Misunderstanding Grace : “outside the law” is not the same as having no law
Posted by godwordistruth on 2 July, 2009
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Romans 6:1-2
Martin Luther, 1483-1546
‘In [Romans] chapter 6, St. Paul takes up the special work of faith, the struggle which the spirit wages against the flesh to kill off those sins and desires that remain after a person has been made just. He teaches us that faith doesn’t so free us from sin that we can be idle, lazy and self-assured, as though there were no more sin in us. Sin is there, but, because of faith that struggles against it, God does not reckon sin as deserving damnation. Therefore we have in our own selves a lifetime of work cut out for us; we have to tame our body, kill its lusts, force its members to obey the spirit and not the lusts. We must do this so that we may conform to the death and resurrection of Christ and complete our Baptism, which signifies a death to sin and a new life of grace. Our aim is to be completely clean from sin and then to rise bodily with Christ and live forever.
St. Paul says that we can accomplish all this because we are in grace and not in the law. He explains that to be “outside the law” is not the same as having no law and being able to do what you please. No, being “under the law” means living without grace, surrounded by the works of the law. Then surely sin reigns by means of the law, since no one is naturally well-disposed toward the law. That very condition, however, is the greatest sin. But grace makes the law lovable to us, so there is then no sin any more, and the law is no longer against us but one with us.
This is true freedom from sin and from the law; St. Paul writes about this for the rest of the chapter. He says it is a freedom only to do good with eagerness and to live a good life without the coercion of the law. This freedom is, therefore, a spiritual freedom which does not suspend the law but which supplies what the law demands, namely eagerness and love. These silence the law so that it has no further cause to drive people on and make demands of them. It’s as though you owed something to a moneylender and couldn’t pay him. You could be rid of him in one of two ways: either he would take nothing from you and would tear up his account book, or a pious man would pay for you and give you what you needed to satisfy your debt. That’s exactly how Christ freed us from the law. Therefore our freedom is not a wild, fleshy freedom that has no obligation to do anything. On the contrary, it is a freedom that does a great deal, indeed everything, yet is free of the law’s demands and debts.’ Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans by Martin Luther, 1483-1546 Translated by Bro. Andrew Thornton, OSB
Related Posts:
Misunderstanding Grace: Easy to miss the path and go far astray from the truth
Misunderstanding on the teaching of Grace
The Heart of Every Real Christian is Most Reverent Towards the Law of the Lord
The Law of God Must Be Perpetual: No Abrogation, No Amendment.
thinkpoint said
Seven signs of true repentance:
thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/seven-signs-of-true-repentance/
godwordistruth said
Mikes,
Thanks for your comments.
Christ fulfilled the law and established it. The (moral) laws i.e Decalogue showed God’s standards for man. Through Christ, by faith through grace, we get His righteousness and benefit from His perfect performance and obedience of the law, we are already justified once and for all. The law cannot again condemned us (for non-performance) because we are washed and sanctified because God has through Christ’s finished work justified us by His grace, it is finished. By faith in Christ through grace, God has given us new birth, a new nature, a new creation through the Holy Spirit, we have been called out of sin and out of darkness with power to be the children of a Holy God.
The Christian life is indeed a struggle with old-self, sin and satan. However, Christ has already given us the victory, we need to reckon ourselves indeed as dead to sin and alive to God. We must turn and rely on Christ finished work and also seek His grace daily to live out the Holy Spirit powered lives. It is not easy. But God promised and he has it ready on a tap all that we need to live the abundant life, a life of joy and victory in Christ. The law is no longer our master or our taskmaster, we turn to follow Christ and follow God’s commandments because God has now written His laws into our hearts, this is the new covenant. God’s laws guide us, it should be our delight and joy to follow Christ and obey God.
‘The law was given to men through Moses, but it did not originate with Moses. It had existed in the heart of God from before the foundation of the world. On Mount Sinai it became the legal code for the nation of Israel; but the moral principles it embodies are eternal. The spring of Christian morality is the love of Christ, not the law of Moses; nevertheless there has been no abrogation of the principles of morality contained in the law. No privileged class exists exempt from that righteousness which the law enjoins.’ AW Tozer ( see here for more on Tozer : http://godwordistruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/misunderstanding-grace-easy-to-miss-the-path-and-go-far-astray-from-the-truth/)
Shalom
Mikes Sumondong said
As they have always said, Christianity is really a struggle. yes, we are under grace which means we’re no longer under the Law. But it’s the Fear of the Lord and love for Him that will drive us to obey him and be more like him everyday.