Law and Grace

God's law rightly used leads to His grace truly lived among believers.

Law is for an unconverted world; Grace is for a converted church.

I tell my men’s group that evangelical pastors appropriate the worst “bait and switch” tactic. They’ll go to a sinful, unbroken world of rebels against God and His Laws, those who do not believe in Jesus, and convey a message of unconditional love and acceptance.

“Smile! God has a wonderful plan for your life!”

Or a message like:

“God loves you and has prepared for you a beautiful future.”

Then, when those same evangelical pastors get people into the church, they hammer them with Law.

“Do this…don’t do this.” “Don’t say that… say this.” “Teach this…don’t teach that.” “Spend your time here… don’t spend your time there. “ “Give money here… believe this…etc…”

The Laws emphasized may vary by church, but the bait-and-switch tactic is the same.

Evangelical pastors proclaim to the world, “Grace, grace, God’s grace!” and then declare to the church, “Law, law, God’s law!”

That’s backward to what the Bible teaches.

According to Scripture:

The laws of God in creation are to be conveyed to the world.

The grace of God in Christ is to be conveyed to the church.

The Right Use of the Law and the Gospel

Only those who know themselves sick need a Physician.

A Christian is not genuinely proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ until someone, somewhere, calls that Gospel proclaimer an antinomian.

The word antinomian means “against” (Gr. anti) “the law” (Gr. nomos).

In AD 50, Christians in Rome accused Paul of being 'lawless' (see Romans 6:1).

When he defended himself against Christians who charged him with antinomianism, Paul preached more of the Good News of Christ and never mentioned the Law (see Rom. 6).

Contrary to Paul, most evangelicals today seek to balance law and grace for Christians.

"We Christians must strike a balance between law and grace in our lives to prevent us from falling into either the trap of legalism or the trap of license," say those bound to the law.

No, says the Apostle Paul, no balance is needed for believers in Christ.

The Good News of Jesus alone motivates believers to do good.

The Good News of Jesus drives us to commit our lives to God.

The Good News is what we Christians need more of, not less!

Christians who disciple other Christians—spiritual shepherds, pastors, or mentors—must repeatedly broadcast the Gospel of God’s grace in the Person and work of Jesus!

1. We Christians aren’t to make the News that we broadcast; we marvel at it.

2. We Christians aren’t to become the News that we broadcast; we are blessed by it. 

Preachers are not to be moralizers, motivators, or manipulators. We are to be memorizers.

Evangelical pastors have wrongly turned themselves into behavioral moralists.

We who believe in Christ are to be so consumed and captivated by what God’s done for sinners in Christ that we spend our lives studying the Bible, memorizing all that God has revealed to us for the deliverance believers that we broadcast the Good News of God’s grace.

• Evangelists should speak the laws of God to the world.

• Pastors should speak the grace of God to the church.

A Christian evangelist's message and passion must differ from a pastor's message and passion.

Sadly, most Christian evangelicals have little idea of the rightful use of law and grace.

• They wrongly proclaim the love of God to unbroken sinners.

• They wrongly proclaim the law of God to broken saints.

It should be the opposite!

Humbled by God’s grace, Christians belong to Christ and must be taught more grace.

All believers in Jesus the Messiah go through dark spells of discouragement and disobedience where we sometimes question - and others wonder - if we belong to Christ.

We do!

“Christ, who began a good work in us, continues it to completion” (Phil. 1:6).

Invariably, Christians will wrongly try to help other believers by emphasizing the law:

1. Make a promise to God that you will reform!

2. Tell God you’re sorry and that you mean it this time!

3. I, and the church elders, will hold you accountable!

4. True repentance means that you’ll never do your sin again!  

Sadly, people who believe in Jesus can be damaged by such preaching and teaching.

Believers in Christ need MORE grace, not less.

The Good News Both Justifies and Sanctifies

“We have this treasure (the Gospel) in jars of clay, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (II Corinthians 4:7)

The Gospel is God’s Treasure “in us.”

We believe what Christ has done “for us,” and God’s grace is revealed “through us.”

The moment we begin to believe our obedience and conformity to God’s Law somehow makes us more holy is the moment we move further away from the Good News of Jesus, the Messiah.

Jesus Christ makes His people (believers) completely holy by His work, not ours.

• Justification is God's declaration of our righteousness through His grace in Christ.

• Sanctification is the application of justification in our lives by the Spirit’s work.

We are transformed by beholding God's glorious grace and beauty in loving and saving us sinners through the Person and work of Jesus Christ (II Cor. 3:18).  

Note how in this II Corinthians 3:18 verse, the believer's transformation comes from 'beholding Christ,' not by striving hard to obey or promising to do something for God.

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the LORD’S glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the LORD, who is the Spirit.”

(II Corinthians 3:18)

Lest you think this is just some kind of preacher talk, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is God 'angry' with the Christians when they sin?

2. Does the pleasure of God abide upon His people because of their spiritual performance?

3. Does God 'see' sin in His people in terms of His judicial wrath and 'punishment'?

4. From God's perspective, when does the believer enter into 'union with Christ'?

5. What is the evangelical motivation for doing good works?

I could go on, but the truth is that how you answer each of those four questions will determine whether you believe the unbiblical message that “God’s grace saves us” but “our works sanctify us.”

Proclaimers of God’s Grace in the 18th Century

In closing this post, I would like to show you a few evangelical pastors in the 1700s who held the same biblical positions of the proper use of law and grace that I do.

(1). William Gadsby (1733-1844).

William Gadsby proclaimed God’s grace in Christ to both save and sanctify.

Gadsby was so opposed to using "God’s Law" to sanctify God's people that he started a magazine with his son, John Gadsby, to help Christians understand that The Gospel is to be the standard of Christian Living.

The magazine is called The Gospel Standard Magazine.

Reading William Gadsby's magazine articles and memorizing some of the extraordinary Gadsby Hymns, a collection of beautiful songs saturated with the good news of God's grace and love in Jesus Christ, has thoroughly enriched my Christian life.

Gadsby understood, as do I, that we will only love other people more when we fully comprehend God's love for us; we will only forgive others more easily when we understand God's forgiveness of us more fully, etc...

By his death, William Gadsby had planted nearly forty churches. He was once called "a preacher made on purpose for the working classes.” Gadsby loved to speak of Christians as "them that are sanctified" (notice the past tense).

Without a doubt, Gadsby knew every Christian would enter valley times when doubts about their spiritual condition would occur, but the solution to such dilemmas is found in one of Gadsby's Hymns, Number 283

         Breathing after Love to Christ 

         1    ’Tis a point I long to know,
            (Oft it causes anxious thought),
            Do I love the Lord, or no?
            Am I his, or am I not?

        2    If I love, why am I thus?
            Why this dull and lifeless frame?
            Hardly, sure, can they be worse
            Who have never heard his name.