The Tension Between Grace & Truth

Intro:

Good evening.

I’ve been thinking about something that is found in John chapter 1 this week.

Verses 1-3 introduce us to Jesus, and these verses call Him “the Word.”

The Logos!

Which is a very big word in the Greek (no pun intended, because Logos means, “Word!”)

Jesus Christ is the WORD! The Logos! The very ESSENCE of God, and the authoritative spoken Word of God!

From the very beginning of creation, according to Genesis chapter 1, it was the Word of God that spoke the universe into existence!

Gen. 1:1-3

Genesis 1:1–3 NKJV

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

And the creation account goes on!

Heb. 1:1-2 says

Hebrews 1:1–2 NKJV

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

So that says that God made the world THROUGH JESUS!

1 Cor. 8:6 says there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, BY WHOM are all things!

In other words, both the Father and the Son were present at Creation (the Holy Spirit also of course).

Eph. 3:9 says that God made ALL THINGS by Jesus Christ.

And Col. 1:16-17 says

Colossians 1:16–17 NKJV

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

So Christ is the WORD, the creative essence of God, the impetus of His creation!

Christ IN ACTION is seen in the Bible from the very beginning!

So think about all of that, and then let’s look at John 1:1-3

John 1:1–3 NKJV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Jesus is the Word! The Logos! The Spoken Word that Created the World!

And what did the Word do according to John 1:14?

John 1:14

John 1:14 NKJV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

For the rest of this sermon tonight, I want us to look at what Jesus BROUGHT to us!

Specifically, that verse says He brought “GRACE … and TRUTH!”

There’s an extremely important balance there!

A balance that, if it becomes “off kilter” in our teaching in either direction, will lead to grave error!

So the sermon title tonight is “The Tension Between (or the Balance Between) Grace and Truth.”

Do Not Make the Mistake Of …

Making a false dichotomy out of grace and truth.

There are entire congregations that do this, either inadvertently or on purpose!

How many churches say, “Oh, we’re a LOOOOOVVVVING church!”?

But then they don’t stand for the truth?!

OR, how many churches say, “We stand for the TRUUUUUTH at this church!!!”

But they don’t do so in love? Don’t exercise grace at all?!

Brethren, it takes BOTH to be pleasing to God!

That’s why the well-known passage in Eph. 4:15 says ...

Ephesians 4:15 NKJV

but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—

6. A little later in the chapter, we are told to administer GRACE unto the hearers (Eph. 4:29)!

7. So we’ve got to get this balance right!

8. Jesus did! When He brought both GRACE (God’s unmerited favor toward us) and TRUTH (that which is real, undeniable, proven with evidence) into the world!

9. So let’s not make a false dichotomy out of grace and truth!

10. There are two ditches that we must avoid in this regard:

a. One is a big ditch to the left that still has an idea of grace, but ignores the truth — and an example would be a church that embraces sinful lifestyles such as a man pretending to be a woman — That’s a lie! Not the truth!

b. And the other big ditch to the right might have an idea of truth, but doesn’t give people a chance to ARRIVE at the truth because it is so abrasive in delivery that it runs people off because they have a chance to even process the truth! (And I’ll give you a personal example of that).

A Personal Example:

I remember a time when there was a family that wanted to place membership with a congregation, but come to find out they had some misunderstandings about … the Holy Spirit.

These individuals had been reared in the church, I believe had become Christians, and then later on had departed the faith for denominationalism.

Through the process of time, they began to realize again how wrong that was, and they determined to come back to the Lord’s church.

Well, in the process of everything, they were told how wrong they were on the topic of the Holy Spirit, and … needless to say, they left.

I don’t know what became of this family, but I thought, man, wouldn’t it have been better to, when that topic came up, have said something like, “I see. Well, we can study that some more some time,” and then let them get their feet back in the door for a while before attempting to correct them on that?

After all, does ANYBODY FULLY understand everything there is to know about the Holy Spirit?!

If you think you’ve got it all figured out, maybe you can teach me a few things because that’s a difficult topic for me!

So we’ve got to remember to show GRACE as well as the tell the truth.

I want to now turn to ...

A Biblical Example of Neglecting Grace:

Turn with me to John chapter 8.

We’re going to read verses 1-11.

V. 1 - (Just read)

V. 2 - It was standard for a rabbi to sit down when he would teach in Jewish culture.

Here Jesus is, teaching them early in the morning …

And He’s about to get interrupted.

V. 3 - What are their motives going to be here?

Surely, they are interested only in the purity of God’s people, and enforcing God’s rules, right?

