Law and Grace.

LAW and GRACE  - Watchman What of the Night XXXIII -  8(00)

Sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under grace." (Rom. 6:14)

The obvious meaning of what Paul wrote here in the book of Romans is that to be under law (no article in the Greek text) is to be under the dominion of sin, and that to be under grace is to be free from the dominion of sin. To the Church at Corinth, he had written that "the strength of sin is the law" (I Cor. 15:56). Yet twice in the context of this verse in Romans, he asked, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" (6:1); and "shall we sin, because we are not under law (again no article in Greek text), but under grace?" (6:15). To both questions, he replied, "God forbid."

Law has a specific purpose: "For by law (no article) is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). It cannot save us, but grace does. "For by grace are ye saved through faith" (Eph. 2:8). Faith is involved both with grace and with sin and thus with law. "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). In the classical Biblical definition of sin as "the transgression of the law" (I John 3:4), there is a single word which is too frequently overlooked, and that word is "also." Observe the whole verse:

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

In the commission of sin, there is something which precedes the act. Simply stated, it is the failure to exercise faith. This can be illustrated in the experience of Eve, Adam's response, and all that has followed in human history.

In the very heart of the garden, the home of our first parents, were placed two trees, designated as "the tree of life" and "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:9). Of this latter tree, man was forbidden to eat (2:16-17). It was not a part of the Ten Commandments, because that code had not been codified at that time. (This we shall discuss further on.) The issue revolved around one thing and one thing only - faith, belief in God's word. This failure to exercise faith led to the act of transgression, which in turn was followed by the reign of sin and death. For "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. 5:12). It was God's word that our first parents rejected, but it was the same God whose word provided grace through "the redemption in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24-26).

God is the author of both law and grace, and that is why they cannot be separated but are linked in the exercise of faith. Without faith, I sin; without faith, I cannot please God; without faith, I cannot have victory. Without faith, I live under law; but by faith, I live under grace. "Do we then make void the law through faith?" Paul asks; and responds: "God forbid: yea, we establish the law" (Rom. 3:31).

Faith accepts the Word of God in law and/or commandment. But in the experiences of life, we soon recognize "another law in (our) members, warring against the law of (our) mind, and bringing (us) into captivity to the law of sin which is in (our) members" (Rom. 7:23). Overwhelmed by the power of the law of sin, we by faith reach out to accept the justification freely given "by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24). And he who is justified must continue to live by faith (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17), so that the dominion of sin strengthened by the law shall not reign over him.

We need to consider the use of the term, law, in the New Testament and the continuing provision of grace. First -

The Use of "Law" (νομοζ) in the NT

The Hebrew Old Testament was divided into three sections - the Torah (torah), the Prophets (nebi'im), and the Writings (kethavim). The Torah consisted of the five books of Moses and was called the Law. This needs to be kept in mind when considering the use of νομοζ in the New Testament. Jesus even used the term "law" to cover the entire Old Testament. He asked the Jews, "Is it not written in your law (νομοζ), I said, Ye are gods?" and quoted from Psalms 82:6, the first book of the third section of the Hebrew canon. Then Luke in recording the conversation which Jesus had with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus wrote that Jesus, "beginning at Moses (Torah) and all the

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prophets, expounded unto them in all the Scriptures γραφαιζ - writings) the things concerning Himself" (24:27). In a report of what Jesus said to the disciples when He appeared to them, where they had assembled after the resurrection, Luke records Jesus as saying, "All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses (Torah), and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me" (24:44). The conclusion is obvious that the term, "law" can not be used to mean exclusively, "the Ten Commandments," nor can the phrase, "law of Moses" be limited to the ceremonial code in Exodus and Leviticus. It is used in the New Testament to mean the first section of the Hebrew Scriptures - the Torah.

Paul's use of the term, "law,” is even broader in its scope than is found in the Gospels. While he uses the term in conjunction with "prophets" - "the law and the prophets" - to refer to the Old Testament (Rom. 3:21); he also uses the single expression - "law" to designate the entire Old Testament (I Cor. 14:21). He definitely uses "law" to refer to the Ten Commandments. He wrote, "I had not known sin, but by the law," and then quotes one of the Ten (Rom. 7:7).

However, in this Epistle to the Romans is to be found Paul's broader application of the term, "law." He perceives of "another law in (his) members, warring against the law of (his)mind" (7:23). He designates this law as "the law of sin" in distinct contrast to "the Law of God" (v.25). He then points to another law, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which frees him "from the law of sin and death" (8:2). In his previous epistle to the Galatians, he had written:

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: for these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would (Gal. 5:17).

