Do I Have Something in My Teeth?

Two weeks ago, my world fell apart. In one brief moment, the way I saw myself was revealed to be a lie. I had thought I was a decent person. Thoughtful, reputable, even somewhat attractive. But then a colleague walked into my office. At the end of our conversation, she lingered at my door and lowered her voice. With genuine concern, she asked if I used deodorant. I have, for the record, been using aluminum-free Old Spice Pure Sport since I was fourteen. “I recommend you invest in some antiperspirant as soon as possible,” she whispered. She clarified that this was not an isolated incident. It was a long-term issue.

Wait. I smell? I’m a smelly person? I walked into my friend’s office across the hall and asked him point-blank. He was caught off guard — and confessed immediately. Apparently, throughout our co-working relationship, I often had a faint hint of body odor. And that was the precise moment my ego was set on fire. I thought I had come to terms with many of my shortcomings — not good at math, slightly socially awkward, etc. — but this was beyond the pale. All this time, I had been the most loathsome of the grade-school stereotypes: The Smelly Kid. The horror.

We spend much of our lives in blissful ignorance. Better to be happy than to face the truth. Better to have high self-esteem than feel convicted. When we ask for advice, we are usually touting for flattery. When we ask a friend to edit our manuscript, we are secretly hoping for ceaseless praise. We like truth when it suits us. Any inconvenience, however, is where we draw the line. Take the classic headline from the Onion, “Picture Most Closely Resembling Actual Self Immediately Deleted.” Why would we face the world as it is when we can see the world as we think it should be?

Deleting unwanted photos or clearing our browser history is not enough to conceal the truth. It is bound to get out somehow. Like helium in a balloon. Like body odor. As the German poet Christian Hebbel once said, “That people, who flee from truth, should have invented the mirror is the greatest of historical miracles.” And the mirror always has its way with us. We cannot airbrush our way out of our true reflections as we casually catch a glimpse of ourselves in a parked car’s window. Oh no. Is that really us? That’s what we look like? Surely, that’s the curvature of the window, right?

The law holds a mirror up to our nature. Its accurate portrait is as necessary as it is unflattering. Without a true reflection of ourselves, we would all be walking around, hair disheveled, flies down, poppy seeds between our teeth, convinced that we are all Adonis reincarnated. The law reveals the unwavering truth about us to which we were somehow oblivious. It tells us, point-blank, that we smell like a polecat. As Augustine once put it, “The usefulness of the law lies in convicting man of his infirmity and moving him to call upon the remedy of grace which is in Christ.” In other words, the law kills our trust in our own goodness and drives us to seek help outside of us. 

As broken people, we have a tricky relationship with the law. We simultaneously need and hate it. We are easily convinced that the solution to our problems is as easy as 1-2-3. We are sure that our loved ones would benefit if we called them out. So we hold each other accountable. We “speak the truth in love.” But then, once the truth is spoken, we tend not to speak to each other for a long time. In that sense, the law does not play well with others. Whenever law and love are presented as a package deal, the law is usually the only one which survives. 

Ultimately, the law does little good for a person on its own. A mirror does not help clean you up, just as a diagnosis does not cure you. Telling a person that he stinks may be the truth he needs to hear, but it won’t make him smell any better. While the work of the law brings a person to seek help, the work of the gospel is the sweet-smelling, odor-defeating, pit-stain-averting antiperspirant. To stretch the metaphor to its fullest extent: my sin is my body odor; the law is my colleague’s candor; and the gospel? Old Spice Pure Sport (with aluminum).

Jesus was not afraid to speak the truth to people. Calling the Pharisees whitewashed tombs and King Herod a sly fox, he pulled no punches. And yet, rather than simply preach the law, he fulfilled it. He had so much more to give, after all. While the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Those words, grace and truth, are a winning combination. In Jesus, we can face the truth and yet not be condemned. 

In an interview, NBA superstar Kevin Durant said this about Jesus: “He used to go to the worst places, and go find the people who hated him, absolutely hated him. Who denied him, never even thought about saying his name. He went to go holla at them and give them the truth. And once they heard the truth their souls changed, and they couldn’t deny it.” Kevin Durant understands that those who are most afraid of the truth are chased down by Truth itself. The truth — the whole truth, that is — is not just the truth about us but the truth about God. The cross is the very intersection of the law that condemns and the gospel that sets free. 

So the two — law and gospel — always work hand in hand in God’s story of redemption. Both are true, and both are required to speak the whole truth. Perhaps John Foxe put it best when describing the nature of God’s two words:

There is nothing more comfortable for troubled consciences than to be instructed in the difference between the law and the gospel. The law shows us our sin; the gospel shows us the remedy for it. The law shows our condemnation; the gospel shows our redemption. The law is a word of ire; the gospel is a word of peace. The law is a word of despair; the gospel is a word of comfort. The law is a word of unrest; the gospel is a word of peace. The law says pay your debt; the gospel says Christ has paid it. The law says you are a sinner, despair you shall be damned. The gospel says your sins are forgive, be comforted you shall be saved. The law says where is your righteousness? The gospel says Christ is your righteousness.

It took me a while to get around to it, but I eventually went to the store to get some deodorant with aluminum. I’m pleased to say that I’m already seeing positive effects around the office. Every morning, I put on the Lord Jesus Christ in the form of Old Spice. The old world falls away. I smell like a new creation.