Law & Gospel and the call to act Justly
Over the past few months, there has been a considerable discussion concerning the role of social justice in the church. So much so, that a group of pastors and theologians, most of whom within the reformed tribe, gathered together to draft a statement called The Statement on Social Justice and The Gospel. Considerable heat has been generated by this statement for a myriad of reasons, chief of which is our propensity toward outrage when someone challenges our values and beliefs and the quickness to which we assume more about our detractors intentions than we actually know. I can’t help but wonder if we would be better served by drafting a statement called, “Social Media & The Gospel” instead. But I digress.
Nonetheless, as a pastor of a young church plant that seeks to take the Gospel seriously, I feel it is my responsibility to speak to this debate by thinking theologically about the relationship between Law and Gospel and how that might help us in our engagement in these social spheres.
Allow me to start with a couple of points of clarification before I dig into this topic in general in this post and with more specificity in future posts. First, it is my deeply held belief that men and women on both sides of the current debate are good people who love Jesus and His Church. We tend to promote “sides” in these matters and in doing so, ascribe caricatures of those with whom we disagree. This is harmful to the church.
Second, I am still wading through the waters of this topic and trying to discern where I stand. This is a work in progress for me and so I enter the waters of this debate slowly and humbly. My chief concern is simply this: where does the Gospel come into play in areas of racial reconciliation, abortion, poverty, and sexuality and gender issues.
LAW & GOSPEL THROUGH THE LENS OF MICAH 6:8
One verse that is often referenced in conjunction with the call to justice is Micah 6:8: “He has shown what is good, O’ man. And what doe the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy [faithfulness] and walk humbly with your God.” This is a powerful verse indeed. The Prophet Micah is confronting Israel for their unfaithfulness to their covenant keeping God. Israel has yet again drifted into moral and spiritual bankruptcy that resulted in living unjustly and exploiting others as well as not living faithfully as God’s people in the world.
What often goes unnoticed about this particular passage is the simplicity of it. Micah 6:8 is simply directing Israel’s focus back to the Law of God. In fact, Micah 6:8 might be best viewed as a summary of the Law. All justice, mercy, and faithfulness flow from God’s Law which was first revealed in the Garden. Therefore, Micah 6:8 must first be read through the lenses of Law and Gospel. It is dangerous when it plucked out of that theological context. We must be careful when we apply Micah 6:8 to any apparent injustice. When we divorce justice from the Law of God, it no longer is true justice. So let’s break down Micah 6:8 in light of the Law & Gospel.
Law and Gospel and the Call to Act Justly
First, we must consider Micah’s call to “act justly”. Some versions of the Bible translate this as “do justice.” Both translations are helpful but only when we understand the proper foundation for justice. The Law of God establishes true justice because the Law is given by God to Adam. God is not only Adam’s Creator, but He is his Sovereign and Holy Lord as well. Adam is made in the image of God and is called to submit and yield to the God’s lordship over his life. When God directs Adam to “multiply and fill the earth” or “eat of any tree, but do not eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”, this was the establishment of a righteous relationship between God & Adam [all mankind]. When Adam and Eve rebel against, it was a rebellion against God’s good rule. Thats called treason. God’s justice and therefore acts of justice we pursue must first take this into account. Not all things that are called unjust actually are unjust.
Therefore, if we are going to talk about living justly in the world, as Christians, we must do so through the lenses of the Gospel. Justice starts with the Gospel work of calling people to repentance and faith, moreover, the continuing work of faith and repentance of sinner/saints called the church. The Gospel is the good news that Jesus atones for the real sins of His people, therefore, biblical justice must start with repentance from real and tangible acts of sin toward God and others.
The church, specifically the local confessional church, is the context where we must first live justly through faith and repentance. It is in the covenant fellowship of a believing body of Christ followers that we repent and turn from our sins and turn in faith to Christ. It is also here that we practice daily repentance, faith, and discipline when member remain unrepentant for their sins.
