One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World (8 page)

I NEED A MIRACLE EVERY DAY

Looking back, the root of Kim and my marriage problems those first few years wasn’t that I was too focused on the Law—the problem was that I wasn’t focused on it enough! J. Gresham Machen counterintuitively notes that “a low view of law always produces legalism; a high view of law makes a person a seeker after grace.”
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The reason this seems so counterintuitive is because most people think that those who talk a lot about grace have a low view of God’s Law (hence, the regular charge of antinomianism, that is, of preaching in such a way as to imply that the Law is bad and/or useless). Others think that those with a high view of the Law are the legalists. But Machen makes the very compelling point that it’s a low view of the Law that produces legalism, because a low view of the Law causes us to conclude that we can do it—the bar is low enough for us to jump over. A low view of the Law makes us think that the standards are attainable, the goals are reachable, the demands are doable. The Law gets softened into “helpful tips for practical living” instead of God’s unwavering demand for absolute perfection. It’s this low view of the Law that caused Immanuel Kant—and Pelagius before him—to conclude that “ought implies can.” That is, to say, “that I ought to do something is to imply logically that I am able to do it.”

A high view of the Law, however, demolishes all notions that we can do it—it exterminates all attempts at self-sufficient moral endeavor. We’ll always maintain a posture of suspicion regarding the radicality of unconditional grace as long as we think we have the capacity to pull it off. Only an inflexible picture of what God demands is able to penetrate the depth of our need and convince us that we never outgrow our need for grace—that grace never gets overplayed.

Contrary to what some Christians today would have you believe, the biggest problem facing the church today is not “cheap grace” but “cheap Law”—the idea that God accepts anything less than the perfect righteousness of Jesus. My friend John Dink explains cheap Law this way:

Cheap law weakens God’s demand for perfection, and in doing so, breathes life into … [our] quest for a righteousness of [our] own making.… It creates people of great zeal, but they lack knowledge concerning the question “What Would Jesus Do?” Here is the costly answer: Jesus would do it all perfectly. And that’s game over for you. The Father is not grooming you to be a replacement for his Beloved Son. He is announcing that there is blessing for those who take shelter
in his Beloved Son
. Cheap law tells us that we’ve fallen, but there’s good news, you can get back up again.… Therein lies the great heresy of cheap law: it is a false gospel. It cheapens—no—it nullifies grace.
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Only when we understand that God’s Law is absolutely inflexible will we see that God’s grace is absolutely indispensible. A high view of the Law involves the devastating reminder that God’s acceptance of us is ultimately contingent on Christ’s perfection, not our progress; Christ’s imputation, not our improvement. Such inscrutable demands push us toward the infallible deliverance we find in the Gospel. In other words, a high view of the Law produces a high view of grace. A low view of the Law produces a low view of grace.

In my early years of being married, I had mistakenly concluded that by checking the various behavior boxes, I could keep my past (and the pain of the past) at bay. That by spiritually disciplining myself (and forcing Kim to do the same), I could straighten myself out and manipulate God into keeping me safe and inside His good graces. I didn’t realize that the spirit with which I was going through the motions—the spirit of earning and control—was just as grave a transgression as anything I had been doing before, if not worse. All the quiet times in the world don’t amount to a hill of beans when it comes to justifying ourselves before a Holy God. I was yet another tired actor trying to be the director and watching as those I cared about most suffered the brunt of that illusion. It is truly a testament to God’s mercy that they persevered with me. They even spared me any harshly worded letters.

NOTES

CHAPTER 5

EX-CONVICTS, FAILED DISCIPLES, AND ONE-WAY LOVE

There wasn’t one thing in particular that snapped me out of my “wild man” phase, no big crisis or single clarifying moment that inspired me to repair the damage I had done to myself, others, and my family. As humdrum as it may sound, what led me out of that rebellious period was simply the nagging sense that there had to be more to life than what I was experiencing—there had to be more to who I was than what this world was telling me. In fact, I can’t even pinpoint the exact moment when God raised this dead rebel to life. All I know is that sometime in the fall of 1993, my culminating discontent with life made me decide to start going back to church.

