Camille Paglia analyzes our present cultural attitudes toward evil and how those attitudes affect campus life...

Christian Theology: Grace vs. Law

The Law (the Ten Commandments etc.) and Grace (God's unmerited favor which Jesus purchased on the cross) cannot be in the same room with one another.

The Law is lesser than Grace; Grace is greater. If Grace is not greater, then Jesus died for nothing. Jesus, who is Grace Personified, kept the Law and paid for all the infractions against it. He was able to do this because He was Perfect in Everything. He paid for all, not some, all infractions against the Law. Once He did that and if we call Him "Lord," dragging our behavior back into the picture also drags back in the Law. When we focus on our behavior instead of Jesus' Love, we reduce the importance, the glory, the magnificence, the power and the majesty of the Cross to insignificance in the light of our failure according to the Law. We magnify our sin and reduce the Lord Jesus. And, we, in effect, call God a liar. We say to God, "We are not what You say, "the redeemed; joint heirs; children of God; brothers of Christ, " we are still sinners." Any time human beings focus on their behavior, good or bad, it is a guaranteed, automatic FAIL. That is because it becomes all about us and how well we've kept the Law and not about Jesus.

The Apostle John refers to himself in his Gospel as "the disciple Jesus loved." I'd always thought he did this because he didn't want to call attention to himself. Matthew carefully tells his Gospel account in third person and Mark, in a practical, pragmatic fashion, relates the facts with simplicity in his Gospel. (Luke was not  one of the disciples, but a physician who set about to write the early history of the church, the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, and does so with affection and detail.) But John simultaneously distances and personalizes his account by calling himself "the disciple Jesus loved."

Mark tells us Jesus called John and his brother, "Sons of Thunder," teasing them for wanting Jesus to punish a town that rejected their presence, Mark 3:17. And John's mother approached Jesus asking Him to place her two sons, James and John, one on His left and the other on His right, when He enters His Kingdom, Matthew 20:21-23. However, when Mark tells the story, he sets the responsibility fully on James and John, Mark 10:35-37. John is not the pure driven snow. He's temperamental, vindictive and power hungry. Yet, in his Gospel, John almost always refers to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved."

We see Peter in action, the bold, impetuous disciple who blurts out the first thing that comes into his head, once declaring the revelation, "Jesus, You ARE Messiah," and another time imploring Jesus not to go to seeking death, for which Jesus said, "Get thee behind me satan," Matthew 16:21-23. During the Last Supper, Jesus explains that soon they'll all scatter and hide because He is going to a very bad death. Peter replies he will never deny Jesus, Mark 14:27-31; Luke 22:31-38; John 13:36-38. In his heart he is firm in his resolve, commitment and love, but when confronted in the courtyard outside the Jesus' first sham trial, he fails. Not only does he prove incapable of laying down his life, he is incapable of even admitting he knows Jesus at all.  Peter boldly declared, "I will follow you. I will lay down my life for you," John 13:37. The Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai promised, "We will keep the Law," and no sooner had the words escaped their lips than the Israelites built an idol in the shape of a calf and worshiped it, breaking the most important commandment of all. And like them, no sooner had Peter's declaration escaped his lips than he denied even knowing Jesus.

Here's the scene: John was the disciple with the contacts able to gain admittance to the courtyard of the building where the Pharisees' and their soldiers took Jesus for His first illegal trial. He managed to get Peter into the courtyard, but John, with higher credentials, went on into the room where the Pharisees questioned Jesus. Later, we see John standing at the foot of the cross--the only Apostle with the balls to be there; all the others had run away and hidden themselves on the night of Jesus' arrest, one losing his clothing in his mad rush, Mark 14:51 & 52.

What gave John the balls to stick with Jesus all the way? It wasn't his temperamental attitude nor his desire for power. Raging at the Pharisees would have gotten him crucified along with Jesus and there was no power to be gained following the Lord to the foot of the cross--at least not in the temporal and immediately obvious sense. The Man, Jesus, endured three trials during which the accusers each took their turns beating, mocking and humiliating Him. There's no power for John to gain in the midst of that apparent disaster. Yet John was either present or nearby throughout Jesus' entire ordeal. All of Peter's burning desire to follow Jesus to death, his will power to honor Jesus with his whole being, amounted to nothing. He couldn't even remain true to Jesus in the face of a servant girl who insisted Peter had been with Him, Luke 22:54-57.

What's the difference? The difference is the focus. Peter focused on behavior--his behavior. He said things like, "I will follow You to the death," and "I will never deny You." John, whose behavior was clearly bad, focused on Jesus' love for him. Jesus' LOVE gave John the power to follow Jesus from the Garden of Gethsemane, through the courts and to the cross. Peter's "I will" amounted to worse than nothing. John's revelation of Jesus' vast LOVE made it possible for him to do anything, and this was before Pentecost.

When we focus on behavior, we're looking at the wrong thing. As human beings, for us, it's all about behavior. It's about rules and regs. And we put ourselves back under the Law when we do that. And so, like the Israelites and Peter, when we focus on behavior, the Law and our intentions to keep it, our words espousing our will power to do what we promise amount to worse than nothing; our "I will" is a guaranteed, automatic FAIL. But, if like John, we focus on Jesus' LOVE for us, we can do anything. A good place to start, follow the Apostle John's example and think of ourselves as "the one Jesus LOVES," then we can do anything, even keep the Law.