Christian Law, Jewish Grace
Correcting a Dangerous False Dichotomy
One of the most preposterous and vicious false dichotomies of all time has to be the law/grace issue wherein antinomian Christian theologians of history have posited a severe and oppositional contrast between law and grace such that neither can even exist in the presence of the other. For most such teachers law iis antipodal to grace; grace is the antithesis of law. Even more seriously, for some, law actually destroys grace, and grace destroys law.
The very idea that there is no grace in God’s law and that there is no law in God’s grace is preposterous. At the same time, the idea is vicious and debilitating in its consequences for both Jewish and Christian communities—though for distinctly different reasons, as we shall see.
Religio Licita
Earliest Christianity was faced with a dilemma: if it claimed to be a “new religion,” it was ipso facto illegitimate and destined for persecution and extinction by the dominant Roman Empire. In order to achieve the Roman designation religio licita (“permitted religion”) and avoid such undesirable results, therefore, Christianity had to attach itself to an ancient religion that was for the Roman Empire a religio licita of Judaism. This posed another dilemma for the early Christians, however, for if Gentilized Christianity were to acknowledge its inherent Jewishness too closely it was vulnerable to charges of illegitimacy by the leaders of Judaism and to the loss of its adherents to the Jewish faith.
The post-first-century church was left with the task of walking a tightrope to maintain its legitimacy in Rome by affirming its connection with Judaism while at the same time distancing itself from the Jews in order to maintain its own distinct—and separate—corporate identity.
Replacement Theology
This was accomplished with an ever-increasing teaching of supersessionism that maintained Christianity’s choice by God as a replacement for Judaism and Christians’ being chosen by God to replace the Jews. The church continued to recognize the Hebrew Scriptures as the “Old Testament” that had been superseded by the “New Testament” Apostolic Writings. In effect, the church hijacked the Jewish Scriptures by adopting an almost exclusively allegorical interpretative methodology that made it possible for the church to conscript all the blessings of the TaNaKh for itself while leaving all the curses for the Jews!
In this kind of approach to Holy Scripture, the church was able to pick and choose from a biblical smorgasbord. What it liked—or desperately needed to validate itself or its practices—it moved to its plate. What it did not like, it left for the Jews. Increasingly, what it left for the Jews was described as a “curse,” “legalism,” “bondage,” and worse. What it kept was good, spiritual, liberating, joyous, full of grace.
Reformation Dichotomy
When the Reformation came in the sixteenth century, an even more novel approach to the law/grace dichotomy emerged as Protestant leaders sought means of invalidating the theology and polity of the established Western Church while establishing the authenticity of their own concepts and practices. Martin Luther and others created a parallel between Roman Catholicism and “the Law” while identifying Protestantism with “grace.” This, in effect, initiated an ever-expanding effort to render “the Law” as being entirely a bondage-gendering enemy of Christian faith that had been destroyed by Jesus with the introduction of “Grace.” “Grace,” then, could not stand in the presence of or be influenced by “Law.” If anything that portended of “Law” was present, then the dreaded legalism or—even worse, “Galatianism” —was present and clearly had to be annihilated.
But What about Christian Law
It is a simple fact that while the Torah (the Pentateuch) contains 613 commandments, the Apostolic Scriptures contain more than 1,000 commandments. And, in fact, the so-called “New Testament” contains at least one “new” law that Jesus himself gave to Christians: “That you love one another even as I have loved you” (John 13:34), which is a commandment to love one another more than one loves one’s self!
Scripture describes te New Covenant itself in this manner: “[Jesus] is the mediator of a better covenant . . . This is the covenant that I will make with them: I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them” (Hebrews 8:10; 10:16). The “New Covenant,” then, is a covenant of laws—and, indeed, they are same laws that God gave at Sinai, not a new watered-down version from Calvary. The only difference between the “New Covenant” and the “Old” is that the Sinai Covenant was written on stone tablets and parchments, while the New Covenant is to be written in the hearts and minds of the believers (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10).
This is why James called the Torah of Christ “the perfect law of freedom” (James 1:25). Christ’s law is not a new law. Indeed, Jesus himself affirmed, “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets, for until heaven and earth pass, not one yod or tittle will pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17-18). By writing God’s laws on the hearts of believers, Jesus made it possible for that law to be fulfilled in their lives by the Holy Spirit, the lawgiver himself. Paul confirms this truth: “Do we through faith make void the law: God forbid. Yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31).
Where there is no law, there is no liberty. Divine law is the foundation of the order of existence. Christian faith, therefore, rests on a foundation of God’s system of order and purpose. Christianity is not only a system of faith and grace, it is a system of law and order!
Then, There Is Christian Legalism
Most Christians consider the words legalism and Judaism synonymous. All legalism is Jewish, according to Christian tradition. The truth is that Christianity in all of its manifestations contains legalisms: there is Catholic legalism, Presbyterian legalism, Methodist legalism, Baptist legalism, Pentecostal legalism, and countless others. Legalism is merely the addition any human requirements to the instructions of God or any effort to force people to conform to a written or tacit code of conduct that is not specifically established in Holy Scripture. Every Christian denomination has its own set of codes for conduct that forces its adherents to comport themselves in a specific manner. Christianity, therefore, is as much involved in legalisms as Judaism ever was or is. As an example, some Christians are more legalistic about Sunday observance than Jews are about Sabbath observance!
Jewish Grace?
The greatest mischaracterization of the Jewish religion has been its caricature as a legalistic system of slavery that produces a wooden, ritualized bondage that keeps Jews from enjoying the goodness of God. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Biblical Judaism was a religion solidly established in grace and faith. The Jewish people of biblical times understood that their lives rested in the chesed (tender mercies and grace) of God. They also understood that God’s mercies never end, that they are new every morning! One Psalm even concludes every statement with “For his mercies endure forever” (Psalm 136).
It was not until the first century that some Jews began to consider that their status before God was maintained by their own personal works of obedience to the Torah. Later, fundamental idea became enshrined in rabbinic Judaism’s system of “doing mitzvot [commandments].” Some even came to think of works of obedience to the Torah as almost a kind of balancing of karma with good deeds balancing out sins.
It was in reaction to this idea of “works righteousness” that Paul argued forcefully: “for by grace through faith are ye saved” (Ephesians 2:8). He was merely maintaining the tradition of prophets and sages of centuries of Jewish thought.
Even in all the extremes of doing mitzvot, however, there was always an underlying understanding in Judaism that every person stood in the grace of God’s tender mercies.
Rethinking the False Dichotomy
It’s time for Christians to rethink this ancient and tragic law vs. grace dichotomy. While it is true that there is law in Judaism, it is also true that there is law in Christianity. While it is true that there is grace in Christianity, it is also true that there is grace in Judaism. Old stereotyping dies hard, however. Christians must follow the lead of Jesus, Paul, James, John, and Peter in recovering the balanced understanding of law and grace in Christianity, and they must cease and desist from their libelous caricatures of Jews and Judaism as legalists who are void of grace and faith.
