Truth and Grace

Day Twenty Three                

Truth and Grace              

Titus 2:1-14

Perhaps we should not make too much of the order of the words, but it remains the case that John did not write “The Word became flesh… we have seen His glory… who came from the Father, full of truth and grace.” As we have seen, John puts grace first. Have you ever wondered why?

To put truth second is not to diminish its importance. Christianity is all about truth. We don’t say, “Christ is Truth” as often as we name Him “the Resurrection and the Life” or “the True Vine.” Yet, it is certainly appropriate for us to call Him the truth. Jesus is, after all, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). But we don’t tend to do this very often. Others do so. Many of the cults emphasize their version of the truth before all else. Some eastern philosophies and religions also elevate truth as the primary characteristic of God. Christians do not. We are far more likely to speak of God in other ways. There’s a good reason for this. For Christians, the primary characteristic of God is not truth, it is love.

When you build your understanding of the nature of God on the primacy of truth, what you are really doing is constructing a philosophy. Certain truth claims undergird your worldview. The way you look at the world depends upon the foundational truths you affirm. Your actions grow out of your beliefs about the nature of the universe. Truth dominates. But Christianity is not really a philosophy, in the sense that it is not constructed upon core truths. Christianity is not, when it comes down to it, a philosophical system, it is a relational system. The core of Christianity is our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And the heart of that relationship is love. To say that God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life, is not to construct a philosophical premise, it is to name an act. God didn’t “so love the world” that He persuaded us about creation, or about a theory of the atonement. He “so loved the world” that He sent His Son. The defining feature of our faith is an act of love whereby God invaded history. It is grace in action.

Of course, to say that God loves us is, itself, a truth claim. As Christians, we must be eager, always, to stand up for what we believe to be true. But we should do so with grace. When the Word made flesh broke into our world we beheld His glory, the glory of the One and Only, “full of grace and truth.”

Lord God, I am grateful for Your grace. When truth alone would have condemned me, grace came and stood beside me and took my place. Help me, whenever I am ardent for the truth, never to lose the flavor of grace. In the name of Christ. Amen.