Grace vs. Law: How to Make Sense of the Contradiction Part 1

The Problem

My early years in Christianity were spent in the Nazarene Church and private Christian schools. They were insanely legalistic. They turned me into a Pharisee.

During those years I FEARED God. I earnestly did everything I could to be a good Christian, to make myself worthy. To not backslide. I only listened to Christian Music, I had my devotions every day. You could say that I was on-fire for the Lord. You bet I was because I was told that if I wasn’t then I would burn in hell. There was no grace, no forgiveness only an endless rat wheel of good works with no assurance that I was even meeting the lowest standard necessary for me to be saved. I even went to work for Focus on the Family and did everything I could to stand out as a Christian among Christians. At that time if you had asked me if I were “going to heaven” when I died, my answer would have been, “I hope so”. Beneath the ‘good Christian’ facade was a young man who struggled with his sin and who honestly knew that he wasn’t winning that battle. I knew that I was not good enough to be saved.

I hoped that working at Focus on the Family would provide me the answers that I was looking for in my struggle against sin. I was surrounded by other believers, we had chapel everyday and I got to hear the radio program every day. I was literally fed a steady stream of tactics and practical methods for living a God pleasing life personally, as a husband and as a father.

But there was no peace for me. There was no assurance. There was no hope. My sin problem wouldn’t go away and I knew that I would face shame and rejection if I had to stand before Jesus and give an accounting of my life.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one with these fears and doubts. One day I went to work and heard that one of the ladies in our department had committed suicide by turning her car on with the garage door closed. What little details they gave us from the note she left behind sounded like I could have written it.

The thing that really irked me while I worked there was the constant stream of guests and experts that appeared on the Focus on the Family Radio program that talked and acted like they had the sin in their lives 'under control'. They wrote books on the topic and always made it sound like it was a battle that we could easily win if we would just apply ourselves to it.

I will never forget Jay Carty’s appearance on the radio program. Jay is a retired NBA Basketball player turned Christian author who wrote a book called “Counter Attack: Taking Back Ground Lost to Sin”. The back cover of the book said, “One thing is certain... it (the book) clearly shows how you can be delivered from the bondage of sin.”

During his interview with Dr. Dobson, I hung on Carty’s every word . As soon as the interview ended I went to the Focus on the Family bookstore and bought a copy of Carty’s book. I read it cover to cover as quickly as I could and immediately began to apply Carty’s tactics for fighting the devil and temptation.

Looking back on it now I feel foolish for ever buying that book. Below is an excerpt from Carty’s book. Read it and you’ll immediately see why.

Jay Carty’s Tactic for Defeating Temptation and Delivering Yourself From the Bondage of Sin. An Actual Excerpt Taken The Book “Counter Attack”

Here is the principle we’re going to work with:

When your imagination comes in conflict with your will, it’s your imagination that usually prevails.

That means you will most often do a variation of whatever you think about most. Therefore, it’s necessary to discipline our thoughts to take them captive to the obedience of Christ.

Here come a flock of wild thoughts. Temptation has hit. Now what are you going to do? If you don’t have a mechanism to take the thought captive, your imagination is going to run wild and you’re going to sin. That’s why you need to learn how to have a polar bear alert.

Here’s how.

Go in the corner and don’t think of a white polar bear. What did you think of? A polar bear, that’s right. Not just because you’re rebellious. You are, but not just because of that. It’s because you didn’t have anything else to think about. If all you had to think about is a white polar bear, what are you going to think of? A white polar bear.

This time, let’s try it this way. Make the white polar bear cause you to think of a pink elephant. The white polar bear is going to be the catalyst generating the image of a pink elephant in your mind. Ready?

Go in the corner and don’t think of a white polar bear. What did you think of? Did you think of a pink elephant?

Wrong. First you thought of a white polar bear, and then a pink elephant.

The difference between the second time and the first time is subtle but it is very important: The white ploar bear didn’t stay in your head as long as when you had a pink elephant to think about.

If you can sensitize yourself to temptation so that you’re aware when it comes, the tempting thought will have stayed in your mind a shorter period of time because you put something else in its place. Since you can’t think of two things at the same time, if you practice substitute thinking you’re not going to sin. Temptation will have been removed before sin occurs. You will have used temptation as a catalyst to make you think of godly things. That’s pretty simple. But you’ll need some practice to get good at it, especially if it’s not something you’ve done much.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the old John Wayne movie, Operation Pacific, or any other World War II submarine movie. The sub is on the surface, and as an enemy plane comes overhead you hear an “UUGGA UUGGA” sound from the claxon horn and someone screaming “DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!” Then the guys scramble down the ladder from the conning tower into the sub and close the hatch just as the water starts coming in. It’s an intense moment and it gets your attention.

