Color Imbalance

Dear Old Friend,

I’ve had some very strange thoughts going on in my head this week!  They began when I re-posted one of my old blogs on Twitter.  The blog was entitled The Law of Love, loosely taken from James 2:8, and was basically about how Jesus has done everything necessary for our salvation; that it was secured for us at the cross by Christ alone, and that his desire for us now is to live a life of love for others; love that resembles the love we have been given.  I used the example of a teacher giving a student an A in their worst class.  The grade could not be changed, so the fear of failure was completely removed, but the teacher still wanted the student to learn the material, at their own speed, in their own way, and offered whatever help was needed to facilitate the process.  The blog ends with a list of scriptures about love.

The problem was, even though I believe what I wrote, I suddenly felt awkward about posting it because I was worried it could be perceived that I was saying we had to somehow add to what Jesus had done for us; that I didn’t believe it was finished when Jesus said it was finished.

I think I felt that way because all of us “Gospel Freaks” have similar stories. We were all raised in churches which taught that it wasn’t finished, and that we had to finish it.  In many cases there was the implied “or else” at the end of that sentence.  I have become so protective of the good news of grace which has set me free that I am extremely gun shy about anything which even hints of works righteousness.

This got me to thinking about a colorful analogy.  Let’s say that the ideal state is a correct balance of Law and Gospel, and its corresponding color is purple; and let’s say that Law is red and Gospel is blue.  You and I, and many I know, were fed a steady diet of red for many years, with possibly a dash of blue on rare occasions.  As a result, we are starved for blue; we crave it.  We grow nauseous at the very thought of red, fearfully and adamantly pushing away anything which might have even a hint of it.

This led me to think that what we were fed wasn’t actually genuine red; it was more like red dye #2, a phony and toxic red, which wasn’t the correct use of the Law at all, but a twisted version.  This led me to wonder if there could be such a thing as toxic blue, or whether unbalanced blue can itself become toxic.

That question brought to mind the Church in Corinth.  Paul called them “sanctified in Christ” and said that Christ would sustain them to the end, guiltless.  There was no hint, in his mind, that their salvation was in question; but, he wrote to them because they were basically running amok; possibly due to unbalanced blue. I’ve heard it said that there is no such thing as a person who is truly in Christ that would ever abuse grace; but, if Paul says in Romans 7 that sin can take something as holy, righteous and good as the Law and use it to produce sin in us, couldn’t grace be used in the same way?

It seems to me that perhaps what occurred in Corinth was that they took the concept, that nothing they could do or say would ever separate them from the love of God, and followed it to a distorted point where it became a mark of faith to boldly accept and even boast about behavior which made even pagans blush. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5 that these Christian brothers were arrogant about something over which they should instead be mourning. His entire letter seems to be about balancing blue with true red, to bring them closer to a state of purple.

Martin Luther in his treatise Concerning Christian Liberty says, “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone.”  No good work, including love, gains us any merit as far as God is concerned.  All righteousness has been fulfilled on our behalf by his Son, once and for all.  The love that we aim to live out is for our neighbor, but I think it is also to keep us in balance. 

The life of grace, as I see it, is cyclical.  We are convicted of our sinfulness by the Law.  We are driven by our guilt to the cross.  We receive mercy and forgiveness for our sins.  We are compelled by grace to give to others the same love which we have been given.  We are convicted by the shallowness and imperfection of our love. We are driven by our need back to the cross. We receive mercy and assurance of our forgiveness.  Humbled and grateful, we are again compelled to give to others the love we have been given, and on and on….

It seems to me that both unbalanced Law and unbalanced Gospel will cause us to follow our natural tendency to turn inward on ourselves. Love, both the receiving and the giving, is the agent which keeps correcting our color imbalance.

On this earth I won’t ever be truly purple, but I’m leaving that process in God’s hands. I pray that God will help me grasp his love more fully every day and that his love will more truly flow through me to others.

Love Always,

Bonnie