I was twenty-one at the time. Kim, who had been my girlfriend for two years at that point, had actually started going to church with my parents a few months earlier, and before I knew it, we were both going every week. My parents were understandably overjoyed. Their prodigal had finally come home. “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:24
NIV
).

Since Kim did not grow up in a Christian home like me, this was all brand-new to her. But to me, it felt like a homecoming. Even in my unruly years, I had never really ceased to believe in God. In fact, if you had given me a theological exam at the height of my rebellion, I would’ve passed with flying colors. I was just choosing to ignore it all. Maybe it was the timing, maybe it was the circumstances, but something finally clicked, and God became real to both of us in a new and exciting way.

About three months later, in January of 1994, Kim and I got engaged. Our new faith naturally led us to take a hard look at our relationship. God was changing us, and we knew our relationship needed to change as well. After being so out of control for so long, we knew we had to adjust the way we related to each other, and the physical realm was no exception. We were both coming out of a world where sex outside of marriage was completely the norm—a norm that we had embraced—and we knew the right thing to do would be to pull back until we were married. Easier said than done! Despite our best intentions and most earnest efforts, we slipped up three or four times during our engagement.

I’ll never forget when Kim came over to my apartment one night after work and told me she was pregnant. I was devastated. Not just because the news was a shock or because I hadn’t expected to be a parent at such a young age. I was devastated because everyone who had celebrated my return “to the fold” would think the turnaround was a false alarm. I had caused my family so much pain and heartbreak with my self-absorbed shenanigans, and they had been so relieved and excited that their reckless son had finally come back; it had been the answer to years and years of prayer. I had put my parents through more than any son ever should and had asked for their forgiveness on numerous occasions. To drop this bomb might crush them all over again, and I just couldn’t bear it. I was scared, ashamed, and angry at myself for failing yet again.

Somehow we summoned the courage to go over to my mom and dad’s house the next day—Mother’s Day, believe it or not. After some awkward small talk, I asked my father if we could speak to him alone. We walked out to the driveway. Dad was standing in front of me, and Kim was by my side, shoulder to shoulder.

“Dad we have something to tell you.” I burst into tears. “Kim’s pregnant.”

Kim started bawling too. Next thing I knew, he was embracing both of us, me with one arm, her with the other, while we wept. He held us for ten minutes. He could see how overwhelmed we were. I can still hear his voice telling us, “It’s okay. We love you. It’s going to be okay. This child is going to be a blessing.”

Kim and I had been so excited about getting married, and now we were going to be parents as well. In addition to the embarrassment and shame involved, we were grieving the happy expectation that we’d have a few years, just the two of us, before starting a family. We were in a state of shock. Yet my father did not condemn or lecture us, even though he had every right to do so. Instead, he comforted us. More than that, he gave us good news. He told us that while the circumstances clearly weren’t ideal, this was going to turn out just fine. This baby was going to be a blessing to both of us and a gift to the whole family. Every time Kim and I look at our oldest son (now eighteen), we realize afresh that my dad was absolutely right that day.

The whole situation was wrapped in grace: I deserved his reproach and disapproval—premarital sex resulting in unexpected pregnancy is no father’s dream for his child—yet his gracious response assured me that he not only wasn’t crushed, his love for me was stronger than ever. When I told him (through many tears) how sorry I was for once again letting him down, he simply hushed me by hugging me tighter and saying over and over again, “It’s okay. I love you. It’s okay. I love you.” At that moment in the driveway, when I rightly deserved my dad’s disappointment, he assured me of his delight.

Even now it is hard to put into words the emotional relief I felt.
Lifesaving
is not too strong a word. I thank God with every fiber of my being that He put me in a family where I was surrounded by such one-way love.

The love my father showed me that day is not a one-to-one approximation of God’s one-way love for you and me—nothing is! In fact, before we go any further, I should clarify: the Gospel is the announcement of Jesus Christ given for and to sinners. It refers to the one true act of Grace, or one-way love, to which all others point. Like small-l law, small-g grace refers to the infinite reflections or echoes or outworkings of big-G Grace we see and experience in relationships, art, etc.

