"In the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of John, the text explains Jesus Christ's entry into the world in two brief sentences: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.""
"It is this duality within Jesus-of not exactly opposing principles but of ones that exist in a kind of equipoise-that is the conundrum at the heart of the Christian message: God's grace comes in the form of his unconditional love, but he also judges based on his truth. Followers of Jesus are meant to emulate him by loving their enemies, but also, as the apostle Paul exhorts in Ephesians, to "put on the full armor of God.""
The Gospel of John declares the Word became flesh, dwelling among humanity and revealing the Father's glory, full of grace and truth. This creates a theological duality in Jesus: unconditional love (grace) alongside divine judgment (truth) in a dynamic equipoise. That duality poses a moral conundrum for believers who must both love enemies and confront wrongdoing. Christians are called to emulate love while also preparing to resist evil, exemplified by the exhortation to put on the full armor of God. A contemporary exchange on a podcast shows how appeals to grace and truth shape confrontational public debate and campus activism.
Read at The New Yorker
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