bedfellows. We expect people not to be self-centered sinners and when they turn out to be just that, we get angry and blame them!

Do you think that the letter had the effect Mr. Crews intended? Absolutely not! I don’t care who you are, no one responds to a letter like that by saying, “By golly, Dad, thanks for pointing these things out. Now that I know how much pain we’ve caused and how irresponsible we’ve been, starting tomorrow, that’s all over.” Of course, the law may work… for a little while. Guilt and fear can be powerful motivators in the short run. What they cannot do is change a heart from self-seeking to self-sacrificing. The letter may have succeeded in scaring the kids straight for a spell, but fear of further berating would be the driving factor, not the genuine desire to fly right. What’s much more likely is that the children were so hurt and offended that they struck back at their father by releasing his letter to an international media outlet, so that he might be castigated and humiliated by the public. Which is precisely what happened. His email backfired. Instead of bringing his children closer, it pushed them further away. This is an echo of what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote that “the law was added so that the trespass might increase” (Romans 5:20)

It makes me sad that some pastors invoke Mr. Crews’ tactics from the pulpit. Frustrated with their congregation’s failure to come to church enough, get involved enough, give enough money, pray enough, read their Bible enough, invite their friends enough, so many pastors use their position to send verbal letters, “How can you afford your fancy SUV but not give more to the church?! How can you take your kid to their soccer game every Sunday but never bring them to youth group?!” Pastors who resent their congregations are just like husbands who resent their wives—the resulting guilt may produce some modified behavior for a while, but estrangement and rebellion is inevitable. The only difference is that a congregation has every right to expect that their pastor will preach a little Good News every Sunday. Make no mistake: over time, preachers who major on law and behavior rather than grace and faith will empty their pews and create refugees. Human DNA simply cannot bear the weight of the law indefinitely.

Musician Rich Mullins once wrote, “I have attended church regularly since I was less than a week old. I’ve listened to sermons about virtue, sermons against vice. I have heard about money, time management, tithing, abstinence, and generosity. I’ve listened to thousands of sermons. But I could count on one hand the number of sermons that were a simple proclamation of the gospel of Christ.” It’s not just Rich. I received the following letter a few weeks ago from someone I’ve never met. He wrote:

Over the last couple of years, we have really been struggling with the preaching in our church as it has been very law laden and moralistic. After listening, I feel condemned with no power to overcome my lack of ability to obey. Over the last several months, I have found myself very spiritually depressed, to the point where I had no desire to even attend church. Pastors are so concerned about somehow preaching “too much grace” (as if that is possible) because they wrongly believe that type of preaching leads to antinomianism or licentiousness. But, I can testify that the opposite is actually true. I believe preaching only the law, and giving little to no gospel, actually leads to lawless living. When mainly law is preached, it leads to the realization that I can’t follow it, so I might as well quit trying. At least, that’s what has happened to me.

So sad. And frustrating. The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn’t make people work harder, it makes them give up. Moralism doesn’t produce morality; rather, it produces immorality. The Onion brilliantly parodied this dynamic with its article, “Where Are All These ‘Loose Women’ My Pastor Keeps Warning Me About?” in which a fictional 17 year-old kid laments that he never seems to run into any of the promiscuous ladies that he hears about at church so often. The humor is based in reality. It is no coincidence, for example, that the straight-laced Leave It to Beaver generation preceded the ‘free love’ movement of the 1960s. We live in a country where the state most known for its wholesomeness and frugality, Utah, also leads the country in rates of pornography consumption and antidepressant prescriptions.

We make a big mistake when we conclude that the law is the answer to bad behavior. In fact, the law alone stirs up more of such behavior. People get worse, not better, when you lay down the law. To be sure, the Spirit does use both God’s law and God’s gospel in our sanctification. But the law and the gospel do very different things. The law reveals sin but is powerless to remove it. It points to righteousness but can’t produce it. It shows us what godliness is, but it cannot make us godly. As Martin Luther said, “Sin is not canceled by lawful living, for no person is able to live up to the Law. Nothing can take away sin except the grace of God.” The law apart from the gospel can only crush; it cannot cure.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book One-Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World)

I can’t believe that Liberate 2013 has come and gone. This was our second annual Liberate conference (you can read about last years inaugural conference here).

This years theme was Grace in Practice. Over 1500 people from 33 states and 3 countries gathered at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale to hear from Bryan Chapell, Steve Brown, David Zahl, Mark Galli, Paul Tripp, Tony Merida, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Paul Zahl, Sally Lloyd-Jones, Ray Ortlund, the White Horse Inn, and Shane and Shane, to explore grace in the Christian life, personal failure, families, the church, theology, suffering, pop-culture, and more. It was an amazing three days.

If you couldn’t make it this year, make plans to join us next year (Feb. 20-23, 2014) when we’ll hear from Matt Chandler, J.D. Greear, Andy Crouch, Paul Tripp, Justin Holcomb, David Zahl, Scotty Smith, Steve Brown, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Sally Lloyd-Jones, the White Horse Inn, and many more on the theme of “One-Way Love.”

Below is my Friday Night message at Liberate 2013–”God’s Two Words: Law and Gospel.” I hope you’ll find it helpful.

Liberate 2013 – Tullian Tchividjian from Coral Ridge | LIBERATE on Vimeo.

One of the most enduring works of art over the past two hundred years is Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Rarely does a decade go by without a fresh film adaptation or staging of the classic musical it inspired. Les Mis has stood the test of time for good reason; it is an incredibly moving story of redemption, one that deals with the deepest themes of human life: mercy and guilt, justice and inequality, God and man, men and women, parents and children, forgiveness and punishment, and yes, the relationship of grace and law. It is also a notorious tearjerker. Like a true artist, Hugo burrows inside the ribcage and plays a symphony on our heartstrings. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the entire story hinges on a stunning act of one-way love.