We want temptation to get our attention. So, whenever you have a polar bear alert it will be necessary to have horn blast in your head. And whenever that occurs make yourself think of 2 Corinthians 10:5 You’ll need to memorize it:

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

“This is too far out for me,” you may be saying. Stop and think for a moment. This idea can work for you. You can use temptation to remind yourself to start reconstructing the verse and by the time you put 2 Corinthians 10:5 together in your mind, whatever it was that was tempting you will be so far gone it just won’t be a problem anymore. You will have done some substitute thinking and won’t have sinned.

My favorite spot is Hume Lake Christian Camp in California. One day, after teaching the polar bear alert concept, I was coming out of chapel following a couple of high school guys. They didn’t know I was behind them. As we got to the street a girl wearing shorts shorter than appropriate (a little “cheek” was slightly exposed) walked in front of us. As they checked her out, without looking at each other, in unison they shouted ‘polar bear alert’ and hung a left toward the camp store. You see - the concept works!

Use it against improper fantasy.

Use it to displace emotion in order to keep anger from ruling your life.

Use it when you are shopping to stop from lusting after things.

It’s a good device to use when walking by the refrigerator if you are over weight. Try it it works...

As strange as it may seem, this is one of the most practical devices you can use to keep from sinning. That makes learning the technique worth the time. Don’t you agree?

---

Yep! That’s right. The answer to all of our sin problems according to Jay Carty, is a polar bear alert.

I am embarrassed to admit this but, I earnestly employed the polar bear alerts in my life in an effort to conquer my sin. Predictably, It accomplished absolutely nothing! How could it do otherwise? Carty believes we can conquer our sin by using 'substitute thinking' tactics. But sin is not a thinking problem. Sin is a problem of the heart, it is a sickness that exists within our very nature. I didn't need 'substitute thinking'. I needed a substitute for my sins.

I felt like a sucker for being duped into buying such a useless book. Carty had my money and I still had my sin problem. As a result of this disappointment I began to question the validity of Christianity.

I couldn’t resolve the conflict that was raging within me. On the one had, I earnestly tried to live a God pleasing life. With all of my heart I struggled to live a life that would cause Jesus to say to me “Well done thou good and faithful servant.” But on the other hand, I wasn’t a good and faithful servant. I was a rotten sinner. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what tactics I employed I couldn’t defeat my sin. I feared that hell was what awaited me when I died because scripture makes it clear that is what I deserved and what I had earned as a result of my sinful deeds.

It wasn’t until I began my degree in Religious Studies and Biblical Languages at a Christ College in Irvine, California that my eyes were opened to the fact that what I was being taught by my church and by Focus on the Family was a complete confusion and distortion of God’s law and the gospel. This was an eye-opening experience that changed my life forever.

I’ll write more about it in the next blog entry.

Comments

[Kelly]

Hey, sounds like somewhere I've been. It's a shame it took me so long to realize that if books of Christian tactics and self-help really were able to do what the authors so eagerly claimed they would do, we wouldn't have such a huge outcrop of new books from the Christian publishers every year, with people simply buying more and more books. The other sad thing is that when we secretly realize that we can't do it, we have to put on a better front to the world and at least *pretend* as though it's working, and hopefully convince ourselves for a little while as we go. But we can't really convince ourselves forever.

Confusion of Law and Gospel... possibly the #1 cause of Bible interpretation problems.

[Adam Roe]

Great story, Chris. It sounds very similar to my own. I am in the Lutheran Church primarily because it became clear to me that I was unable to "win" the battle over sin.

[Erica]

Chris,
I enjoyed reading your post.

[Val]

POLAR BEAR ALERT!?!?!

When I read this I didn't know wheter to laugh or cry.

What has happened to Christianity that people can invent such lame and useless ideas for dealing with our sin and then get a forum on 'Christian Radio' to sell us this poison?

I'm looking forward to part two of this story.

Thanks Chris. I appreciate your willingness to open yourself up a little.

[Steve]

I, too, and looking forward to the rest of the story.

And as a side note, the tactic of not-thinking-of-something is a Zen Buddhism exercise in achieving some higher level of thought, as in, "Don't think of a cat. When you are not thinking of a cat and know you are not thinking of a cat, you have attained the next level."
This is just another example of Eastern mystical thought infiltrating the Christian worldview.

