Of Grace
"The believer is now, by faith in the Lord Jesus,
shrouded under so perfect and blessed a righteousness, that this thundering law of Mount Sinai cannot find the least fault or diminution therein. This is called the righteousness of God without the law." ...As sound old Bunyan said
Romans 3:21-25
21But now the righteousness of God (1)apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22even the righteousness of God, (2)through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on (3)all who believe. For there is no difference; 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 (4)being justified (5)freely by His Grace (6) through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God set forth(7) [as] a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).
The most obvious and striking division of the Word of Truth is that between Law
and Grace.... It is vital to observe that Scripture never mingles these two principles.
Law is God prohibiting and requiring;
Grace is God beseeching and bestowing.
Law is a ministry of condemnation;
Grace is 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 "do and live";
Grace, "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.
Law is a system of probation;
Grace, of favour.
Law stones an adulteress;
Grace says, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
Under law the sheep dies at the hand of 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 BELIEVER IS NOT UNDER THE LAW
Romans 6, after declaring the doctrine of the believer's identification with Christ in
His death, of which baptism is the symbol (verses 1-10), begins, with verse 11, the declarations of the principles which should govern the walk of the believer-his rule of life. This is the subject of the remaining twelve verses. Verse 14 gives the great principle of his deliverance, not from the guilt of sin that is met by Christ's blood, but from the dominion of sin-his bondage* under it. "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."
Lest this should lead to the monstrous Antinomianism of saying that therefore a godly life was not important, the Spirit immediately adds: "What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid" (Rom. 6:15). Surely every renewed heart answers "Amen" to this.
Then Romans 7 introduces another principle of deliverance from law. "Wherefore,
my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye
should he married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter" (Rom. 7:4-6). (This does not refer to the ceremonial law; see verse 7.)
A beautiful illustration of this principle is seen in a mother's love for her child. The
law requires parents to care for their offspring and pronounces penalties for the willful neglect of them; but the land is full of happy mothers who tenderly care for their children in perfect ignorance of the existence of such a statute. The law is in their hearts.
It is instructive, in this connection, to remember that God's appointed place for the tables of the law was within the ark of the testimony. With them were "the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded" (Types: the one of Christ our wilderness bread, the other of resurrection, and both speaking of grace), while they were covered from sight by the golden mercy seat upon which was sprinkled the blood of atonement. The eye of God could see His broken law only through the blood that completely vindicated His justice and propitiated His wrath (Heb. 9:4-5).
It was reserved to modernists to wrench these holy and just but deathful tables from underneath the mercy seat and the atoning blood and erect them in Christian churches as the rule of Christian life.
Should this meet the eye of an unbeliever, he is affectionately exhorted to accept the true sentence of that holy and just law which he has violated: "For there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:22-23).In Christ such will find a perfect and eternal salvation, as it is written: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9); for Christ is "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10:4).
