We live in a world that often swings wildly between extremes—where truth becomes a weapon, or grace becomes license. But the gospel invites us into a deeper, more nuanced space: the holy tension where grace and truth meet and hold hands. It’s the very space where Jesus Himself dwelled.

“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
— John 1:17

From the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus embodied both grace and truth—never compromising one for the other. He called people to repentance, yet knelt beside them in compassion. He named sin, yet covered shame. He was never soft on holiness, and never harsh in love.

But we, being human, struggle to hold both. We tend to drift.

Some of us cling to truth without grace. We become rigid, exacting, confident in our correctness but lacking kindness. We speak as if conviction alone will transform hearts, forgetting that it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). Without grace, truth loses its beauty—it becomes something people fear instead of something that sets them free.

Others of us lean into grace without truth. We excuse behaviors that harm, avoid hard conversations, and mistake silence for mercy. But grace without truth becomes sentimentality. It loses its anchor. And slowly, love becomes permissiveness, unable to call us higher or heal what’s broken.

Paul wrestles with this in his letter to the Romans. In Romans 5, he proclaims the breathtaking truth: “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20). What a glorious promise! There is no sin so deep that grace cannot cover it. God’s mercy reaches further than our failures ever could.

But Paul doesn’t stop there. He anticipates our tendency to twist grace into an excuse. And so in Romans 6, he writes:
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1–2)

Grace doesn’t deny truth—it leads us into it.

And truth doesn’t cancel grace—it reveals our desperate need for it.

This is the rhythm of redemption. Not one without the other—but both, held in tension, in love.

When we live in this sacred balance:

• We don’t have to pretend we have it all together (grace),
• But we also don’t remain where we are (truth).
• We are fully known (truth) and fully loved (grace).

This is the kind of love that changes people.

Jesus did not avoid the woman at the well’s story—He named it. Yet He stayed with her, spoke to her, and revealed Himself to her (John 4). He didn’t condemn the woman caught in adultery—but He also said, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). He called Zacchaeus down from the tree, dined with him, and watched as grace produced truth—“I will repay what I’ve stolen” (Luke 19).

Grace leads us home.
Truth shows us the way.
Together, they form the path of transformation.

So let us be people who hold both. Who speak with honesty and humility. Who love without condition and also with clarity. Who forgive without enabling and confront without condemnation.

Because that’s the gospel. And that’s our invitation.

“Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”
— Romans 6:22

Grace and truth are not opposites. They are companions in the journey of sanctification.

And in holding them together, we reflect Jesus most fully.