Then he added - "But if ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not under law" (v. 19; no article). Paul here presents a higher jurisdiction for the Christian than the letter of the Law, and thus he could write in his letter to the Romans:

We are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of the letter (Rom. 7:6).

This brings us to the critical point: for what purpose does the law serve? In the letter to the Galatians, Paul had asked - "Wherefore serveth the law?" - and answered - "It was added because of transgressions" (3:19). He also in this same context set the time when it was added - "four hundred and thirty years after" the promise made to Abraham (3:16-17), or at Mt. Sinai.

It is this Pauline concept, that Adventism has had difficulty accepting. To avoid the inevitable conclusion which Paul drew, we have said that the "law" in Galatians is the ceremonial law. This was echoed in the debate which marked the 1888 General Conference Session over righteousness by faith. Paul was just as specific on this point in Romans as he was to the Galatians. He wrote, "Until the law, sin was in the world" (5:13), and he noted the time of the law as the time of Moses (v.14). This demands that we take a very careful look at the inception of sin, and the record of sin that followed.

The test given in Eden was verily as much a law as the Ten Commandments proclaimed from Mt. Sinai. God told Adam - "thou shalt not eat of it" - the tree which came to be designated as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). There is no such law in the Ten. Yet the principle of that Edenic Law is stated in the Ten Commandments - "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" (Ex. 20:3). There is no record of any other "Thou-shalt-not" commandments given to our first Parents. They could not have understood the meanings of stealing, murder, or adultery; neither lying nor covetousness. All of this was foreign to Eden; there was no need for such prohibitions.

With the coming of sin, the scene abruptly changes. There is the first murder. With this murder, God confronted Cain in judgment (Gen. 4:9-15). But what was its cause? Cain was "very wroth" (4:5); he hated his brother. Well could Paul write - "All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Gal. 5:14). But how could man hidden from the face of God (Gen. 4:14) know love? He couldn't, hence the protecting wall of' law - "thou shalt not" and in so doing, the letter of the law would be kept. "Before (righteousness by) faith came, they were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed" (Gal. 3:23). But now Jesus has come, and

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we have become "the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ" (v.26). In Him was revealed the love that man needs to be freed from the law of sin and death. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). This constraining love of Christ frees us from the law of sin and death, so that we are no longer under the law but under grace. At Mt. Sinai, the negatives against sin were codified; at Mt. Calvary was manifest the love to which all law and the prophets pointed (Matt. 22:40).

Paul also had something else to say about the Law. In his first letter to Timothy (1:5-11), he wrote:

Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

As Paul is nearing the end of his ministry, and soon to seal his life's testimony with his own blood, he summarized his convictions in regard to the law and the gospel. The law is good if a man use it lawfully, but that law was not made for a righteous man, but for those who are walking contrary to the gospel.

Justified by Faith

The very heart of the gospel proclaimed by Paul was that a man was "justified freely by (God's) grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24). Therefore he could conclude "that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (3:28). Being declared righteous - justified - a man is no longer under the law of works, but under the "law of faith" (3:27). He no longer concentrates on the negatives, but on "the purpose of the commandment" which "is love" (αγαπη) (I Tim. 1:5 NKJV). Being no longer under the constraints of the law, there is a higher constraint - "the love of Christ" constrains him (I Cor. 5:14). From a selfish motivation to keep the law to be saved, he beholds a selflessness in the death of the Lamb of God which causes him "to love not (his) life unto the death" (Rev. 12:11).

This "treasure" of the agape love of Christ, the "righteous man" still carries in an "earthen" vessel. And this for a purpose, that he might ever recognize that "the excellency of the power may be of God and not of himself” (II Cor. 4:7). The failures and missteps along the way does not drive him to penitential "works" but to deep repentance at the throne of the divine Advocate (Heb. 4:16; I John 2:1). There he finds the renewed experience of that leper who came to Jesus in faith saying - "If thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." He, too, wilI hear that voice, "I will; be thou clean" (Mark 1:40-41). He finds that the excellency of the power of deliverance is of God.

The grace of God is not a one time gift, but a continual endowment. Again in one of his final pastoral letters, Paul tells Titus that "the grace of God that brings salvation" (2:11, NKJV) ("For by grace you have been saved through faith ... it is the gift of God" Eph. 2:8 NKJV) is only the beginning of the outpouring of that grace. There is a teaching ministry which follows –

Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world; looking for the blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Who gave Himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. (2:12-14)

Not only is the Lamb "as it had been slain" (Rev. 5:6) pleading His merits that we might be accounted righteous and thus freed from the curse of the law, but there is sent the Spirit of truth to "redeem us from all iniquity" - from the very bondage of sin itself. "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Not only constrained by the love of Christ "who gave Himself for us," but we will bear "about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body" (II Cor. 4:10).