Grace / Law

     The “Grace/Law” picture at first glance conveys a message of Jesus the Christ’s grace being sufficient for all religions and beliefs.  It also shows the law dying on the cross, which would remove the notion of sin in the world.  This is very controversial in Christianity today and there is great criticism between the grace and law messages, as well as all of those in between.  The letters of grace each represent a belief system; the beliefs being Evolution, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Gender Equality respectively.  The cross has the Ten Commandments nailed to each arm representing the law being fulfilled through Jesus’ death.  The cross also reinforces this idea with the words, “The Law Fulfilled” engraved on it.

     The underlying details of the picture even further reinforce its message of grace over law.  The lettering is all in crimson, which gives symbolism for Jesus’ blood that was shed on the cross.  The word grace is much larger than the word law, signifying that grace is greater than the law.  Grace is above the cross, which gives notions of grace being God’s plan for the cross.  Law is below the cross, which conveys that the law was fulfilled and no longer applies due to the cross.  The colors in the background also convey a message; “Grace” being flooded with white or light seems to say that grace is the way to the light or purity and “Law” being flooded with darkness seems to say that the law leads to death, hopelessness, and darkness.
     As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the message of this picture is controversial due to the tension between sects of Christianity.  It supports the grace message of Christianity that many other sects of Christianity claim is a “watered down message.”  I would argue that it is not a watered down message, but is the only message that can be accurately read from the gospel.  These scriptures illustrate my stance fairly well: "For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (New American Standard Bible, Rom. 6.14), "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law" (1 Cor. 15.56), and “for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3.6).  Thus the law is the life giver to sin and the harbinger of death to us.  So if the law is not the way to God, then grace must be due to these scriptures: “to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20.24) and “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel” (Gal. 1.6).  Here we see two very distinct scriptures that tell us that God is grace-giving and that preaching anything other than grace is of a different gospel.  We know that God is love because of 1 John 4.8 and we know that love does not insist on its own way because of 2 Cor. 13 and therefore can assume that God does not insist on the law.  2 Cor. 13 also mentions that love is kind and selfless, so God cannot place his desires over ours because He is the perfect gentleman.   This stance is also held by many ministers across the world.  A few ministers that I know that support this message are: Phil Bevilaqua (Pastor of Grace Life Church), Mark Hicks (Director at Life Health Prosperity and Pastor at Connect Ministries), Phil Drysdale (Founder of Phil Drysdale Ministries), and Paul Ellis (Author of Escape to Reality blog).