“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”
Proverbs 25:11
“Well,” said Lucy rather slowly (for she wanted to be truthful and yet not to be too hard on [Mr. Tumnus]), “well, that was pretty bad. But you’re so sorry for it that I’m sure you will never do it again.”
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
Articles in this Series
See the first article for the list.
On Grace and Truth
One great blessing of stories is that they incarnate virtue. Stories take propositional truths like obeying God and treasuring Him as first (Mk. 12:30-31) and flesh these truths out. They incarnate these truths in scenes like Peter and the apostles standing before the high priest and saying that their allegiance was first to God (Ac. 5:29). An application of this is that we should read the Biblical stories for their incarnation of virtue. However, we must distinguish between narrative and didactic portions of Scripture. This distinguishing must be done as not all things recorded in the narrative sections are morally correct, like David’s adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11). Hence, these sections, in some instances, obviously do not establish a normative standard for believers. The didactic portions teach this normative standard, like the Seventh Commandment, which says, “You shall not commit adultery.” (Ex 20:14). Therefore, we ought to read the narrative sections in light of the didactic sections: David committed evil. We must also read fictional books in light of the didactic sections of Scripture, with the crucial recognition that they, unlike the narrative portions of Scripture, are uninspired and, hence, susceptible to authorial error.
With that brief preface stated, I want to discuss what Lewis parenthetically noted about Lucy’s speech: “she wanted to be truthful and yet not too hard on [Tumnus]”. There is a particular balance or equilibrium that Lewis mentions here. Lucy desired to tell the truth about Tumnus as what the Faun did, namely planning to kidnap a child and give him or her to the White Witch, was “pretty bad”. But she was “not too hard” as she recognised Tumnus was upset and repentant. It would have been easy for Lucy to go to either extreme. There is a caveat here that one cannot be too truthful or too gracious, and the two are heavily interconnected as they both belong to God’s character and actions (Eph. 2:8-9; Heb. 6:18). So, when I speak of “either extreme”, it is really shorthand for saying that one prioritises an overly harsh and insensitive presentation of partial truth, or compromises by regarding peoples’ feelings more than their eternal destiny. I am not saying that it is impossible to simultaneously demonstrate truth and grace.
Lucy could have told the truth with complete disregard for Tumnus’ repentance, thundering, “Well, what you did was very bad, and you deserve eternal punishment. There is no hope for you.” In a real-world analogue, Matt Chandler tells the story of attending a church service with a lady involved in sexual sin. The pastor was preaching on sexual ethics and handed a fresh rose throughout his congregation. When the rose was returned broken, the pastor rhetorically asked, “Who wants the rose?”. Chandler rightly and angrily stated that Jesus wanted the rose.1 In a careless disregard of Gospel grace, the pastor missed the point that we are all sinners (Rom. 3:23). There was a partial truth there, insofar as sexual immorality does lead to relatively great brokenness. But the pastor missed the heart of the Gospel. Contrarily, Lucy could have compromised with Tumnus. She could have said, “We all make mistakes, Tumnus. Forget about it. That is just our nature. To err is Faun.” She could have delved into the vast sea of evangelical platitudes, stating that “God hates sin, not the sinner”, which is flatly contradicted by Scripture (Ps. 11:5), or, as the old evangelistic jingle goes, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”. This ignores the fact that God does not have a wonderful plan for unbelievers (2 Thess. 1:9).
The solution to this seeming dichotomy between grace and truth, which is not a dichotomy between grace and truth itself but between perversions of grace and truth, is found in the incarnate Christ, who was full of “grace and truth” (Jn. 1:15).2 Jesus incarnated virtue, such that Lucy’s incarnation of virtue was really a secondary incarnation of His primary incarnated virtue. Due to this, we ought not to speak truth without grace or grace without truth. We ought not to thunder hellfire and brimstone without speaking of the Christ who bore that devastating punishment on the tree for our sake (Gal. 3:13) or proclaim platitudes of God’s love while neglecting His justice (Rom. 1:18). The solution to our sinful natures and their tendency to lurch to either arrogant proclamation or timid appeasement is to behold “his glory, glory as of the Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14). So, we must view the character of Christ and the outward, consistent manifestation of this character in His actions.
