Objection:
Paul declares that we are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14). The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Paul also declares that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes.” Romans 10:4. These texts prove that Christ abolished the law.
Answer:
There is no conflict between law and grace or between law and gospel. A simple definition or two will help out in this matter. By “law,” we mean the Ten Commandments—God’s standard of right and wrong, the measure by which we can tell whether we have fallen short of God’s requirements. The word “gospel’ means good news—the good news of salvation from sin (See Matthew 1:21). And the Bible defines sin as any violation of the divine law (See 1 John 3:1-4). So, then, the gospel is the good news of God’s plan to save us from breaking His holy law. Thus instead of law and gospel being in opposition, they are in close fellowship. And the very existence of the gospel proves that the law is still in force, for what would be the point in preaching the good news of salvation from breaking the law if the law were no longer in force? A man cannot break that which does not exist.
Let us now read, in its setting, the key text in this discussion: “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” Romans 6:14-15. We immediately discover that whatever else Paul wishes us to understand by this passage, he does not want us to think that the reign of grace frees us from obedience to the law. “What then?” says he; “shall we sin,” that is, break the law, “because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.”
The very next verse makes clear that Paul here uses the phrase “under the law” to mean “under its condemnation” and “under grace” to mean “living under the plan that God has offered of salvation from the bondage of sin.” For Paul follows right on to say: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” Verses 16-18.
The contrast is between servants “of sin” and servants “of obedience unto righteousness.” What is it that gives strength to sin? It is the law, says Paul (See 1 Corinthians 15:56). The fact that the law exists and pronounces a death penalty for evildoing and evil living gives sin its power over those who indulge in unlawful acts. The law does not lay its strong hand on the man who does not violate it. Its strength is felt only by the lawbreaker.
Paul says sin no longer holds us in its grip because we are living under, or have accepted, God’s plan of grace, which gives us a power that breaks the grasp of sin. Thus instead of being servants of sin, we become servants of “obedience unto righteousness.” And what is righteousness? It is right doing, right living, a state of the heart having the opposite of sinfulness or lawlessness. In a later chapter, Paul tells how the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ brings righteousness to us and how this righteousness is directly related to the law. We read: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:3-4.
Paul deals with the same problem in Galatians 3:24-25: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.”
The law can show us our sinfulness and bring such conviction of sin that we shall be driven to Christ, who can free us from our sins. When we receive Christ, we are no longer under the law’s domination or condemnation. But we are not released from obedience to God’s law, for in accepting Christ, we receive divine power for obedience to that law, as is explained in the passage just quoted from Romans 8. Thus Galatians 3:24-25 gives no support to the claim that the law is abolished.
How plain and simple it is, then, that when we accept God’s Son and the grace He offers, we do not turn our back on the law; instead, we find that the “righteousness of the law” is “fulfilled in us.” Instead of being sinners—breakers of God’s law—we find that we are obedient to it.
In the light of these facts, there is no difficulty in the text: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” John 1:17. While Moses served an essential purpose in the plan of God—for through him, God gave to the world the written form of the moral code—yet through Christ came divine grace, without which the law cannot truly be kept.
The man who accepts Christ no longer strives to obtain righteousness by keeping the law. Upon his acceptance of Christ, the Savior’s righteousness is imputed to him. Says Paul: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” Romans 3:21-22. Because the righteousness of God can be obtained apart from the law, Paul can well declare: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Romans 10:4. To everyone who believes on Him, Christ brings to an absolute end the use of the law as a means of obtaining righteousness. Or, again, we may understand that word “end” as meaning the objective or purpose. Christ was the objective the law had in view; for the purpose of the law is to cause men so to realize their sinfulness, their unrighteousness, that they will go to Christ for His righteousness, which not only is imputed in justification but is imparted in the daily living, as is taught in Galatians 2:20. This use of the word “end” is found in James 5:11 and 1 Timothy 1:5.
Both law and grace came from heaven. How happy are we as Christians that we are not called upon to reject one to have the other. By the power of God’s grace, we no longer dwell under the condemnation of the law but are in Him raised up to the lofty plane of complete obedience to this divine code.
Well do Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in their Bible commentary, make this observation in a note at the close of their comments on Romans 6:23:
The fundamental principle of Gospel obedience is as original as it is divinely rational; that “we are set free from the law in order to keep it, and are brought graciously under servitude to the law in order to be free” (Romans 6:14, Romans 6:15, Romans 6:18). So long as we know no principle of obedience but the terrors of the law, which condemns all the breakers of it, and knows nothing whatever of grace, either to pardon the guilty or to purify the stained, we are shut up under a moral impossibility of genuine and acceptable obedience: whereas when Grace lifts us out of this state, and through union to a righteous Surety, brings us into a state of conscious reconciliation, and loving surrender of heart to a God of salvation, we immediately feel the glorious liberty to be holy, and the assurance that “Sin shall not have dominion over us” is as sweet to our renewed tastes and aspirations as the ground of it is felt to be firm, “because we are not under the Law, but under Grace.