Well, actually, we’re going to see that it wasn’t really about that with the scribes and the Pharisees.

They are trying to put Jesus in a catch 22.

They want to put Him in a delimma.

Here, we have a guilty woman — And the law says she’s guilty.

But Jesus Christ came to seek and save the lost — So will guilt prevail, or mercy?

The scribes and Pharisees think they can pit the concepts against each other.

V. 4 - The Majority text (that is, the majority of N.T. manuscripts) actually says “We found this woman in adultery, in the very act.”

That’s probably an important detail …

Which we will explain in just a moment.

V. 5 - This is the setup.

I’ve read a lot of commentaries on this section, and the general concensus of what the scribes and Pharisees were doing here is this:

They were trying to get Jesus to either usurp the authority of judge over the woman if he condemned her to death (only the Romans could condemn someone to death in the Roman Empire — John 18:31 affirms this), OR ...

To get Jesus to be at odds with Moses if he acquitted her of her sin.

But the question must be asked — Where the scribes and the Pharisees genuinely concerned about justice in this scenario? (We are going to find out the answer is “no.”)

V. 6 - This clues us in on the evil motivations of the scribes and Pharisees.

V. 7 - The crux of the matter is here:

The Scribes and the Pharisees who had witnessed the adultery this woman committed were at fault themselves!

Reason number 1 — They didn’t bring the MAN involved in the adulter, only the woman!

Number 2 — Was one of these men the very man who sinned with her? (I don’t know. But many have asked the question — How else were they all privy of what she had done?)

I defer to Wayne Jackson here — He writes:

“The accusers committed a colossal tactical blunder. Their charge itself contained information sufficient to expose their hypocrisy. The scribes and Pharisees emphatically declared that the poor woman had been caught “in the very act.” That is significant. ...

When the Jewish leaders decided to be so specific, “in the very act,” they acknowledged an important point: they knew the identity of the male participant! What is the significance of that? Well, it is this: the Old Testament code demanded that both the adulteress and the adulterer be subjected to the same penalty (see Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22). Where, then, was the man? These sanctimonious prosecutors were themselves in stark violation of the law. Had Jesus been under a commission to render a civil judgment in this case (and he did not come to attend to such matters—see Luke 12:13-14), he could not have countenanced this “kangaroo” procedure. The thrust of Christ’s statement—“He that is without sin . . .”—was this: “None of you is in a position to stone this woman, for you have disregarded the very law you profess to honor. It is a travesty.”

So we know that these men were not genuinely interested in the carriage of justice — They just wanted to try to trip up Jesus!

V. 8 - (Wouldn’t you like to know what Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground these two times?)

V. 9 - Again, evidence of their guilt — They were convicted by their own conscience — They were guilty in this matter.

VS. 10-11 - And don’t forget this last part — Go, and sin no more!

Was Jesus concerned with the truth?!

Absolutely — He told this lady to go and sin no more!

He also brought to the forefront the truth of the matter that these scribes and Pharisees were guilty in the matter as well!

But Jesus was also concerned with mercy and grace.

We must not neglect mercy/grace, OR truth.

Finally, let’s look at …

A Biblical Example of Neglecting Truth:

There are probably several places in the Bible we could go for this one.

There are lots of folks who neglect the truth.

I’m going to John chapter 18.

This is the trial of Jesus Christ before Pontius Pilate, and Pilate is the one who neglected the truth in his allowing the Jews to take an innocent Man and put Him to death.

We will start reading in verse 28.

VS. 28-30 - Of course, that was a lie!

VS. 31-32 - Notice, immediately Pilate wants to pass the buck back to them!

But it was unlawful for them as Jews to put Him to death.

Ironically, the Jews NEEDED the Romans here (even though they couldn’t stand the Romans)!

VS. 33-37 - (Just read).

And here it comes!

V. 38 - Pilate apparently was the original post-modernist, because evidently he did not believe in the concept of TRUTH!

You can keep reading of course, and we know the rest of the very sad story.

Conclusion:

We know that truth does exist.

And we know that the it is the truth that can set us free (John 8:32).

And furthermore, we know that truth comes from God’s Word (John 17:17 and Psalm 119:160).

Again, as we started this sermon, Jesus Christ according to John 1:14 came to bring grace and truth!

He was the ultimate fulfillment of grace and truth!

And we should never gravitate toward one to the exclusion of the other!

Have you responded in faith and obedience to the truth so that you can have access to the grace of God?