Love = Grace + Truth

A note of Introduction

I received a comment today asking me where I got the idea for the title of my blog, Learning to be Full of Grace and Truth. In responding to that comment, I was surprised to discover that apart from my welcome page, I could not find a post I had written directly on the subject to point her to. That we are to be full of grace and truth by responding to others in grace while conducting ourselves in truth is the central theme weaving my posts together. The post that follows is meant to correct this grievous oversight on my part. While definitely on the longer side, I feel that a full explanation of my understanding of why being full of grace and truth is so crucial to the Christian life justifies the length.

Enjoy!

Dan Ledwith

***

Love is one of those words that gets used every day. Many of us use it several times a day. My question in today’s post is: do we know, do we understand, what that Spiritual love God wants us to have for one another is? Do we know what that love looks like?

This is important because there are a thousand different meanings for the word love floating around in our world on any given day. We say we “love” pizza, we “love” the Red Sox (yes, real Christians love the Red Sox =P), we “love” to laugh, we “love” to cook, we “love” our mom and dad, we “love” our husband or wife, we “love” our neighbor as ourselves, we “love” God.

I think we have to admit that our English word “love” has become a catch-all term for a number of different meanings and applications. Just the other day, I went to the website dictionary.com, and looked up the word love. They list 21 different definitions!

What does love, the kind of love God has for us and wants us to have for others, look like?

Take a look at John 1:14-18 (NIV).

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'” From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

It is no small thing that twice in this short passage John describes Jesus with the words grace and truth.

In verse 14 John says that Jesus was full of grace and truth. Not all of one and none of the other. Not some of each. He came full of both. Jesus was the incarnation of pure grace and pure truth. John saw this as the proof that Jesus was indeed from God and was God. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father.

The reason, John tells us, he knew that Jesus was the Son of God was because He was full of grace and truth. Why does the appearance of a life full of grace and truth verify Jesus’ glory as the same as the Father’s?

God’s glory is wrapped up in the expression of grace and truth to His people. In Exodus 33:18 Moses asked God to show him His glory. God granted Moses’ wish and visually passed His glory by Moses. As he passed by, God verbally proclaimed His glory.

The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 34:6-7).

God’s glory was in His magnificent grace that
made Him slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

Yet he also revealed Himself as the God of truth who conducted Himself by the highest standards, for he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. From the beginning God has revealed Himself as being full of grace and truth.

Then in verse 17, John says that Jesus brought grace and truth. In Christ we see grace and truth as gifts from the Father. Before grace and truth were shown through God’s providence, the Old Testament priests and sacrifices, the leadership of judges and kings, and in the messages of His prophets. As the author of Hebrews says, In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son (Hebrews 1:1-2 (NIV).

Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). In Him we see in human life and action the glory that God verbally proclaimed to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7. In the life of Jesus Christ, the grace and truth of the Father is brought to us, shown to us, and lived before us by God Himself. If there was ever a question as to what God was like, it is answered in Jesus Christ. That is what John was trying to convey in verse 18 of our text, No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

Jesus told isHHiHHis disciples in John 13:34-35 (NIV) A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

How did Jesus love them? How did He show it? What did it look like? That is worth thinking about because Jesus said “it is by loving people the way I have loved you that everyone will know you are My disciples.”

I believe that John’s answer, and indeed the answer in whole of Scripture, is that:

LOVE = GRACE + TRUTH.

Grace plus truth produces love.

Grace is how God wants us to respond in our relationships with one another. We are to be humble, forgiving, compassionate, gentle, and slow to anger in our relationships.

Truth is how God wants us to conduct ourselves in our relationships with one another. We should be just, upright, honest, and trustworthy in our relationships.

Love is responding with grace while conducting ourselves in truth. Grace + truth = love.

If you are willing to read on, I want to show that this is how God has shown His love to us through the Bible, that this is the love Jesus expressed during His life on earth, and is the same love that we are taught in the Scriptures to show one another.

Throughout the Old Testament, God showed His love for His people by showing them grace and truth. We have already seen this in Exodus 34:6-7 (NIV),

The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.

The centrality and importance of this passage is born out in that it is repeated or explicitly referred to no less than eight times throughout the Old Testament in 2 Chronicles 30:9, Nehemiah 9:17, five times throughout the book of Psalms (86:15, 103:8, 111:4, 112:4, 145:8), Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2.

We see David acknowledging God’s love as being expressed through grace and truth in Psalm 51, after he is confronted by the prophet Nathan for his adultery with Bathsheba. He wrote (Psalm 51:1-4 NIV),

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.

According to God’s love David prays for compassion and forgiveness. He expresses here that God’s love for him is shown by grace in granting him mercy, forgiveness, patience, and long suffering.

He also here expresses to us that God’s love for him is shown in truth because God did not down play or hide the reality of David’s sin, the seriousness of it, or his deserving to be judged and punished for it. God did not compromise His character by overlooking or down playing David’s sin. God’s love was expressed in both grace and truth.

