Two Instructors#

-by John Wry

The New Testament mentions two instructors, two trainers. One is referred to as instructor law and the other is referred to as instructor grace.

While it is true that law can mean the time period in which Israel lived and now we are under grace, that is not what I am referring to here. Law can mean many things namely; civil law, a principle, a specific law, 10 commandments, or legalism. Legalism is the definition I will speak of here.

Why do I mean by legalism? It is the attitude of the heart seeking to earn God’s blessing, justification and sanctification through any other means that is not by faith alone in Christ alone.

A bit of my background#

I have been thinking a bit lately about how I assumed the law for many years to be ‘deeper’ truth. That is, those believers still speaking about grace, was to my understanding, a clear evidence of their lack of ‘spiritual depth’. I’d say to myself ‘ah he’s a newbie’. To say it a different way, unless a believer had learned to live under the burden of weight taught by the law, he or she was (to me) essentially immature and was yet needing to be ‘illuminated’ by the ‘meat of the Word’. Someone who talks about God’s love and God’s grace all the time was clearly (and according to my theology) either lacking in willpower and resolve and, to put it in a picture, still on christian training wheels. In my theology, ’true’ Christian ‘depth’ came through my ‘abandon’, ‘obedience’, ‘sacrifice’, ‘submission’, ‘resolve’. Those things have a way of sounding good but the more I focused on them, the harder it got, the more frustrated I felt and ultimately had to be honest and admit defeat. To admit defeat or to come to terms with the reality that I could not do it, was actually perhaps my first step forward. I needed to be taught a new way.

It was not until I was introduced to healthy doctrine of Scripture, that I began to understand there was a very different way. The Scripture was teaching it all along I just wasn’t listening because I was too busy reading my ‘deeper’ meaning into it. I was too busy being ’the guide to the blind’ to be teachable, too busy doing my best for Jesus to see God’s provision of Jesus.

Two Teachings#

In the book of Galatians, Paul brings out that the law is a schoolmaster or instructor. In Titus, God’s grace is also stated as an instructor. However the two (though both are perfect) are very different in purpose.

These are two teachers that bring with them two different teachings. The law teaches or instructs about needing righteousness and points to Christ but produces a sense of condemnation, an understanding of one’s reality before God but not a solution.

Grace also has an instruction. It teaches, explains, illustrates to us how God wishes to produce in us his heart through His solution, Jesus Christ who gave himself to be condemned so we could have life. Titus says it is God’s grace that trains us in authentic righteous living. It shows forth Christ and His work. It is by far a loftier, higher, more sublime way (Gal 5:4).

They are two different teachings to two different audiences.

Two Audiences#

In 1 Timothy, Paul explains that the teaching of the law or the appropriate use of the law is for the unrighteous. In Galatians he explains how the law’s purpose is to lead to Christ and how when one believes in the work of deliverance of Christ, he is not under that instructor. In fact, Romans 7 tells us that to place oneself under the law is to place oneself under our former master and in the illustration of marriage Paul gives, metaphorically to commit spiritual adultery.

According to Titus, the appropriate audience for the instruction of grace is for those who have seen (or understood) His grace and trusted in Christ. It is to them that grace becomes an instructor, teaching how to let go of sinful ways and how to live in real, authentic, integral piety. The law cannot do this, it is weakened, not because of it’s source (God) or that it has a flaw but it fails to produce Christian piety because of the flesh. The flesh is activated by the law. Therefore, when we died with Christ, we were made to die to the law (Romans 7:4) so that we might bear fruit unto God.

A better way#

Obviously God’s way is the right way and any other way falls short. Colossians states, to submit to decrees, to man-made ways of becoming spiritual is failure because it has no power over the flesh’s powerful enslavement. Paul says in Galatians, the only way is to stand firm. The interesting thing is that he doesn’t say ‘stand firm in your resolve’ or ‘stand firm in the law’. No, he says ‘stand firm in the grace of God’ or hold on tightly to God’s grace lest you become slaves again. This slavery in the context of Galatians would come through once again putting oneself under the instruction of the law.

In Conclusion#

The more I search, the more I see how God is softly and continuously saying to stand firm in His grace. This is taught throughout Scripture.

Perhaps we should not seek to be ‘deeper’ but ‘higher’. Perhaps the ways of man only interrupt what God really wants to do in the life of the believer? Perhaps putting on the yoke of the law is really slavery after all and only produces self-condemnation, frustration and ultimate defeat even though it has the outward appearance of spiritual. Paul said it was the law that resulted (due to the flesh) in his death or separation from God.

No, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I’ll trust God’s grace to be my teacher. I’ll trust it because that’s what I see Scripture says is God’s provision to conform me to the image of Christ. I will sit under her instruction. I will look to her for understanding I will hang on tight to her every word. I am grateful to the law for clearly showing me my need but now grace is teaching me how Christ supplies all in all.

As I look back in my own life as a believer, I can clearly see the instruction received by grace has made all the difference for good in my life.

Who’s teaching do you sit under, Law’s or Grace’s?