Law vs. grace - why is there so much conflict among Christians on the issue?

The most obvious and striking division of the Word of truth is that between law and grace. Indeed, these contrasting principles characterize the two most important dispensations: the Jewish and Christian. "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). It is not, of course, meant that there was no law before Moses, any more than that there was no grace and truth before Jesus Christ. The forbidding to Adam of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17) was law, and surely grace was most sweetly manifested in the Lord God seeking His sinning creatures and in His clothing them with coats of skins (Gen. 3:21) - a beautiful type of Christ who "is made unto us... righteousness" (1 Cor. 1:30). Law, in the sense of some revelation of God's will, and grace, in the sense of some revelation of God's goodness, have always existed, and to this Scripture abundantly testifies. But "the law" most frequently mentioned in Scripture was given by Moses, and from Sinai to Calvary, dominates, characterizes, the time; just as grace dominates or gives its peculiar character to the dispensation which begins at Calvary and has its predicted termination in the rapture of the church. It is, however, of the most vital moment to observe that Scripture never, in any dispensation, mingles these two principles. Law always has a place and work distinct and wholly diverse from that of grace. Law is God prohibiting and requiring; grace is God beseeching and bestowing. Law is a ministry of condemnation; grace, of forgiveness. Law curses; grace redeems from that curse. Law kills; grace makes alive. Law shuts every mouth before God; grace opens every mouth to praise Him. Law puts a great and guilty distance between man and God; grace makes guilty man nigh to God. Law says, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"; grace says, "Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Law says, "Hate thine enemy"; grace says, "Love your enemies, bless them that despitefully use you." Law says, do and live; grace says, believe and live. Law never had a missionary; grace is to be preached to every creature. Law utterly condemns the best man; grace freely justifies the worst (Luke 23:43; Rom. 5:8; 1 Tim 1:15; 1 Cor. 6:9-11). Law is a system of probation; grace, of favor. Law stones an adulteress; grace says, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." Under law the sheep dies for the shepherd: under grace the Shepherd dies for the sheep. Everywhere the Scriptures present law and grace in sharply contrasted spheres. The mingling of them in much of the current teaching of the day spoils both, for law is robbed of its terror, and grace of its freeness. The student should observe that "law" in the New Testament Scriptures, means the law given by Moses (Rom. 7:23 is an exception). Sometimes the entire law (the moral, or the Ten Commandments and the ceremonial) is meant; sometimes the commandments only; sometimes the ceremonial only. Among passages of the first type, Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:16, and 3:2 are examples. Of the second type, Romans 3:19 and 7:7-12 are examples. Of the third type, Colossians 2:14-17 is an example. It should be remembered also that in the ceremonial law are enshrined those marvelous types-the beautiful foreshadowings of the person and work of the Lord Jesus as priest and sacrifice, as in the tabernacle (Exod. 25-30) and levitical offerings (Lev. 1-7), which must ever be the wonder and delight of the spiritually minded. Expressions in the Psalms too, which would be inexplicable if understood only of the "ministration of death, written and engraven in stones" (2 Cor. 3:7), are made clear when seen to refer to Christ or to the redeemed. "But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night" (Ps. 1:2). "O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day" (Ps. 119:97). Three errors have troubled the church concerning the right relation of law to grace: Antinomianism- the denial of all rule over the lives of believers; the affirmation that men are not required to live holy lives because they are saved by God's free grace, "They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate" (Titus 1: 16). "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation; ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude verse 4). Ceremonialism- the demand that believers should observe the levitical ordinances. The modern form of this error is the teaching that Christian ordinances are essential to salvation. "And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1).

No, nothing could be more sad or foolish than the giving up the truth, as held by Paul and set forth in this epistle. It has leavened all Christendom, and brought in the utmost confusion. Sometimes the soul believes God, and then is happy; then seeks to attain to a little more righteousness by the law as a rule of life! and then, is almost in despair. Where is there one who has not suffered by this confusion? Are you perplexed, and say: "Why, I have been taught from my childhood that all men, Jews or Gentiles, were under the law, and all had transgressed it, and all were under its curse, and that even the believer is put under it again, as the rule of life?" Yes, this is exactly what men teach now. Is it what Paul taught in the First Years of Christianity?

