Full of Grace and Full of Truth

Many Christians seek a place of peace when confronted with conflict. Following the culture eliminates most conflicts. Thus, they will stand hard on righteousness when they are surrounded by people who are hard on righteousness or they will stand hard on grace if they are surrounded by those who are hard on grace. They do not understand that the true Christian life is always a tension.
It is both full of grace and full of truth. It isn't a compromise but it isn't always peaceful either.

Righteousness and mercy will always be in tension with one another. Trying to stand on one of these without being fully engaged in the other is merely running from the conflict.

The first time I had to fire someone from a job I said this prayer, "Lord, I believe this is something that I must do. I ask you to help me remember the pain it is causing me. I don't ever want to enjoy this. I don't ever want to brag about how I did this. Please let this be as hard for me as it is this time. Amen." I continue to say that prayer when I have to fire someone. I try to take every other step to avoid the firing.  Praise God, it still hurts!

This tension should always be present when we confront sin. We should be full of grace and full of truth. Sometimes this is painful. It should be.

I have had the story of the woman caught in adultery cited several times when I have had to confront sinfulness. Unfortunately, the person I have confronted usually tells only part of the story. They do not tell how I prayed with them or how I  told them of God's love and how I asked if I could help them. They generally tell a story that paints me as a Pharisee (or even Judas). Therefore, the people who confront me about it think they are rectifying a wrong. These confronters have run to the safe place of grace. They consider grace to have more righteousness than truth.

Yet Jesus was full of truth and grace when He dealt with this woman and her accusers. He addresses them in their own tradition. The culture defined adultery as sexual relations between a married woman and someone who was not her husband. Those who knew this was happening and did not warn the person were considered to be as guilty as the one who committed the sin.

So, Jesus said that the one without sin should throw the first stone. He confronted these people who had caught this woman in the "very act" as those who had not warned her. They were guilty of the sin themselves. This wasn't a statement of having no sin at all. If this was the case, we could  never convict anyone of any crime at any time. Jesus was addressing them in their own participation of this sin.

But Jesus did not let the woman go either. He called what she had done sin. He told her not to do it anymore.

What was a woman to do who had been dragged out publically for adultery. Her husband would very likely divorce her immediately. What would be her profession if she was put out on the street? Jesus made that very hard, didn't He? She couldn't sin like this any more.

So, He stood full of truth as He confronted the sins of the accusers and of the woman. And He stood full of grace when He confronted the cold, accusing crowd who saw this woman as nothing more than a means of attacking Him.

We simply cannot hide on one side of the equation. There is always a tension in the Christian life.

John 1:14 (ESV) ¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.