[Wayne Roberts]

Chris,

Thanks for bringing us the story of the "Luther" moment in your life. BTW R.C. Sproul is doing a series on Renewing Your Mind called, "The Drama of Redemption". Chris I think that is an apt title for your story.

[Dave]

As I was reading this I was thinking of something that I had heard before attributed to Luther (sorry, I don't have a reference):

(Paraphrased) When you see temptation and sin in front of you, pray.

At first it sounds like the polar bear, but it really isn't. Didn't Jesus teach us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"? By praying when we see the temptation or sin we are taking the power out of our hands (polar bear method) and putting it into God's hands.

Dave

[Marcia]

God is good. I am dealing with this right now in my life, and I had my own Luther moment today. Coming to this blog, it feels like this Grace v Law series was written just for me. I'm glad to know that others who were raised in the Nazarene Church (as I was) have had the same revelations. I can't remember ever feeling like grace was available. Thanks for writing this.

[Derek]

Thanks Chris, My joureny has some similar elements. I was raised Pentecostal. I have spent my entire adult life shedding layer after layer of that onion. Even while unknowingly wrapping myself in new versions. The highest calling of my church was to be in full-time ministry. I became a missionary. The Mission's highest calling was to live in poverty, seek and obtain direct daily marching orders from God Himself , and "go" with action being more important than training. I left the mission after 15 years. That was 8 years ago. Two years ago I began a full-scale war against The God I Know.

I was failing consistently at everything I did, could barely provide for my family, was holding my marriage together by a thread. When I came to realize that everytime I thought of success, of obtaining a creature comfort, of providing for my family beyond a subsistence level "He" would speak. The message was always the same: that is ungodly, you pursue success against my wishes. It was a hideous and cruel form of legalism.

The tipping point came when I was listening to a teaching tape on being a Christian businessman. An all too familiar story was given. God led the teacher into a course of action. It was successful. But then because the teacher did ONE thing wrong, something not listed as wrong in scripture, something he had no way of knowing was wrong, but because of that God said, Well you blew it, I withdraw my blessing. And his business failed. He lost everything.

That was the God I Knew. I was devestated. I could never succeed at anything with his blessing, because someway somehow my thoughts or actions or desires were going to offend him and just when I thought I had success He would take it away.

When I became aware of this "voice"/feeling/thought/internal conflict I became angry. I went to war with the God I Know. That is his name. Everytime those legalistic thoughts would arise I would go into an absolute rage, drowning them out with my own voice, yelling "POLAR BEAR!!!!" LOL. Just kidding. No I can't type what I said to the GIK. I came to veiw him as demonic. I noticed that he never had any comeback. I would say the most awful, horrendeous things and "he" would shut up.

I maintained that out there somewhere was The Real God, I knew what he was supposed to look like/be like but I accepted that I did not know Him. I wanted to though, and asked that he reveal himself. I was greeted by deafening silence.

So I just continue on my journey. Godless. I kinda hope He is out there somewhere, but at least without the God I Know I am for the first time in a decade free of depression - really, just free - experiencing liberty for the first time in my life. I live free of guilt. I kind of smiled as I read the "short skirt" story, remembering when looking would mean sin and guilt. It doesn't anymore. That is freedom.

[Theresa K.]

Chris, Derek and everyone else who has comented on this post - it is refreshing, encouraging, yet sad, to read this story. I started keeping my blog after reading this same story over and over on others' blogs. I look forward to part II and beyond.

To Derek who writes: "I knew what he was supposed to look like/be like but I accepted that I did not know Him." That, my friend, is why God reached out to draw us to Him through the atoning sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. We can't ever know God, reach out to Him successfully or do one single thing to please him, yet God still desired us so He provided a way. Don't waste time waiting for God to speak to you; He has already spoken. You were abused at the hands of well-meaning, but lost, souls; don't let them continue to rob you of God's act of reaching down to you to save your soul and your life.

[Char Johnson]

We, as a ministerium, had Jay Carty in two years to help us understand we could stand, resist temptation and take back ground previously available to the enemy. It's not a matter of Zen Buddhism, but of thinking on those things which are true, lovely, pure, honest, of good report rather than 'bared flesh'/immodest attire, gold or glory. Temptation does not come from God, but His grace will not suffer/allow us to be tempted sans means of escape. We must resist the enemy's wiles and he will flee. The analogy of putting a two year old to bed is apt.