Here’s the Answer

The False Choice Between Mercy and the Law

Which does God love more, people or the Ten Commandments? In episode 372 of the Holy Note, pastors Chad and Robert of Sun Valley Community Church in Arizona have a pretty controversial.

Take that warrants discussion. Say something that's going to make, if you're really religious and you're a church person, you've been around it for a long time, I'm going to say something that's going to bother you for a second.

The fact that God forgives means people are more important to Him than His rules. People are more important to God than the Ten Commandments. That shook somebody up somewhere. Well, it's what drove the Pharisees nuts about Jesus.

Okay. Well, let's just break that down. Yeah. Okay. Have we all broken the Ten Commandments? Yes or no? Yes. Is it possible that we can still be saved? Yes. That must mean... That's also a prerequisite for us being saved, is you got to first be a sinner.

Well, you got to admit that you've broken His commands, but the fact that He made a way above and beyond the rules means.

Relationship with people trumps the rules. Yeah. Let's break it down. At the outset, we have no choice but to disable the tripwire set by Pastor Chad, who says that if you are bothered by what he's about to say, it's because you are a religious person, a church person.

Whether it's Mike Todd or Catherine Crick. Religious spirit doesn't like that. I felt the religious people, they booties got tight right there. Why do they talk about booties so much at this church? This manipulative tactic of prefacing questionable and sometimes outright heretical statements by dishonestly characterizing those who would dare to disagree with you as somehow lacking the same spiritual vitality that you enjoy.

I'm at the point of not taking you seriously, sir, when you say things like that because that statement isn't about helping people. It's about shaming people and preserving yourself from the pushback you know you're probably about to receive.

Justice, Grace, and the Cross

The fact.

That God forgives means people are more important to Him than His rules. People are more important.

To God than the Ten Commandments. No, that's not true. To many, it may sound good. It may sound like He's describing grace, but He's not. What we have here is a false dichotomy. God's love for people is being set against God's zeal for justice, as if one must be more important than the other.

The fact that God has provided a Savior does not mean that He loves people more than His law. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne, and God will not relax the standard of His law for the sake of men.

The Savior He provides in Christ satisfies the demands of divine justice in the place of those for whom He dies. He does this by living a positively righteous life, the merits of which He imputes to believers, and by paying the penalty for sin in His substitutionary death.

And I think that these men would agree with that, but either way, for some reason, they are pushing this strange unwarranted conclusion that since God has made a way, it means that people are more important than the rules.

And yet here Chad is again in the comments section saying that the problem people have who disagree with this is that this thought is scandalous to the religious, grace always is. Grace is not God making a way above and beyond.

The rules, but the fact that He made a way above and beyond the rules. Grace is accomplishing.

Salvation by the only possible means, the death of the Son of God in satisfaction of the rules.

That shook somebody up somewhere. Well, it's what drove the Pharisees nuts about Jesus.

Okay, well, let's just break that down. Yeah. No, that is not what drove the Pharisees crazy about Jesus. First of all, their primary complaint was that He claimed to be God. Second, Jesus disrupted their legalistic system.

He never once downplayed the importance of the law. He obeyed the law perfectly. And if He hadn't, we could not have known grace. Grace isn't grace because it lessens the importance of the rules. Grace comes to us because the commandments are so important that their demands must somehow be satisfied in order for us to be saved.

Grace is unmerited favor of God lavished on undeserving sinners in Christ. It's unmerited by us, so how then do we have access to it? Not because the rules are less important to God, but because Jesus satisfied the demands of the rules on our behalf, storing up favor with God.

For us. Have we all broken the Ten Commandments, yes or no? Yes. Is it possible that we can still be saved? Yes. The fact that He made a way above and beyond the rules means relationship with.

People trumps the rules. Yeah. God didn't make a way above and beyond the rules. His way of salvation is in accordance with the rules. God choosing to show mercy and revealing Himself in Christ as full of grace and truth does nothing to lessen the importance, the weight, nor the demands of His holy law.

James Hamilton helpfully writes,. The only thing God owes mankind is justice. In the gravity of the heinousness of disregarding the infinite worth and beneficence of God calls for punishment that fits the crime.

If God does not visit a just punishment, it shows that He has as little regard for Himself as the creatures who have refused to honor Him as God and give thanks to Him. Chad and Robert are coming to a wrong conclusion because they are trying to answer a question that the Bible isn't asking.

Which does God love more? The Bible doesn't ask this question. The question it does ask is how can God be good and still forgive undeserving sinners like me when God's law is so important to Him that even my best works won't earn back His favor that I forfeited when I broke His law?

The answer is found in the cross, which is a cosmic demonstration, yes, of God's gracious intention towards sinners, but also of His uncompromising holiness. In conclusion, it seems like these guys might lean towards the hyper-grace side of things, and it seems like in an effort to get a little cute with it, they've come up with something that no authority in the entirety of church history would affirm.

The Ten Commandments are a revelation of God's character, not an arbitrary list of rules. He didn't draw them out of a hat and say, okay, I guess this is what morality will be for mankind. God says you shall not commit adultery because He is faithful.

He says that you shall not murder because He is the author of life. He says that you shall not lie because He is truth. To say that people are more important to God than the Ten Commandments is to say that people are more important to God than God's own character, God's own nature, who He is.

It is therefore to say that God thinks people are more important than God. And what's terribly ironic is that they are twisting the nature of God and downplaying the importance of God's law while on their podcast Loving God, Loving People, which is a summation of the Ten Commandments.