Not Under Law but Under Grace

We are sure that the definition of sin did not change for the Christian at conversion.

By Simon Padbury • 14 March 2019 • 12 minutes read

The apostle Paul taught that all the world is guilty before God, because all have sinned (Romans 3:19). God’s moral law is the standard that God holds all mankind to. This is the moral standard that we fall short of when we sin (Romans 3:23).

This is bad news. The worst of all bad news is this: the righteous God holds sinners accountable to his moral law, and therefore we are all under condemnation to hell for our sins, unless we are saved.

For the sinner who turns to the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, whom God has sent into the world to save sinners, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Jesus has saved us from our sins and from what we deserve because of our sins (Matthew 1:21).

Paul describes the state of the saved person as being “not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14). We are no longer under condemnation for disobedience to the law,1 because in Christ “we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14). We are now “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (see Romans 3:24-26).

Some Christians think that they don’t need to be concerned with any part of the Law of Moses. They don’t think of it as containing the moral standard that they as Christians ought to keep. They say that, seeing that the true Christian is not under the law, therefore they (and we) should have nothing whatever to do with it.2 They speak of being released from the obligation of keeping the Old Covenant’s commandments. However, when it comes to the realities of Christian living, they don’t really mean that being “not under law” gives them freedom to sin! It is not that they intend to be lawless, or immoral. For it is not in the new nature of the Christian to condone sin—i.e. to do what is against the moral law of God. But rather, he or she will repent of sin.

Reformed Christians, of course, totally agree that we are not under the law: we are not under the law (the Old Covenant) as a covenant of works3—a broken covenant, that condemns all under it to hell. However, we do understand that as Christians, we still ought to learn and keep God’s commandments—not in order to earn salvation, but as saved people who desire to live a life that is pleasing to God.

But those who say we should have nothing to do with the law, say that, instead of studying the moral law in order to live according to its precepts,4 we Christians should rather “walk in the Spirit” in order to bear the “fruit of the Spirit.” And in that way, we will not fulfil the lusts of our flesh but mortify them (compare Romans 8:1-13; Galatians 5:16-26).

The apostle John, however, teaches that the very definition of sin is whatever is against God’s moral law: “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). So, can these law-dismissing Christians not agree with us when we likewise define sin as any lack of conformity to, or transgression of, the (moral) law of God?5 We affirm that sin is doing, saying or thinking what God forbids, and not doing, saying or thinking what he requires6—in his moral law. So it makes sense for us to learn God’s moral law and for it to be the moral standard that we seek to keep as Christians.

Of course, they do agree with this point. But they don’t like to involve the laws of the Old Testament Scriptures, unless they are repeated somewhere in the New Testament Scriptures. Whereas we are sure that the definition of what sinful and what is godly did not change for the Christian at his or her conversion, whether he or she was born a Jew or Gentile.

Therefore, even in their endeavour to avoid sin by “walking in the Spirit,” they will find themselves heading towards non-transgression of the moral law—the same law as is summed up in the Ten Commandments (which are in the Old Testament Scriptures). That is to say, in practice they aim to grow to become keepers of the moral law! But here is where they hold up their hand in anguish at such a thought, saying, “No, you’ve got it all wrong! But what we as Christians should want to do is fulfil the law of Christ” (compare Galatians 6:2).

If Christians are (to put it negatively) not free not to keep God’s moral commandments, and if Christians (to put it positvely) should keep God’s moral commandments, then what does Paul mean in his teaching that we are “not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14)?

Reformed Christians understand that the moral law goes back to the covenant of life (also known as the covenant of works) that God established with Adam, and all his posterity in Adam. It did not originate in the Torah, the Law of Moses. It is this same law that has continued as a perfect rule of righteousness for all mankind; and this moral law was repeated in a summary form by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, in the Ten Commandments.7

The Ten Commandments (the “two tables of the law”) were the foundation of the Old Testament (Old Covenant) that God established the people of Israel under Moses who was their leader, priest and prophet (Exodus 20; 24; Deuteronomy 4:13, 23-31).

So, we say that Christians are “not under the law” in this covenantal sense, because we are not under the Old Covenant but under the New Covenant (the covenant of grace) in Christ. “We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14).

Yes, we agree that Christians are led by the Holy Spirit, and we agree that we are not under the broken covenant of life (“the law”) any more (Galatians 5:18). But this in no way means that the moral law has ceased to remain a perfect rule of righteousness for us as Christians. Indeed it is God’s moral law—what ought to be done, and what ought not to be done—that is the basis of the definition of godliness.