Christ demonstrated remarkable grace in His interactions with others. He incited religious leaders who accused Him of dining with “tax collectors and sinners” (Matt. 9:10-17). He did not prohibit children from coming to Him, which He could have done in a kind of cool detachment, haughty superiority, and chronological snobbery in miniature that characterises many “grown-ups” (Matt. 19:14). When touched by a woman who was ritually unclean under the Levitical laws (Lev. 15:25; Mk. 5:25-34), He did not condemn her for not approaching Him directly or wasting His time or power, but He called her “Daughter” and told her to “go in peace” (Mk. 5:34). After Jesus’ resurrection, He approached Peter who had denied His name three times (Lk. 22:54-62) not to angrily condemn Him but to restore Him to ministry (Jn. 21:15-19). Of course, Christ’s grace shone most magnificently as He hung on Calvary, taking on our sins and covering us with His righteousness that derives from His active obedience (2 Cor. 5:21). He graciously endured the jeering men as they cried for Him to save Himself (Lk. 23:35-39) because it was by His death that man could be saved. He even prayed for the forgiveness of the leering crowd (Lk. 23:34). He had breath to spare such that the believing criminal would be comforted (Lk. 23:43). There is much more to be said here.
However, crucially, we must not make a Christ in our image. We must not imagine the effeminate Christ of theological liberals, who has soft skin, nice eyes, and flowing hair. He worked as a carpenter (Mk. 6:3). His hands were likely callused. He possessed the ferocity and strength to drive the money changers out of the temple with a whip of cords (Jn. 2:13-17). He did not do this arbitrarily but because of the truth that God’s place of worship was not to become a marketplace (Jn. 2:16). Christ pronounced intense woes upon the religious leaders of His day, declaring them “hypocrites”, “serpents”, and “whitewashed tombs” (Matt. 23:1-36). He did not shrink from the truth. He did not timidly clear His throat and say to the Pharisees, “We have a slight problem here, and maybe we should have some constructive dialogue on it.” He contended for flaming truth3, pronouncing judgment on the Pharisees. Christ claimed to be “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6), with utter accentuation on the definite article. He adhered to no nebulous pluralistic doctrine about all religions really addressing the same truth. Christ said that “No one comes to the Father except through [Him]” (Jn. 14:6).
Much wisdom is required to apply this principle of balanced grace and truth. Though she was a young girl, Lucy possessed much wisdom in talking to Tumnus. She recognised his repentant heart, lightly acknowledged his wrongdoing, and extended grace in the way she talked to him. We ought to speak to a repentant or confused soul differently than to someone who purposefully contradicts the Gospel. When Paul spoke to the Galatians who were turning to another Gospel, he was gentle but firm, like, as he says elsewhere, a “nursing mother taking care of her own children” (Gal. 1:6-7; 1 Thess. 2:7). When he spoke to the false teachers who were seeking to sway the Galatians, he unleashed divine anathemas, essentially damning them (Gal 1:8-9).4 We must seek this wise application in our own life, applying the virtue of the incarnate Word, “full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14). We must, like Lucy, manifest this incarnational virtue in our own lives, thereby shining forth the glory of Christ.
Footnotes
- See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLgIecL1IdY. In referencing Chandler, I am not endorsing his view of Critical Race Theory and other topics.
- This point was made by John Mark Reynolds in his lecture entitled Contending for the Christian Worldview, which is part of Biola’s University Certificate in Christian Apologetics program. Reynolds said this more in the context of anti-intellectualism, but it would apply to my purposes here, too.
- “Flaming truth” is Francis Schaeffer’s phrase.
- See William Hendriksen’s commentary on Galatians in the New Testament Commentary series for this point. It is an incidental but golden note.
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