THE LAW (VS) GRACE

“DISOVERING THE KINGDOM OF GOD WITHIN YOU” LUKE 17:21
MAGAZINE
When the vultures of division, strife, and controversy
hover over a nation, it is because one law order is
dying and being replaced by another.
Pitting law against grace is a false dichotomy. There is
no law without grace, and no grace without law. Such
a view is like saying, "I believe in heads, but not tails,"
or "I believe in mornings but not evenings." In all of
these, you can't have one without the other.
The opposite of law is not grace, but
lawlessness (2 Peter 2:8; 2 Chronicles 15:3).
The opposite of grace is not law, but total
permissiveness (Jude 4). The aim of gospel
proclamation is that "That the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us" (Romans 8:4).
In order to restore God's law-order among men,
Christians must vigorously embrace God's law
and hold it up as rule for all men and all of man's
institutions. It is quite common in Christian
circles to pit law against grace by saying things
like, "We are not under law. We are under grace;"
or, "We are not saved by law. We are saved by
grace;" or "Our family practices love, not law," or
"We are not in the dispensation of law, but in the
dispensation of grace."
It is a modern heresy to hold a view that the law
has no meaning or practical force in society
today. Such a position is quite antinomian and
the one possessing it makes himself an enemy of
the gospel. Any attempt to cling to the Scripture
without clinging to law denies it. And, any
attempt to understand Western Civilization and
its progress apart from Christian law perverts
history.
If there is a cloud in the pulpit regarding law,
there will be a fog in the pew regarding law. If the
preacher is knotted up in his understanding of
law and grace, then the parishioners will be tied
up over the subject. A society that rejects the law
of the Lord God commits suicide.
The law came in part because of God's grace. The
prologue of the law begins, "I am the LORD thy God,
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of bondage:" that is, because God is the
LORD, the law is a product of God's sovereignty; but,
because "he brought them out of Egypt . . . bondage,"
the law is a product of God's love and grace. Because
He loved Israel, He gave them His law. Thus, the
source of Ten Commandments is the grace and
sovereignty of God.
Jesus fully obeyed the law and corrected the thinking
of his contemporaries saying, "Do not think I have
come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it" (Matthew
5:17).
The tension in Jesus' day was not between law and
grace, but between rabbinical traditions and God's
law (Matthew 15). If there is a tension between law
and grace, it is because the Jews saw the law as a
mediator between God and man and the source of
justification. The real conflict is not between law and
grace, but between Judaism and Christianity wherein
the former proposed that keeping rabbinical
amendments was necessary to gain a right standing
with God.
Paul firmly rejected law as a mediator between God
and man, but in so doing He did not erect a wall
between law and grace as the modern mind does. For
the apostle would go on to say, " Owe no man any
thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth
another hath fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:8).