My father was not preaching the Gospel to me that day—he didn’t sit me down to tell me that, on account of Christ, my sins were forgiven. Instead, he showed me grace. That is, he treated me in a way that was analogous to how God treats you and me. He was not God, of course, but like many fathers, he did play a similar role in my life: someone in authority who showed me love in the midst of deserved judgment. As it is with big-L and little-l law, if occasionally we use big-G and little-g grace interchangeably, it is not because they are the same thing, but because we often experience them that way.

So what is grace exactly? There are three things about my interaction in the driveway that day that point to the essence of grace, or one-way love. First, one-way love has nothing to do with the beloved—in that case, me. It has to do with the one doing the loving—in that case, my father. I was at my least lovable in that instance—a repeat offender whose offense was going to have very real consequences—yet somehow my father treated me as though I’d never been loved more.

One-way love is always at its most palpable and transformative when we are at our lowest ebb. Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were
still sinners
, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8
NIV
, emphasis mine) is how the apostle Paul puts it. It can be something momentous, like what I just described, or it can be something as mundane as someone giving you a compliment when you’re feeling particularly ugly or incompetent.

Second, and perhaps self-explanatory, one-way love comes from outside of us. It is external. We cannot love ourselves in this way, at least not in the midst of real failure. Kim and I could not have assured each other with any confidence. Only a third party could speak such a gracious word and have it be remotely believable. We needed someone who was not in our situation to address it, and not just anyone. We needed someone with authority. My dad.

Third, one-way love is unexpected. Grace is always a surprise. We are hardwired for reciprocity and punishment; tit for tat is an utterly instinctual mode of thinking and living. So when someone withholds judgment, especially when it is deserved, we are astonished. Kim and I were astonished that day, and we still are. When was the last time you were astonished by someone’s surprising response of grace toward you?

ANOTHER WAY TO GO

I’ll give you another example, this time from literature. One of the most enduring works of art over the past two hundred years is Victor Hugo’s
Les Misérables
. 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 rib cage 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 gave him the silver as a gift. The police drag him back to the bishop’s 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 had 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 of what would have been 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 nonshameful 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 a complete breakdown, causing him to question absolutely everything in his life and the world. In the musical, his bewilderment at the goodness that 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 …

Is there another way to go?
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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 Grace.

Just as it is difficult to experience forgiveness without some knowledge of what you have done wrong, so it is difficult to understand Grace apart from the Law. If the Law is the first word, Grace is the last. Listen closely: The Law exposes Valjean (and us), while Grace exonerates him. The Law diagnoses, but Grace delivers. The Law accuses, Grace acquits. The Law condemns the best of us, while Grace saves the worst of us. The Law says “cursed,” Grace says “blessed.” The Law says “slave,” Grace says “son.” The Law says “guilty,” Grace 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 someone showed 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 God has for sinners.

WHAT MAKES A DISCIPLE?

Of course, the one-way love of God is not just something we find in our families or in works of literature. It is the driving theme of the Bible itself. Nowhere is this more striking than in Jesus’s dealing with his disciples. His choice of disciples was deeply counterintuitive, almost categorically opposed to any qualifications they might hold for the job. Consider his calling of Levi, also known as Matthew:

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:27–32)

Jesus was turning the tables on all that we think is good. Tax collectors were not a respectable lot. They were traitors and villains, the ancient equivalent of mob loan sharks, extorting their fellow men for the sake of the occupying Roman government (and their own pockets). They were widely despised and for good reason. Think Sheriff of Nottingham in the legend of Robin Hood.

But here we have Jesus interrupting Levi at the office and giving him an invitation to follow. In response, Levi throws a party (of course!)—not a holy huddle of all the righteous people in town, but a gathering of fellow scoundrels at his house. The Pharisees and the scribes naturally object, as do you and I when something so egregiously irrational happens before our eyes. “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” they ask. How does Jesus answer? With his mission statement: “Those who are well [or who think they are, like you guys] have no need of a physician [which is what I am], but those who are sick [like these guys]. I have not come to call the righteous [like you think you are] but sinners [like they know they are] to repentance.” Jesus didn’t just say such things—he put his money where his mouth was: not one of the original twelve disciples was a religious person. Christ was interested in those who couldn’t bring anything to the table, not those who thought they could handle this righteousness gig pretty well on their own. He knew that only those who didn’t have anything going for them would be able to accept the one-way transaction. You only go to the doctor when you suspect you’re sick.