Grace Is Dead?

Modern Christianity has developed a catch-all word to excuse themselves from keeping God’s law. A word, to be sure, that is actually found in the Bible but is grossly misunderstood. My purpose with this post is not to fully explore all the avenues of grace and its most significant component (for that would take all day and then some) but merely to define and, applying a bit of logic, establish its connection to the law and establish which law.

Starting out, we are going to establish a definition of grace. Webster's 1828 dictionary defines grace as

GRACE, noun [Latin gratia, which is formed on the Celtic; Eng. agree, congruous, and ready. The primary sense of gratus, is free, ready, quick, willing, prompt, from advancing.]

1. Favor; good will; kindness; disposition to oblige another; as a grant made as an act of grace

2. Appropriately, the free unmerited love and favor of God, the spring and source of all the benefits men receive from him.

4. The application of Christ's righteousness to the sinner.

If we were to summarize these, it could be stated as: mercy, where we deserve death. Grace is something we received at baptism because of Christ’s death. We did not deserve it, yet it reconciles us to God and blots out our sins. It is the free gift of God, and it cannot be earned by righteousness because it is what makes us righteous in God’s eyes. 

Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; [it is] the gift of God, 

9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

We cannot earn grace or forgiveness. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. All we have to do is come to him to receive His grace. He gives it to us freely, and we cannot keep the law so well or do so many great works that we could ever generate this for ourselves. We are sinners, and we deserve death. 

Romans 6:23 NKJV For the wages of sin [is] death, but the gift of God [is] eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Mercy is forgiveness for our sins. Now, most people stop reading right there in Ephesians and go, “See? We don’t have to do any works or keep the law! We are in grace!” Well, if we read just one more verse, we would see that that is not quite true because Paul goes on. 

Ephesians 2:10 NKJV For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. 

It’s not so simple now, is it? Because you can’t argue Paul’s words away without admitting to either the necessity of the law or that we should still be doing some good works. Most are quick to admit to the latter because, after all, we are children of God, and as His children, we ought to be imitating Him and doing good works. Alright, I’ll give you that. What about the law, though? This is where a fundamental misunderstanding perpetrated by a sloppy use of the word grace comes into play. Grace is being given life where we deserve death; it is mercy when justice demands our lives. Why do we deserve death? 

Because we sinned! Exactly! Our gracious and loving God gave us mercy when we deserved death, and Christ died so our sins could be blotted out. How awesome! So, we require mercy and forgiveness because we sin. This is grace, but what is sin exactly? What is sin?

1 John 3:4 NKJV Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.   

Romans 7:7 NKJV What shall we say then? [Is] the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."

Sin is the breaking of the law. That’s what sin is, so grace is forgiveness for breaking the law. Everyone can agree on that, but now we come to a bit of a sticky situation. If the law is done away with, then how can grace exist? Let me explain. Most people try to separate grace from the law and place them at odds with each other. What need is there for law if grace exists? Lots, as it turns out. Grace cannot exist without the law, and the law is meaningless without grace. 

This is where we come to the first law of grace, which states:

Grace is life where we deserve death through forgiveness and blotting out of our sins. If sin exists, then law must also exist because sin is the transgression of the law. Therefore, if there is grace, there must also exist law. 

Without law, there is no need for grace because there is no sin, and Christ’s death would be unnecessary. No one would have anything to repent of or change from. On the other hand, there would be no reason to keep the law if grace did not exist because we cannot earn our salvation through keeping the law. The law needs grace to give it meaning, and grace would not exist without the law. Simple logical reasoning, but it seems to be difficult for a lot of the Christian world to grasp. Now, to get around the idea of keeping the laws in the Old Testament, they will say that we are under the law of Christ, not the old burdensome law of the Father. Well, read Psalm 119 and see how much of a burden it really is to keep the law. “What is the law of Christ?” You ask them. “Love,” they respond, with a sickly, dreamy look in their eyes. “Well, what’s love?” 

This is the problem: they want so much to be free of keeping the law or having any responsibility to do anything God said that they invent magic words like grace and love that sound holy and biblical to get them out of obeying God. These words are from the Bible, but they turn them into something different. “All we have to do is love!” they chirp happily. Well, yes, but it’s not as easy as your voice would make it sound. What is love? The two greatest commandments that Christ gave were straight out of the Old Testament. 

