Where Law Meets Grace

Few things are more confusing for a Christian than the relationship between law and grace. Legalism and Antinomianism are the two ends of a fluid spectrum of law and grace that can send the same Christian from hardline fundamentalism to the fringes of liberalism and back again. In my own wrestling with the importance, value, and role of the law in the life of a Christian who has been saved by grace, and not on the basis of works of the law, I have learned that both legalism and antinomianism result from the same source: a misunderstanding of the gospel. Legalism adds to the gospel. Antinomianism takes away from the gospel. Legalism robs the gospel of its liberating power from the burden of the law. Antinomianism robs the gospel of its liberating power from slavery to sin.

At minimum, it seems there is a lack of understanding when it comes to what the law is and how it functions in our lives. At most, there seems to be a disdain for the law. Theological error, which directly impacts the way we live, exists when the law is viewed as a ruthless slave driver meant to burden the people with legalistic demands, or when the law is viewed as an ancient relic with no relevant purpose. But the truth is there is a great intersection of grace and law in the Bible.

The Grace of God

The law itself is a grace from God that serves many purposes for his people. Alec Motyer has written, “The grace of God precedes the law of God. His grace reaches out to save, and it is to those whom he has saved that he reveals his law.”

God didn’t give his law for the people to keep in order to be saved. It was only after God rescued his people that he gave them the law. So, we must assert from the beginning that obeying the law is nothing more than a proper response to God’s grace, which produces delight. Motyer continues, “God’s law is not a ‘ladder of merit’ by which we try to climb, by grim obedience, into his ‘good books;’ it is a way of life revealed to those who are already by redemption in his good books. He brings us to himself and then requires us to live so as to please him.”

Obedience

In the first five books of the Bible, there are 613 commands or laws from God. They range from moral laws to laws about social justice to laws regarding circumcision and food. Jesus would later teach that the whole law depends on the two greatest commands: that we should love God with all that we are, and that we should love others as much as we love ourselves. However, with each of these laws comes a consistent expectation: perfect obedience. Leviticus 19:2 makes the Lord’s expectations clear: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” The kind of holiness God requires is perfect. The problem is we personally fail to properly respond to God’s grace through loving obedience.

Obeying the law of God is faith in action. Trusting the Lord as the sovereign and all-satisfying God of the world produces a faith that works through obedience to the Lord’s commands. Though we all fail to keep his law personally and perfectly, Christ never failed to do so. He always responded to his Father with loving obedience. By trusting in his work to obey the Lord and die for our disobedience, we are both imparted an alien righteousness and empowered to pursue righteousness from the inside out as the law we are required to keep is written on our hearts. The cross of Christ is where law meets grace. On the cross, the Christ who perfectly obeyed and fulfilled the law in our place also graciously and sacrificially died for our disobedience and unrighteousness. 

This is where the rubber meets the road with regard to the relationship between law and grace. If God acts on our behalf by ignoring his law or by adding to it, his action is actually of no benefit to us. If God is legalistic or antinomian, there is no salvation. God has revealed himself in the Bible to be incomparably glorious and holy. He dwells in unapproachable light. So, a God who “saves” legalistically or by ignoring the law, is not only a God who is unable to save, but he isn’t even God at all.

The Good News

The good news of the gospel is that God is neither legalistic nor antinomian. And I’m glad he isn’t. I’m glad he identifies with my suffering, not my sinfulness. I’m glad God doesn’t violate his law to save me, but instead fulfills his law in my place and bears the weight of all my law-breaking. In other words, I’m thankful God sees the depths of my depravity and provides for me anyway.
 

Mathew Gilbert

Mathew is Associate Pastor for Children and Preschool at The Church at Trace Crossing in Tupelo, MS. He is a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mathew and his wife, Erica, are Kentucky natives living in Tupelo with their two sons, Jude and Jack.