In the New Testament we see the love of the Father expressed in grace and truth again in 1 John 4:9-10 (NIV),

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

His love was shown in two ways: grace that provided atonement, and truth in that our sins were an offense that needed paid for in order to satisfy the requirements of divine justice. God’s love is uniformly attested in Scripture as being revealed by acts of grace towards His people while not in the least compromising the truth of His righteous and just character.

Not only is the Father’s love revealed by grace and truth but Jesus’ love was expressed in His life by grace and truth.

Jesus’ love was shown by treating people with grace.

• Grace compelled Him to humble Himself and spend Himself serving others, even when He was seeking rest and solitude.
  
• He was as free with forgiveness towards tax collectors, prostitutes, and the very people who nailed Him to the cross as He was with His closest disciples.
  
• He did not turn away people who were ritualistically unclean, contagiously ill, or possessed by demons.
  
• His grace cut through the iron walls of class, culture, race, and gender.
  
• His grace was not intimidated by either tradition or position.
  

If the love of Jesus could be captured in a single word grace would be an accurate summary of it.

As full as Jesus was of God’s grace, He was not any less full of God’s truth.

• He lived according to the truth.
  
• He was righteous and just in all that He did.
  
• He kept all the commandments flawlessly.
  
• He outright asked people to name any sin He had committed and no one could charge Him with a single one!
  
• He not only lived the truth, He taught the truth.
  
• He did not hide behind the truth, nor did He hide the truth from view when people opposed Him.
  
• He did not apologize for the truth. When standing for the truth was dangerous, He was a rock.
  
• When people tried to trip Him up, He used the truth to reveal the motives of His opposers.
  
• His stance on the truth was not moved by accepted customs or influenced by the fads of the day.
  
• The truth defined who He was, what He said, how He said it, and what He did from the time He could speak to His last words on the cross.
  
• Jesus even said of Himself, “I am the truth.”
  

Jesus’ love was revealed in His living, breathing and sharing truth.

Jesus loved by embodying grace and truth. He lived them, taught them, and gave them. And in Him we see how love looks when it is perfectly lived out. We see in the life of Jesus that love is being full of grace and truth.

We are taught in the Scriptures that love is shown by giving grace while conducting ourselves in the light of truth.

Colossians 3:12-14 (NIV) says, Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Love is responding to one another in grace: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness.

We are taught that love is shown by living in the truth in 1 Peter 1:22 (NIV) which says, Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.

Love is given when we accept and live in obedience to the truth in our relationships with one another.

The great description of love in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 describes love as being the expression of grace and truth.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

If you take a close look at that definition, that description of love you see again that it is a call to live full of grace in response to one another while conducting ourselves in truth.

Grace (how we respond): love is patient, kind, not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, love always hopes.

Truth (how we conduct ourselves): love does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, rejoices in the truth, always protects, trusts, and perseveres.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLTSE) says, So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

That is God’s plan. His goal for your life is to mold you, shape you, and transform you into His “glorious image.” That is the destination you will arrive at the end of your life on earth. Becoming like Christ means experiencing and reflecting God’s love because His Spirit is living in us and has filled us with His grace and truth. Full of grace and full of truth. Not some of one and some of the other. Not all one and none of the other. If we are learning to love one another like Christ loved us we will be changing into people who are full of grace and truth because He was full of grace and truth.

The reality however, is that this kind of love is rare among Christians today. The sad truth is that according to all the research that I have come across, there is currently no discernible difference in divorce, abuse, or addiction to pornography, between evangelical Christians and people who do not know the Lord.

• Every month 1600 pastors leave the ministry because they could not handle the treatment they were given by their congregation.
  
• It is a documented fact that 80% of seminary graduates who go into pulpit ministry will leave the ministry forever within their first five years.
  
• Almost 75 years ago, Oswald Chambers wrote, “The Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known.” Unfortunately, I don’t think he was wrong. Some of the most judgmental, critical, and negative people I have met, claimed to be Christians.
  

Christians today do not have a reputation for embodying grace and truth. Why is this? I think this comes from not understanding the truth that love = grace + truth.

Grace calls us to be humble and at the same time to be confident because of God’s grace to us. Grace calls us to be peacemakers, to be as free with forgiveness with others as Christ is with us, and to be thankful in all things.

If we lived that way we would be getting rid of pride and fear. We would be willing to overlook the little offenses that come day in and day out in our relationships. We would put a lid on gossip, be slow to judge, we would be gentle and compassionate, and hold out a helping hand when people stumble instead of shaking our heads and asking how they could have been so stupid.

The truth calls to do good, to be righteous in our dealing with each other. It calls us to act justly, to be honest, and truthful with each other. The truth calls us to pursue godly knowledge and wisdom, and to cultivate a healthy fear and awe of our God.

If we lived that way we would be seen as people of integrity. We would get involved when we saw injustice. We would be able to be transparent with others instead of hiding the truth out of fear of what others might think. Our yes would be yes and our no would be no. We would show an attractive and comforting confidence to others because we know God’s promises and trust that all things work for the good of those who love Him. And we would do all we can to avoid sin because we know God’s hatred for it.

The starting point for answering the question what does love look like is in understanding that it comes down to being filled to overflowing with God’s grace and truth.

Love = grace + truth.