Mark 12:29-31 CSB — Jesus answered, “The most important is Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. “The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”

They are both about love! No surprise there, and the standard Christian is going, aha! See? It’s all about love! You just gotta love, man!” They say it like it’s an answer to every question, but again, they don’t understand the word. How exactly do you love your neighbor, and even more, how do you love God? Is it just a warm, happy feeling in your chest whenever you think about someone? No, of course not. Christ said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” That’s how we love God, and one of those commandments is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Therefore, loving one's neighbor is loving God. Really simple stuff, not hard at all to understand, but did Christ tell us how to love our neighbor? 

There’s a scripture I would like to turn to. Let’s turn over to Galatians 5:14. 

Galatians 5:14 NKJV For all the law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 

The law can be summed up in one command: that of love your neighbor as yourself. That means that the place we ought to be looking is the commands that fill this one law, the ones that tell us how to carry it out. This is a command, so there are things we have to do to obey it. Going back to the ten commandments, we can see that the first three commandments are about how to love and have a relationship with God, and the last six are about loving your fellow man. What bridges the gap between man and God here? The ever unpopular fourth commandment, interestingly enough. 

Love is an action word, and there is a proper way to do it. We don’t get to decide what the definition of love is because God has already told us how we show not only our love for Him but also our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. God already gave us the instructions! There’s nothing for us to try to figure out here. He didn’t leave it up to us to figure it out, so we know what we ought to be doing because the Bible tells us so. 

I want to leave you with a curious thought and perhaps a different perspective on grace and the law. If grace is our means of salvation, and we can only have grace because the law exists, then perhaps the law is not what we thought it to be. Is it a set of rules to enslave us, or is it perhaps a set of guidelines and warnings to protect us and keep us in God’s way? It is our guide that leads us to Christ, much like the warnings of a parent to stay out of the road, or not to touch a hot stove are there to protect us.

We can certainly ignore these warnings and commands, but only to our detriment and sometimes even our death. We can ignore the instruction about the Sabbath, but then we will miss out on a time set apart to spend with God, and more than that, we will work ourselves to death. We can ignore the rule about not committing adultery, stealing, lying, murdering, what not to eat, or any number of others, but our lives will be a wreck. 

When we ignore the law, we ignore grace. Sin is the transgression of the law, and once we receive grace, we are supposed to change and sin no more. Go and sin no more, as Christ said. 

Romans 5:17-21 NKJV For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) 

18 Therefore, as through one man's offense [judgment came] to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act [the free gift came] to all men, resulting in justification of life. 

19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous. 

20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 

21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6:1-2, 14-16, 23 NKJV What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 

2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? ... 

14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 

16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin [leading] to death, or of obedience [leading] to righteousness? ... 

23 For the wages of sin [is] death, but the gift of God [is] eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.     

God has given us a tremendous gift in the sacrifice of His son, but it is one that we spit upon if we don’t keep His commandments. 

Hebrews 6:4-5 NKJV For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 

5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,

6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put [Him] to an open shame.

This post barely touches on the relationship between grace and the law that Christ handed down in the Old Testament, and there’s so much more to it than what I can cover. God gave us a gift called the blood of His Son Jesus, and He requires nothing more of us than that we come to Him with genuine repentance and seek forgiveness, and the gift is ours. That’s only the beginning of the adventure; our real life is just getting started, and we’ve got thousands of miles to cover before dark. We are free of sin for the moment, but we can sin again. If we sin, then we need grace, but sin is the transgression of the law, so if there is grace, there must be sin, and if there is sin, there must be law. God gave us this law out of His love for us and His desire for us to become part of His family. It is a blessing for us, and it is the reason for the existence of grace.

As we go out into another week, let’s share this blessing of grace with the people we run into. Let’s thank God for blessing us with His laws and the grace that makes it all possible. The law helps us live a good life, but Christ’s blood gives it meaning. We can’t separate grace from the law, for that would be only one-half of the painting. Remember, we are God’s workmanship, and we ought to be the complete painting.