Grace is doing what is best, not what is right.
I know, I know…you think after you read the title that I am a heretic. You’re thinking in your mind “grace is always doing what is right”. And, in many ways, I totally agree with you, but take a read over the next page and think about the statement from a different angle. Don’t write me off too quickly.
I have thought that “grace is doing what is best, not what is right” is a totally true statement for a long time now. My simple reasoning was that doing what is “right” in many circumstances is a grey area. It would seem that David should have been killed after committing adultery and having a baby with Bethsheba, and then especially after he had her husband murdered. At least the old testament law would have demanded such a consequence. So why wasn’t he? Furthermore, even outside of the life of David, isn’t God infinite and our minds finite? How can the finite determine in every grey area, every variable, what is ultimately right and wrong? So, not knowing what is necessarily “right”, it is always better to do what is best. Having said that, I have not always found that to be a justifying solution to my dilemma. But then, another piece of the puzzle came together…
This week, I was once again discussing the sermon on the mount with a few precious brothers. We have been reading through the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) and looking at three questions…what does each one mean? …why are they in the order that they are in? …why are these the basis of Biblical manhood (and womanhood…it just happens to be all men in the discussion). We have discovered that poor in spirit (the first beatitude) is a combination of not having any pride, nor any self pity (another form of pride). Pride is puffing yourself up and pretending you do not need God’s help. Self pity is pretending to be a helpless victim and feeling that you deserve better instead of taking responsibility for who you are and dealing with it. That’s just sad pride at the end of the day. Being poor in spirit really means that you have an accurate assessment of yourself as a sinful person whom needs help…but is not helpless because God has provided help. The second beatitude is mourning. Mourning means that when you realize your catastrophic need, you are sober about it, and are broken. But it is more than this…mourning means that you are broken for the world around you which is also crushed under the weight of the consequences of sin and sin itself. The reality is that you can’t really mourn until you are poor in spirit. If you don’t have a accurate assessment of your own situation, and others, then there is no reason to mourn. Then, after realizing that you are poor in spirit and mourning in light of it, meekness is the result (the third beatitude). Meekness means that you respond with the realization that without God you can’t do anything. This seems to be where the real dying to self starts. Meekness could be seen as a weakness, but only to the person whom isn’t poor in spirit. The truly poor in spirit look at the person whom is not meek and realizes that their false strength, their illusory power, is nothing more than foolishness. You can’t be meek until you mourn, and your can’t mourn until you are poor in spirit. In fact, this applies to all the beatitudes…you cannot move onto the next until you have realized the prior…they build on each other.
So last week, we finally made it to the fourth beatitude, righteousness. Actually we have been on righteousness for a while now, but last week it finally started to unfold to us. It is a real privilege to tear into a passage like this with guys who aren’t afraid to ask tough questions and not rely on preconceptions, which are often misconceptions. We began to see that the definition of righteousness is Jesus. Jeremiah 23:6 says “the Lord is our righteousness” and who could Jeremiah be speaking about if it wasn’t for Jesus? So if Jesus is our righteousness…whom and what is Jesus? If you will, Jesus is the ultimate right on doctrinal statement lived out perfectly. And that, (truth lived out perfectly) is our new working definition of righteousness. Righteousness is not simply right doctrine. Now, skip down a few verses. In Matthew 5:17-20 we see that Jesus says the law is perfect and it will not be abolished. Then Jesus goes on to say “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. It seems to me that what Jesus is saying to them is that the doctrine of the scribes and the Pharisees is right on. He says the law is perfect, and that he did not come to abolish it, but to fulfill it. The Pharisee’s had right on doctrinal statement, but they had no mission statement. Imagine that, their doctrine is the most accurate of anyone’s, but they will never enter into heaven. Why? Because righteousness is not right doctrine. And, although they have right doctrine, and know the law and God’s word better than anyone…they aren’t going to enter heaven. How freakish is that? In order to get into heaven, you have to be righteous, not just have right on doctrine.
But somehow it all makes sense. If the Pharisees could have rewritten the beatitudes, they would have put doctrine at the top of the list because doctrine was most important to them. But what Jesus is saying in the beatitudes is “you won’t even know what righteousness is unless you are first poor in spirit, second know how to mourn, and third are meek”. You may know doctrine, but this is far from righteousness, because righteousness is your doctrinal statement and your missional statement all tied up together in your life.
So, back to the original statement: Grace is doing what is best, not what is right. It seems that the biggest problems with “right” is that it hardly ever takes poor in spirit, mourning, and meekness into consideration. Being right is typically the act of declaring doctrine and interpreting it through a finite perspective (which is a bizarre concept all and of itself) and then determining judgment. But righteousness, our Jesus, is so much more. It is doctrine (truth) applied rightly.
Everytime we declare to know what is right (especially in the grey areas), it seems that the best thing to do in determining if our definition will hold up, is to see if we are “poor in spirit”, if we “mourn”, and if we are “meek”. If we are not characterized by these things, then we are nothing more than Pharisees who have put doctrine at the top of the list and will never enter the kingdom of heaven. That is so convicting to me, and scary.
So is grace doing what is right? Certainly it is. But if your definition of right comes from right doctrine instead of the righteousness that comes fourth in the line up of mandatory precursors of beatitudes then beware. Your definition of right is wrong, because the Pharisees definition of right was wrong. But, when we place ourselves in the humble position of poor in spirit, when we learn how to mourn over our lives and the world, and when we respond in gentleness, meekness, then and only then, do we have the faintest chance of knowing what righteousness is.
I guess I would ask…is the moral majority righteous? I would definitely say they have right on doctrine. But the application has left us wanting and both the church and the world is getting tired of them. Is the husband who demands submission by his wife righteous? I think he might have a Biblical leg to stand on, but depending on his application, he could be in danger of hell. The husband who does what is right, but defines this in doctrine instead of how the beatitudes define righteousness, is nothing more than a insensitive Biblical bully. What about the doctrinally correct Christian or church that declares themselves “right” and everyone else “wrong”? We have all seen what this type of declaration does, and we have all left hungry and thirsty for something else. And, interestingly enough, Jesus says that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be satisfied. So what happened? Could these examples be of well meaning people whom are doing what is “right” but not what is “best”?
Our only chance of being righteous is grace. The beatitudes are the backdrop of grace, and I would argue that they show us that Grace is doing what is best, not what is right.
I welcome your comments on this; I am not finished thinking, and desire to wrestle this out together.