John 1:17. "The law was given
by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Law and
grace are diverse principles; the law demands, grace gives.
Gal. 3:10,13. The law says,
"Cursed is every one who continues not in all things that are
written in the book of the law to do them." The law has cursed every
soul that is under it, for none have fully kept it. In contrast, Christ has
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."
Rom. 10:4. "Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness of every one who believes." Christ not only
fully kept the law and glorified God in all His life, but died for our sins,
bore for us the law’s curse, and He is our righteousness before God.
Rom. 7:4-6. "Wherefore, my
brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you
should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. The believer has "become dead to the
law" by Christ’s death, that we should be married to the One who is
raised from the dead.
Gal. 2:16-21. "I through the
law am dead to the law" (condemned, put to death by it, and so dead
to it) "that I might live unto God." This deliverance from the law,
and joy in God’s grace, gives power to please God and walk in His ways.
Gal. 5:1. The apostle’s
exhortation is:"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage,
that is, the yoke of the law which, the apostle Peter says, "neither our
fathers nor we were able to bear" (Acts 15:10).
The apostle Paul writing to the
Galatian saints who had received the gospel, had been saved by it, and
delivered from the bondage of the law, asks, "How do you turn again to the
weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage?"
(Gal. 4:9). He also testifies to them:"Christ has become of no effect
unto you who are justified by the law; you are fallen from grace" (Gal.
5:4). These are searching truths for those who would, in this
"dispensation of the grace of God," put themselves under the law.
Some may say, and have said,
"This doctrine of `grace’ for the life and walk of believers is a very
dangerous doctrine, for it allows them to live in sin, to please themselves,
with no restraint. This very question is raised and answered in Romans 6. The
answer is, "God forbid. How shall we who are dead to sin live any
longer therein?" The truth is, the true believer, being born of God,
now hates sin (as before he loved it), and his earnest desire is to live and
"walk in newness of life." He loves God and hates sin. "The love
of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge that … He died for all, that
they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who
died for them and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:14,15). Love to our blessed
Lord is the power for the new life.
The standard for the daily walk of
the believer is a high standard; it is higher than the law, it is Christ
Himself. "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him"
(Col. 2:6-8).
Col. 3:1. "If you then be
risen with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ sits on the
right hand of God."
1 John 2:6. "He who says he
abides in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked."
1 Pet. 2:21. "For even
hereunto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example that you should follow His steps."
John 10:27. "My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."
The believer in Christ is born
again—born of God (1 Pet. 1:13; John 1:13). He is justified by faith, and at
peace with God (Rom. 5:1). This is all of God’s grace. "It is of faith,
that it might be by grace" (Rom. 4:16). Again, in Eph. 2:8-10, "For
by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God:not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God
has before ordained that we should walk in them." Think of it,
fellow-believer; what marvelous grace!
Acts 13:39 shows what the law could
not do for the believer:"By Him [Jesus] all who believe are justified
from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of
Moses." Since "no man is justified by the law in the sight of
God" (Gal. 3:11), how can the law be either the rule of life or of daily
walk for him who is not under it (Gal. 5:18), who is dead to it (Rom. 7:4), and who is by faith united to the risen, glorified Man at God’s right hand? In
Gal. 2:21, the Holy Spirit’s emphatic statement is, "For if righteousness
come by [or, is through] the law, then Christ is dead in vain," that is,
has died for nothing. With the Word of God in his hands, how can the believer
go back again to the law, when the law is not of faith, but is the
ministration of death, written and engraved in stones? (2 Cor. 3:6-11).
In what we have had before us from
the Word of God, it is plain that the law has no claim upon the believer. He is
looked upon as freed from the law. His standing before God in grace
is perfect, because it is in Christ, being accepted in the beloved (Col. 2:10;
Eph. 1:6)—not accepted in himself, or anything he has done, or for any
righteousness of his own, but accepted in the full value of Christ’s finished
work for him.