LAW VERSUS GRACE
There are many today who are confused when it comes to understanding the differences between the Mosaic Law (the old covenant) and Christ’s law (the new covenant). While there are many different aspects we could examine on this subject, the main focus on our study this morning comes from,
John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Based
on this verse and several other misunderstood verses, some have come to the conclusion
that there was no grace under the law of Moses and there is no law under the
system of grace. Another way to put this is that grace and law are mutual
exclusive. Is the true? Is this what the Word of God teaches? These are the
questions I will be answering this morning. Before we jump in and examine what
John
The
most common definition is unmerited favor. It is the act of receiving a gift
from God that we do not deserve and cannot earn or merit.
When
you think about this definition there should be many examples from the OT that
come to your mind that would qualify as grace. Even the creation of the earth
and everything in it is a great example of God’s Grace. But the first example I
want to look at comes from the patriarchal period and it has to do with Noah.
We
should all be familiar with this story of how all of mankind had turned is back
on God and how He was ready to destroy all of them. We can see this in:
Genesis 6:6 And the
LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His
heart. 7 So the LORD said,
"I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both
man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have
made them." 8 But Noah
found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
We
have just barely begun our study and we have already found grace in the OT. But
the next question becomes what kind of grace is God giving Noah? The answer can
be found as we continue reading the story of Noah starting in,
Genesis 6:13 And God
said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is
filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the
earth. 14 " Make
yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and
outside with pitch. 15
"And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three
hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 "You shall make a window
for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of
the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 "And behold, I Myself am
bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in
which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth
shall die. 18 "But I
will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark -- you, your
sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.
God was offering Noah and
his family salvation. The NT summarizes this story very well in,
Hebrews 11:7 By
faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly
fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned
the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
God gave the gift of
Grace to Noah, so clearly we can see God’s grace working outside of the new
covenant, but another important thing that we learn from Noah is that he received
his gift of grace from God in the same manner
we receive His gift of grace today. He received his gift of salvation by
having an obedient faith. He could not be saved until he obeyed God’s commands.
It took Noah over 100 years to build thet ark, and he followed God’s
instructions very carefully and did not add anything to them or take anything
away.
Genesis 7:5 And Noah
did according to all that the LORD commanded him.
Noah could not have accepted
God’s gift of grace of salvation until he completed what God asked him to do. Noah’s
gift of grace from God shows us how God’s commands, or we could say his law,
works hand in hand with His grace, which show that law and grace are not mutual
exclusive.
The same thing is true
under the NT as well. God has offered to us the gift of salvation, but in order
to accept it, we must have an obedient faith and obey those commands that God
has given so that we can accept God’s gift of grace.
When Noah obeyed God’s
commands it did not make him earn his salvation just as we cannot earn our
salvation by obeying Gods commands. No, instead Noah and each of us today are
simply meeting God’s requirements so we can accept his gift of salvation.
Our next OT example comes
from Moses and the children of
Exodus 33:12 Then
Moses said to the LORD, "See, You say to me, 'Bring up this people.' But
You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, 'I know
you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.' 13 "Now therefore, I pray, if
I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and
that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your
people." 14 And He said,
"My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." 15 Then he said to Him, "If
Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. 16 "For how then will it be
known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with
us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are
upon the face of the earth." 17
So the LORD said to Moses, "I will also do this thing that you have
spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name."
Once
again, we find grace being given in the OT. Notice what is said after Moses
receives the second set of the 10 commandments in,
Exodus 34:6 And the
LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful
and gracious, …
Not only was God merciful,
He was gracious because his grace was available in the OT as well. Our next
example comes from,
Numbers 21:5 And the
people spoke against God and against Moses: "Why have you brought us up
out of
In this account, the
children of
John 3:14"And
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man
be lifted up, 15 "that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Obviously the big difference
here is that Jesus’ healing is for the whole world and the bronze serpent was
just for those who had been bitten by a viper. But we can clearly see that it
was an act of grace on God’s part.
Our
next example comes from the story of
Joshua 6:2 And the
LORD said to Joshua: "See! I have given
Again,
we see the same pattern repeated.
We
have already examined several examples of God,s grace in the OT, but I want to drive
the point home, so I want to share with you a few more verses that show the
grace of God in the OT.
Ezra 9:8 "And now for a little while grace has
been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give
us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a
measure of revival in our bondage.
Psalm 84:9 O God,
behold our shield, And look upon the face of Your anointed. 10 For a day in Your courts is
better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
Than dwell in the tents of wickedness. 11
For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD will give grace and glory; No
good thing will He withhold From those who walk uprightly. 12 O LORD of hosts, Blessed is the
man who trusts in You!
Proverbs 3:34 Surely
He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble.
While
more verses and examples could be given these are enough to prove that God’s
grace was defiantly available during the OT times.
The second thing we need to find out is there is law
under the system of Grace.
First of all, I have
already shown that grace and an obedient faith to God’s law worked together
under the OT. Now we must simply find out if the same is true under the NT. I
believe the main reason people are confused about law and Grace is because when
the see the word law used in the NT, they assume this means all law when in
fact most of the time the word law in NT is referring to Moses’ law or the old
covenant. Let me give you an example.