1892 127 Dear Brother, — In the present confusion of thought throughout Christendom, scarce any subject is less understood according to God. So it was even in apostolic days through Jewish tradition, as Timothy was told (1 Tim. 1:7-8): how much greater is the darkness, now that men have corrupted the gospel and more and more lose its light! The views, of which you send a specimen, illustrate the value of the warning. You yourself reject what the young man most contended for; you believe, as scripture teaches, that we are under not law but grace, and not for justification only, but emphatically as set free from sin and made servants to God. Rom. 6 beyond doubt treats of christian walk, not of pardon, and lays it down authoritatively that sin shall not have dominion over us, for we are not under law but under grace. And 1 Cor. 9:20-21 formally excludes that for which it is so often unintelligently cited. For the apostle is careful (in speaking of the gracious elasticity of his service "to those under law, as under law,") to say "not being myself under law," in order that he might gain those under law. The omission of the clause here printed in italics is a defect of high moment; yet was it unsupplied in the A.V. as many may still overlook its insertion in the R.V. on authority which no scholar ought to dispute.

It is commonly taught among Christians, that the believer's rule of walk is the moral law, or the Ten Commandments. It is admitted, of course, by all, that the believer is not justified by the deeds of the law, and that if the law be thus used, it will only add to man's condemnation. His justification must clearly be by grace, and on the principle of faith; but when justified, what is the standard by which his life is to be governed? This, it is generally held, is the moral law, which was undoubtedly the rule given to Israel, and for its own purpose is, therefore, as perfect as all the other works of God's hands. It is true that believers are said to be under grace, and not under law; but this, it is maintained, applies to justification, not to walk. They are urged also not to return to law, but this is explained to mean the ceremonial law, not the moral. These distinctions are intelligible, but are they scriptural? Where does the word of God speak of a believer as being under the law for one purpose, and not for another? Where does it declare that while the ceremonial law is abrogated, the moral law is still in force as the rule for Christian walk? No doubt there is a distinction between the moral and ceremonial law, and also between the law as a ground of justification, and the law as a rule of life; but when this distinction is used to make Scripture harmonize with theology, it behoves us to inquire whether Scripture is thus fairly interpreted.

There is an immense difference between law and grace. The law demands everything, and gives nothing; while grace gives everything, and demands nothing. Thus nothing can be imagined more totally opposite in their principles. The law was given to show what man was. Grace has been put into exercise to show what God is. What a blessed contrast! Grace finds no spring of action in its object, but in the love of God, which must display itself; for God is love. Now, Christians are plainly said to have “become dead to the law by the body of Christ” (Rom. 7:1). They have died under the curse of a broken law in the person of their substitute on the cross—the Lord Jesus Christ

Perhaps nothing has so corrupted the truth of the gospel as the common practice of blending the law with it. Few things are more dissimilar, and kept more distinct in the Scriptures, yet they are often so mingled together in the present day as to destroy the simplicity and truth of both law and gospel. It was in this way the truth of Christ was so corrupted among the Galatian saints, that the apostle faithfully told them that Christ had become of no effect unto those who were justified by the law, for they were fallen from grace. It is, then, a matter of great importance to be able clearly to distinguish between law and gospel; for the believer is not under the law, but under grace.

All this is very serious for men in Christendom, if there were any eyes to see, and ears to hear. For what we see around us is not law pure and simple, nor grace in its abstract beauty, but a painful mixture of the two, to the marring of both. Paul trembled for souls in such a position; to him it was grave departure from the gospel of Christ.

But the apostle's assertion that the subjects of grace are not under law is often disputed. Many still maintain that the law is the Christian's guide to right living. But freedom from it as the rule of life is most unequivocally stated by the apostle. There is not the least ambiguity about his expression of it. He is speaking, too, as the exponent and representative of Christianity. His statement is authoritative. Nevertheless, it is not accepted as being the truth by many. There are many who refuse it with horror. They say it means license to sin. They tell us freedom from law as a rule of life means lawlessness, indulging in sin as much as one pleases.

But in spite of the plain and authoritative statement of the apostle, that we are not now under a rule of life that prevents our enjoying this liberty from sin's service, there are many who very mistakenly regard the principle of law as the only means by which a life of practical holiness can be produced. Notwithstanding the apostle's unequivocal statement that we are not under law, they insist that law is the power for holiness. Evidently, some in the apostle's day maintained this. It was necessary for the apostle to take up the question of law to show the effect of it upon a believer who undertakes to make it the rule of life.

Then as regards Christian practice, believers were put under the law as their rule of life, and remain so even today in Protestantism, whereas Christ Himself is the rule of life for the Christian. The universal doctrine of all Protestant bodies is to put souls justified by faith under the law as a rule to live by. The effect of this is a ministry of death, for the law is called "the ministration of death" in 2 Corinthians 3:7. Souls under the law never enjoy settled peace and the walk is enfeebled.