This is one of the pieces of the puzzle that I think is often overlooked in our zeal to live justly in the world. If we are not doing the work of disciplining ourselves in the church through our confessions of the faith, then what hope do we have to offer real justice when we enter the market place? The Law of God gives us a standard for right and wrong as we engage what is truly a justice issue and what is cloaking as one. For example, ethnocentric prejudice is a sin according to Scripture because it assaults the Imago Dei. The church can and should call one another on any sinful ethnocentric views or behavior. On the other hand, acknowledging the inalienable rights of same-sex couples to marry or the rights of the transgender community are not real justice issues according to Scripture. The only right we have is to be treated with dignity because we are made in the image of God.
Law & Gospel and the call to Love Mercy
Depending on what English translation of the Bible you use, you either will read “love mercy” or “love faithfulness”. Both mercy and faithfulness denote the idea of ‘loving kindness’. In the Old Testament, loving kindness is always related to God’s covenantal relationship with his people. Mercy then is the commitment of God to love and keep His people in spite of their sin on the basis of His covenantal promise.
Why is this so important to our work of justice and mercy in the world? Everything! First, when we love mercy, we love people in an uncommon way because we too were loved in an uncommon way. In the Law that was given to Moses, God tells his people how to live in such a way. In the books of Leviticus & Numbers, we find example after example of how God’s people are to show mercy. Everything from the purification laws, types of offerings as well as cities of refuge were given as an act of mercy to sinful people. Much more could be said of course, but this gives us the root for the proper place of mercy in our lives. But that pales in comparison to the person and work of Jesus. It is through His life, death, and resurrection that we find mercy infleshed.
What does this mean for us? First, we love mercy as we relish in God’s new mercies each day. Second, we love mercy when we extend mercy to those who don’t deserve mercy such as was the case for us. Third, we love mercy when we make the Gospel plain to those who feel lonely, trapped, & disenfranchised by their sin. Additionally, we love mercy to people who have been the victims of others offenses toward them. It is here that justice and mercy are inseparable.
But lest we are careless, let’s speak to the danger of disconnecting justice and mercy for a moment. When we disconnect justice and mercy, we risk endorsing sinful behavior rather than bring the hope of the Gospel. For example, if we have a family member who struggles with substance abuse, we show them mercy in two ways. First, we proclaim the Good News of the Gospel to them and second, we offer help to free them from their addiction. In this way, we make room for another sinner right next to us in the pew on Sunday. On the other hand, we are not showing mercy if we excuse the sin by deflecting from the sinful behavior to some other hurt that they may have experienced in the past. To be clear, we find compassion in our hurt and pain. But we must always keep the Gospel in view and find our peace from the hurt and pain of this life in Jesus alone.
Law and Gospel & the call to Walk Humbly
In the garden, we see this beautiful picture of God and Adam in the garden together as God forms and teaches Adam how to live as his steward. It’s magnificently beautiful. Adam, as God’s created image bearer, walked with His God. He clung to every word of His God. He trusted his God. This too is part of the Law of God. The covenantal framework on which all of Scripture is built is this: “God’s people in God’s Place under God’s rule and blessing. Walking humbly encompasses the entirety of the covenantal blessings that God held out for his people. God ruled over Adam while in communion with him. The transmission of His Law came in the midst of the Garden with Adam.
Throughout the Bible, we see several people who “walked with God” but only on the basis of God’s rule and blessing, his covenant. Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and David are examples that we can look to as examples of “walking humbly” with God. But they walked [imperfectly as they did] on the basis of faith in God’s covenant promises. They walked by faith.
The Gospel is reality and substance of all their hope in God. They looked forward to God fulfilling his promises and it was on that basis that they walked humbly. Today, the church can say with Paul in Galatians 2:20-21: “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.”
Again, all of Micah 6:8 could be likened as a summary of the scope of the Law of God. As believers living on the foundation of the New Covenant in Christ, we are now able to keep the Law in a new and better way. What this means is that our acts of justice and mercy must be deeply rooted in the Gospel. Why? If not, we may find that our “helping” may, in the end, be “hurting” others instead of providing real and lasting justice and mercy.
In the coming weeks, I hope to apply this “theology of Law and Gospel” to several hotbed issues that we are facing as the church in our day. Abortion, racial reconciliation, sexuality, and gender issues are all areas in which the church must bring the Gospel to bear. Justice and mercy are our tools for our witness and we must do so rightly. Stay tuned.
