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Are Grace and Law Compatible?
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In our society grace and law are often pitted against each other as if they were opposites.

Yet, if there were no law we would need no grace.
For God's moral law defines sin.

Romans 7:7 "I won't have known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet."

Romans 3:20
by the law is the knowledge of sin.

1 John 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.


So the law points out sin.
Scripture says we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.   (Romans 3:23)
And the wages of sin is death.  (Romans 6:23)

Thus all are condemned by the law as sinners facing death.  And without God's grace we are without hope.

BUT

God sent His only begotten Son that all who believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life!  (John 3:16)


1 Peter 2:24   Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

1 John 1:9   If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

That is grace -- marvelous loving grace.

The law cannot save us, it can only condemn.   Christ alone can save!

But what now -- that we, who have accepted Christ are no longer under the condemnation of the law, do we continue in sin?

The law is still there defining sin. 

Romans 6:1   What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 
  6:2   God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 

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Dedication


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The problems in theology concerning grace and law that we face today are due to this pitting grace against God's law, as if they were enemies.

The ancient Israelites upheld the law, but reject Christ's gift of grace.
Many modern Christians say they accept Christ's gift of grace but reject the law as being in opposition to grace.

However, any logical consideration of the matter would have to conclude that if obedience to God's ten commandments is despising grace, then obedience to ALL those commandments, including any that Paul emphasized,  is despising grace. 

The whole paradigm of saying obedience to God's commandments is despising grace is a devilish interpretation that has distorted truth.

So what DOES the Bible teach?

In Jesus' and Paul's time, many of the Jewish religious leaders had also totally distorted the grace and law concept.   They were trying to impress God with their righteousness by paying more attention to the smallest details of the physical aspects of the law than to its spiritual purpose.

Paul points out the problem:

Romans 10:1-3  "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God".

What is the righteousness of God?

 2 Cor. 5:21   For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 

 "The gospel," he declared, "is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."  (Romans 1:16-17)

The righteousness of God is embodied in Christ. We receive righteousness by receiving Him. 
"Their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord," and, "This is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our righteousness." Isa. 54:17; Jer. 23:6.

Christ's righteousness is credited to our account when we accept Him.  Then the more we know of Christ, the higher will be our ideal of a godly character and the more earnest our longing to reflect His likeness. A divine element combines with the human when the soul reaches out after God and the longing heart can say, "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." Ps. 62:5 

Jesus emphasized the laws true nature and intent in Matt. 5.  This irritated the Jewish leaders.  They had fallen into a practice and belief that measured righteousness by outward actions.  They liked to "parade" their righteousness by physical details and ceremonial cleanliness to the neglect of the "weighteier matters" of God's law.

Jesus pointed out the problem -- outward show of so called righteous acts while the inner thoughts, motives and desires remained unchanged and sinful, was NOT righteousness.

"Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you are like whitewasted tombs, which on the outside llok beautiful but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.  So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness".  Matt. 27:27-28 NRSV

Their distorted emphasis made a mockery of God's moral law.  They only saw the 1st use of the law and paraded it as if this was the end point of the law.   In contrast Jesus, and later Paul upheld the real intent of the moral law, pointing out the second use and third use of the law in it's spiritual dimensions.

The question was NEVER,  should a follower of God obey God's moral law.   Obedience was and is an unquestioned duty and priviledge of all children of God.   Both Jesus and Paul always upheld the moral law's teaching which embodies the concepts of love to God and love to mankind.  These aspects of the law remain eternally applicable. 

The law not only points out what sin is, but also raises the standard for righteousness -- a righteousness that God works into the life and heart  of every willing and obedient follower, who accepts Christ as Lord and Savior.  

In today's Christian society people have gone to the other equally, deadly extreme in separating grace and law.  While no one is saved or obtains righteousness by merely conforming to outward acts while being devoid of a living relationship with Christ, yet, no one is saved or in a living relationship with Christ who rejects and willfully tramples His moral law.

     



 



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Eriel


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What is GRACE?

Grace is an attitude in the mind of God.

Example is the proclamation ...."Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, good will toward men."

The "good will" is an attitude in God's mind -- "grace".

For the Roman Catholic, grace is a quality God pours into man that changes man from sin to holiness.

But grace is God's forgiving attitude and willingness to accept us for Jesus sake. And man is changed when he comprehends and accepts and believes this truth.

The debt of sin must be paid. A crime has been committed. And penal satisfaction is imperative.

But God's grace gave His Son and now He is free to forgive and offer eternal life to sinners who believe by faith,  since the punishment of our crime has been fulfilled.

he enigma of justice and mercy has  baffled.  try to play off one aspect of God's character against the other.  They cannot fathom a God that is both just and full of grace.



 



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Ruth


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NOT UNDER THE LAW, BUT UNDER GRACE.

 

BECAUSE we are not under the law, we are not under obligation to keep it, so the reasoning goes.  We

are under grace now, and so are released from the law. " Free from the law; O happy condition ! "
They say, " The law entered, that the offence might abound.

But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." And grace abounded so much more than sin, that it totally

eclipsed the law and did away with the law (so they say) ; sin does not appear so sinful after all, and we are under no

further obligation to that ten commandment law whatever.

The law hath reigned ; but now grace reigns; and if grace reigns, it is greater than the law, and much more important.

 

But let us examine this position. It looks very philosophical and pleasing at first glance; but may it not be found to

be more philosophical than theological ?

 

The text referred to, is Rom. 5:20, 21.

And instead of saying the law reigned, it says, " Sin hath reigned unto death."

Now sin is the transgression of the law. 1 John 3:4.
And yes the verse does say that!  The Greek word used means "in opposition to law" "lawlessness". 

So we ask, does sin reign now?  Is there sin in the world, in your life?  Ah, yes -- so there is a law. Without law there would be no sin; as law defines sin, and without sin there would be no grace shown us, as there now is through Christ.  So without the law there would be no grace. Therefore the law is first and remains.

 

But as we have sinned, and the law cannot give life, as was at first intended (Eze. 20:11; Rom. 10:5), grace was

shown us, and reigns (and has reigned ever since it was first shown to Adam in the garden of Eden) " unto eternal life."

How? Independent and exclusive of the law ?—No?  Justification or forgiveness of sin is independent of works, and  grace comes " through righteousness" (Rom. 5 :21), not through the transgression or abolition of the law.

But righteousness includes doing right; or to make it more plain, " All thy commandments are righteousness." Ps. 119:172.

Then " grace reigns through [obedience to] the law unto eternal life."

 

This is what Paul argues in Rom. 8: 3, 4. " For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,

God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : that the righteousness

[right doing] of the law [or doing the law right] might be fulfilled [accomplished] in us, who walk not after the

flesh, but after the Spirit;" and this proves that if we walk after the Spirit, we shall keep the commandments.

 

Thus antinomianism falls by one of

its own weapons, and all who try to

uphold that theory will fall by the same.

O for more of that true faith in Christ,

which will help us to walk at liberty

because we keep God's law! Ps. 119:45; James 2:12.  

 



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