Romans
Romans 7:6 But now
we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so
that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness
of the letter.
When people read verses
like these and they make the word law mean all laws they think that there is no
law under the system of grace, but that is not what is being said here because
Paul is talking about the Mosaic law and not all law in general. He is saying
that you cannot be justified by the works of the law of Moses, but you can be
justified by an obedient faith. In fact, most of the time you see the word
“faith” in the Bible it usually refers to an active or obedient faith.
Jesus delivered us from
the law of Moses, which was a tutor to bring us to Christ (Gal.
Before we even look at
some verses that clearly show that we are under grace and law today, I want you
to think about this idea of a new covenant. As you look through the Bible and
read about the various covenants that are made with God is there ever a time
when those convents don’t have any stipulations? Of course not! The same is
true with the new covenant that we are under because a covenant is an agreement
between man and God and it is full of stipulations or we could say laws. We
learn under the new covenant that we must have an obedient faith to God’s
commands or we will not have salvation.
Hebrews 5:8 though
He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He
suffered. 9 And having been
perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,
Notice Jesus is that
author of eternal salvation for those who obey. Obey what? The laws of the new
covenant. This fact proves that God’s system of grace in the NT has laws that
we must obey. So, yes both grace and law go hand and hand. Now look at this
next passage.
Ephesians 2:8 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.
This is another highly
abused passage that people use to say that you are saved by grace alone even
though the word alone is not used. Again this passage is teaching the exact
same thing I have been talking about. We cannot merit or earn our salvation,
but we must accept God’s gift of Grace by having an obedient faith. That is
what the verse has in mind when it says you are saved by grace through faith.
Grace is God’s part, and an obedient faith is our part. Now watch this,
Galatians
This a great passage to
use along Eph 2:8 to help people understand the difference between works of
merit and works of obedience. Those who teach that grace and law are mutual
exclusive would say that baptism cannot be part of our salvation because it is
a work of the law, but Paul makes it easy for us to see that baptism is a part
of our faith in Jesus Christ.
Look at the text again.
Notice we are made sons through faith, which includes being baptized into
Christ. So, here we see both faith and baptism working together as a part of
making us sons of God. So you see, baptism is work of obedience and not a work
of merit.
John
This tells us that there
is a law to follow under the system of grace and our motivation to follow that
law is love. Besides all of this the Word
of God specifically calls the new covenant a law in several places.
. Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death
This verse points out
that both the old and new covenants are a law.
1 Corinthians
Galatians 6:2 Bear
one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
James 1:25 But he who looks into the perfect law of
liberty and continues in it,
James 2:12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged
by the law of liberty.
James
1:25 calls the new covenant the
perfect law of liberty and James says we will be judged by this perfect law of
liberty in James 2:12.
Everything we have
examined in this lesson so far proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was
grace in the OT both under the Patriarchy period and under the law of Moses. I
have also proven that there is law under the system of grace and how they work
hand and hand.
Now that we have examined
these questions in detail, let us now return back to:
John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Based on what we have
looked at so far, we can certainly know what this verse is not teaching. It is
not teaching that there was no grace under the law of Moses and that there is
no law under the system of Grace.
If a person takes a verse
out of context and doesn’t search the Bible for what else it teaches in that
verse, it would be easy for a person to interpret that verse wrong. That is why
it is important for us to take the sum of God’s word and not some of Gods word.
For example let take our verse in John 1:17 and look at it logically by itself.
If this was all we had to go by, then we would have to conclude the Law came by
Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. If we say there is no law
under grace, then we must also say that there is no grace or truth under the
law of Moses. Now think about what this would mean. It would mean that God’s
law under the OT was lie since there is no truth to it. I don’t know of anyone who
claims to be a Christians that would be willing to call the OT a lie, but that
is the conclusion we would have to come to if we only use John 1:17.
So what is John
saying in verse 17? Well, lets look at the context,
John 1:14 And the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John bore witness of Him and
cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is
preferred before me, for He was before me.' " 16 And of His fullness we have all
received, and grace for grace. 17
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. 18 No one has
seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has declared Him.
The
point John is making is the same principle taught throughout the NT. He is saying
that the revealing of God’s truth and grace through Christ is at its highest
form. Jesus became flesh and humbled himself before God, and He suffered many
hardships and died on the cross for our sins, and then He overcame death and is
now sitting at the right hand of God. All of these things He did for us is the
greatest possible gift of grace that God could give us. Throughout the OT it
was foretold that something greater was coming and that was Jesus Christ.
Nothing has or ever will exceed this gift of grace, and Jesus is the epitome of
truth because He is the Son of God. While there was grace and truth under the
OT, the fullness of grace and truth was brought forth by Jesus.
2 Corinthians 3:9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory,
the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
Paul is saying that the
old law had its glory, but the new covenant has much more glory.
Romans
Again, we see that under
the NT, grace abounds much more and nothing exceeds the grace we are under now.
Yes they had grace and truth back then, but it was leading up to the ultimate and
complete gift of grace, truth, and salvation that came through Jesus Christ. So,
this lesson proves that law and grace are not mutually exclusive because they
work together in the OT and the NT.