It is one of the most soul-ruining delusions among the generality of professors in our day, that they are guilty of spiritual bigamy; they think they must have two husbands, Christ and the law both;… this makes Christ’s righteousness only a foot stool on which self-righteousness mounts the throne.
-Ralph Erskine
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18 responses to “Spiritual Bigamy”
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Thanks for this great quote. I have heard folks suggest that the two (law and grace) have to be held in tension with each other, and given equal weight. I disagree. I think that the (penultimate) one, which is law, has to lead so that it can be subsumed by the bigger (ultimate) other. To say otherwise is to suggest that the cart and the horse have to be assigned the same role. Grace and law do not have the same amount of gravity. Grace has _more_ gravity than law. While they can have a connection, they function differently, and only one of them does the heavy lifting. Until they are ordered properly their relationship, their relationship does not make sense. The cart cannot pull the horse. But the horse can pull the cart. Santa Claus must ultimately bow down at the foot of the manger. In Christianity, we proclaim the good news, that this has happened.
…and is true.
Thanks David, for this wonderful quote from Ralph Erskine, a great Scot and a great Presbyterian. There is a book called _The Beauties of Ralph Erskine _ by McMillan which contains many of his law/gospel quotes. You will love it if you don’t already have it.
Interesting. In the spirit of interesting dialogue (and not necessarily disagreement): If the Law is love, is love penultimate to grace?
The law commands love, but cannot create it. The law describes love. I do not think the law is love in the same way that I do not think the law is the same thing as grace. Just riffing, JZ
So, you would say law is the demand to love rather than love itself.
Yep. For example:
Law –> Love the Lord with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Grace –> We love because He first loved us.
So, love is not penultimate to grace… the conditional demand is.
I’m not quick to distinguish between the two, but I tend to think that grace is the ingredient that makes love loving. Love that is not gracious tends to have strings attached, and is more concerned with a result than with the subject toward whom the love is directed.
Would you not characterize grace as a facet of love instead?
This is a tricky distinction to make because love is both law and gospel. The command to love the Lord with all my heart kills my self sufficiency and out of the ashes: the fruit of the Spirit (and of Grace): love. True love, a reflection of God’s perfect Law, is always birthed from Grace and carries with it the sanctifying characteristics seen in the often-referenced 1 Corinthians 13:4.
Here’s a stimulating quote from J.L Packer on the subject:
“But the love-or-law antithesis is false, just as the down-grading of law is perverse. Love and law are not opponents but allies, forming together the axis of true morality. Law needs love as its drive, else we get the Pharisaism that puts principles before people and says one can be perfectly good without actually loving one’s neighbor. The truest and kindest way to see situationism is as a reaction against real or imaginary Pharisaism. Even so it is a jump from the frying pan into the fire, inasmuch as correctness, however cold, does less damage than lawlessness, however well-meant. And love needs law as its eyes, for love (Christian agape as well as sexual eros) is blind. To want to love someone Christianly does not of itself tell you how to do it. Only as we observe the limits set by God’s law can we really do people good.
Hmmm… I might have some issue with Dr. Packer there (if you could imagine that). I think a better way to look at the imperatives in Paul would be “encouragement”. One of the characteristics of Law is that it carries with it a condition. If, then. “Do this and you shall live.”
This is a big debate in our circles. I’m not as bullish on the Law as a guide as Dr. Packer because it always demands perfection, always accuses, and always judges. Switching back to the Law after the Gospel is love-stunting, in my opinion. And I guess I have seen it work out that way.
Jaques Chirac : ” I have loved many women, but I have always attempted to do so discretely.”
Is this “Christian love”? Packer in the above quote seems to saying that we look to God’s Law in making that determination. That is really all he is asserting in the quoted passage, which seems to be directed against “situational ethics” and the argument that anything goes as long as it is motivated by love. As for me, I still would rather have spent a week in Paris with Monsieur Chirac in his prime than a year in London with Dr. Packer in his 😉
I think, certainly, that is in there. With it, though, carries the law’s judgement since its function doesn’t alter. I do believe, though, the second from last sentence gives us more of a “law as guide” outlook. Of course, I would set up camp in Dr. Packer’s tent before most others any day of the week.
As for Chirac; I remember a great uncle of mine telling me when I was in college (regarding women): “David, you have to be a little Jesus and love them all.” Certainly under the Law, neither Chirac’s nor my great uncle’s understanding of love withstands the scrutiny. One of the first to be eviscerated, really. I don’t think that’s really all that removed from our conscience, though. Even for the most incorrigible ladies’ man. Mad Men had taught us that. 🙂
As we know from recent church history, the conscience of individual Christians, all of whom claim to be informed by the Holy Spirit, vary wildly in terms of what “love” should look like in various contexts, particularly in the realm of sexuality. What Packer seems to be saying is that we look to God’s Law revealed in Scripture for guidance concerning the content of an absolute moral standard, rather than to our own individual “fallen” consciences. ( Of course even this is no easy task.) Packer does not imply, in this quote anyway, that this form of “guidance” is meant to take away or blunt the just condemnation of the Law that leads to true repentance and faith in the grace of God freely given to the guilty. This is the gift of free grace that is the sole basis for the love of God in every Christian heart. Maybe I’m being overly generous, but I doubt that Packer would disagree with that. All he is saying is that God’s Law can and should “guide” our understanding of why we actually need this grace to desperately.
Make that “so desperately” …. 🙂 But let me add, I still love Chirac, crook and cad, by absolute standards, though he has been. It may not be a “Biblical absolute” but there’s an awful lot to be said for personal discretion. It is not exactly in the midwestern list of virtues, where forthright honesty is grossly overestimated, but it at least once was an aristocratic Southern virtue…perhaps this is why the French loved Faulkner first. But I digress…
Great post and great discussion! I think one of the most pivotal verses for me is 1John 4:10:
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
If we actually take this at face value, then even this most central of commandments is something that we are not to initiate. It is God’s love for us, and specifically the propitiatory death of Christ for us, that is the inception of love in us. Our love is a response. So even the command to love is to be understood, very specifically, as something which we do not have and cannot do. It is NOT that we loved God. It’s amazing how clearly it says it there in the scripture isn’t it?!
So here is how we love – we sit there ingrown and selfish and unable to love, and are awaken from our deathlike slumber by true love’s kiss, to a prince’s great great love, and how else are we to respond? We love!
Love it, Jim!