Out on parole after nineteen years in a French prison, protagonist Jean Valjean is denied shelter at several respectable establishments because his passport identifies him as a former convict. He is finally taken in by a kindly bishop, Bishop Bienvenu. Valjean repays his host by running off in the middle of the night with the church silver. When the police catch up to him, Valjean lies and claims that the Bishop had given him the silver as a gift. They drag him back to the bishops house, where Bienvenu not only validates Valjean’s deception but chastises him for not accepting the candlesticks as well. Jean Valjean is utterly confounded. His identity up until that point has been that of thief, prisoner, number, sinner. Now he has been “seen” as human and shown mercy. But it is more than mercy, isn’t it? Mercy would involve simply dropping the charges, but the bishop goes further—he actually rewards Valjean for his transgression! Bienvenu acts, in other words, in the polar opposite way than what would be expected of him. He is not wise or responsible. He treats Valjean recklessly, overruling what the law—literally standing in front of him—demands. He takes a major risk and blesses this criminal who has shown no ability to act in a non-shameful way. His love has everything to do with the sacrifice of the one doing the loving rather than the merit of the beloved. Needless to say, when I first saw the scene portrayed on the screen I fell to pieces.

This one surprising act throws Valjean into complete breakdown mode, causing him to question absolutely everything in his life and the world. In the musical, his bewilderment at the goodness which has been shown him is made plain when he sings:

One word from him and I’d be back
Beneath the lash, upon the rack
Instead he offers me my freedom
I feel my shame inside me like a knife
He told me that I have a soul,
How does he know?
What spirit comes to move my life?
Is there another way to go?

There is another way to go, thanks be to God, the way of Grace as opposed to Law. It is this way that Valjean takes from this moment forward—or I should say, the way that takes him. He doesn’t become a superhuman or even any less of a broken vessel, but from here on out, his life is fueled more by gratitude than greed, giving than receiving, love than fear. This one moment of grace changes him in a way that a lifetime of punishment never could. In fact, Valjean’s heroic, self-sacrificing actions in the rest of the novel flow directly from the word he hears from the bishop, which is the word of the Gospel.

Just as it is difficult to experience forgiveness without some knowledge of what you have done wrong, so it is difficult to understand the Gospel apart from the Law. If the Law is God’s first word, the Gospel is His last.

Listen closely: the law exposes Valjean (and us), while grace exonerates him. The law diagnoses, but grace delivers. The law accuses, the gospel acquits. The law condemns the best of us, while grace saves the worst of us. The law says cursed, the gospel says blessed. The law says slave, the gospel says son. The law says guilty, the gospel says forgiven. The law can break a hard heart, but only grace can heal one. Which is precisely what happens to Valjean. He may be a fictional character, but our response to his predicament is not fictional. The tears come because each one of us is dying to be treated this way. The scene gets us in touch with that one time that someone did show us a little sympathy when we deserved reproach.

It points us, in other words, to the truth at the very heart of the universe, the one-way love of God for sinners.

The gospel doxologically declares that because of Christ’s finished work for you, you already have all of the justification, approval, security, love, worth, meaning, and rescue you long for and look for in a thousand different people and places smaller than Jesus.

The gospel announces that God doesn’t relate to us based on our feats for Jesus but Jesus’ feats for us.

Because Jesus came to secure for us what we could never secure for ourselves, life doesn’t have to be a tireless effort to establish ourselves, justify ourselves, validate ourselves.

He came to rescue us from the slavish need to be right, rewarded, regarded, and respected. He came to relieve us of the burden we inherently feel “to get it done.”

The gospel announces that it’s not on me to ensure that the ultimate verdict on my life is pass and not fail.

This means you don’t have to transform the world to matter, you don’t have to get good grades to secure your own worth, you don’t have to be a success to justify your existence.

Because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak; Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one; Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary; Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail. Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose.

But hold on…wait a minute…

Doesn’t this unconditional declaration generate apathy–an “I don’t care” posture toward life?

If it’s true that Jesus paid it all, that it is finished, that my value, worth, security, freedom, justification, and so on is forever fixed, than why do anything? Doesn’t grace undercut ambition? Doesn’t the gospel weaken effort?

Understandable question.

But the truth is, gospel grace actually empowers risk-taking effort and neighbor-embracing love.

You see, the thing that prevents us from taking great risks is the fear that if we don’t succeed, we’ll lose out on something we need in order to be happy and so we live life playing our cards close to the chest…relationally, vocationally, spiritually.

We measure our investments carefully because we need a return–we’re afraid to give because it might not work out and we need it to work out.

But, because everything we need in Christ we already possess, we can take great risks, push harder, go farther, and leave it all on the field without fear. We can invest with reckless abandon because we don’t need to ensure a return of success, love, meaning, validation, and approval. We can invest freely and forcefully because we’ve been freely and forcefully invested in.

The fear of not knowing whether I’ll get a return is replaced by the freedom of knowing we already have everything: because everything I need, in Christ I already possess, I’m now free to do everything for you without needing you to do anything for me.

I can now actively spend my life giving instead of taking, going to the back instead of getting to the front, sacrificing myself for others instead of sacrificing others for myself.

The gospel alone liberates you to live a life of scandalous generosity, unrestrained sacrifice, uncommon valor, and unbounded courage.

When you don’t have anything to lose, you discover something wonderful: you’re free to take great risks without fear or reservation.

This is the difference between approaching all of life from salvation and approaching all of life for salvation; it’s the difference between approaching life from our acceptance, and not for our acceptance; from love not for love.

So, what are you going to do now that you don’t have to do anything…