Appendix

Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, at Q.115.8

The uses of the moral law are different according to man’s fourfold state…

III. In nature restored by Christ, or as it respects the regenerate, there are many uses of the law.

  1. The preservation of discipline and outward obedience to the law. For although this use has respect chiefly to the unregenerate, as we have already shown, who do not refrain from sin from love to God and righteousness, but only from a fear and dread of punishment and shame, as the Poet says,

    Oderunt peccare mali formedine pœnæ:
    They hate to sin from a dread of punishment;

    yet it in like manner has its use in relation to the godly, because on account of the weakness and corruption of the flesh, it is useful and necessary, even to them, that the threatenings of the law, and the examples of punishment set before them, may keep them in the faithful discharge of their duty. For God threatens severe punishment even to the saints, if they become guilty of sins of a shameful and grievous nature. “When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall die in his sins” (Ezekiel 18:24).

  2. A knowledge of sin. This use of the law, although it likewise has reference chiefly to the unregenerate, nevertheless, belongs to the godly also. For the law is to the regenerate as a mirror, in which they may see the defects and imperfection of their own nature, and also leads them to true humility before God, that so they may continually advance in true conversion and faith; and that whilst the renewing of their nature is going forward, they may become more earnest in prayer and supplication, that they may become more and more conformed to God and the divine law. “I delight in the law of God, after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:22-24). The declaration of the Apostle Paul, that the law is our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ, must be understood of both these uses of the law of which we have just spoken, and that in the elect still unregenerate, as well as in those who are already regenerated. To the former it is a preparation to conversion; whilst to the latter it is the carrying forward, or increase of conversion, since faith cannot be kindled, or remain in the heart, unless open and grievous offences, and such as wound the conscience, be hated and shunned. “Let no man deceive you; he that committeth sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:7).

  3. Another use of the moral law is, that it may be a rule of divine worship and of a Christian life. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Psalm 119:105; Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26). This use of the law is peculiar to the regenerate. For although the law be also a rule of life to the unregenerate before their conversion, yet it is not to them a rule of worship and gratitude to God, as in the case of the regenerate.

  4. That the exposition of the law delivered to the church may teach that God is, and what he is.

  5. The voice of the law sounding in the church is an evident testimony, teaching what the true church is, and in what true religion consists. It is in the church alone that the law is delivered and taught in its purity, and rightly understood; for all other systems of religion have manifestly corrupted it in different ways, by approving of manifest errors and heresies which they have mingled more or less with it.

  6. It admonishes us of the image of God in man; or, we may say it is a testimony of the excellency of human nature before the fall, and of the original righteousness which was in Adam, and is again restored in us by Christ.

  7. It is a testimony of eternal life, still future, in which we shall perfectly fulfil the law. The law was given, to be observed by man. But it is not observed in this life. Therefore there is another life remaining, in which we shall yield a perfect obedience to the law.

IV. In nature perfectly restored and glorified after this life, the law will also have its use; for although the preaching of it, and the whole ministry of the church, shall then cease, yet there will still remain in the elect a knowledge of the law, whilst perfect obedience to all its demands, and full conformity with God, will be wrought in them. The law will, therefore, accomplish the same ends in the life to come, when we shall be fully transformed in the image of God, that it did in our nature before the fall.

  1. All mankind is born in Adam under the law of God—in what we call the “covenant of life” or “covenant of works.” Christians are those people who have been transferred to the covenant of grace in Christ. ↩︎

  2. It is technically incorrect to categorise or label many of these Christian brothers and sisters as antinomians (the word means “against the law” of God). Neither their pedigree nor practice identifies them with those antinomians of hundreds of years ago, whom, e.g. Martin Luther had to contend with. But their confusion on this issue has more to do with their rejection of what we call covenant theology. The label “antinomian” should not be used of true Christians, because it is inaccurate, unhelpful and not irenic. ↩︎

  3. See the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 19, Of the Law of God. ↩︎

  4. To some people, this statement sounds too much like trying to earn salvation by doing good works. They argue that there is only one use for the moral law of God, and that is to reveal God’s righteousness, give us knowledge of sin, and show us our need of pardon and our danger of damnation to hell in order to lead us to repentance and faith to Christ—a usage that ended at the Christian’s conversion. But Lutheran and Reformed Christians have consistently argued that, as Christians, we should show our love for God by doing good works; and that this surely involves keeping God’s moral commandments, which are also Christ’s commandments to us (see Matthew 5-8; 22:36-40; 28:20; John 14:15 Ephesians 2:10). Lutheran and Reformed churches have traditionally taught that there are three uses of the moral law: (1.) conviction of sin in the non-Christian (as a “schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Galatians 3:24), (2.) civil restraint of evil, and (3.) teaching Christians in the way of righteousness. E.g. see the Lutheran Formula of Concord, Article VI, and Calvin’s Institutes, Book 2 Chapter 7. In his Commentary of the Heidelberg Catechism, Zacharias Ursinus has developed a different scheme based on the “fourfold state of man,” which is also very helpful. ↩︎

  5. I am borrowing this phrase from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question and answer 14: Q. 14. What is sin? A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God. ↩︎

  6. The Christian church has always understood that we can sin in thought, word or deed, and that sin can be by commission or omission. ↩︎

  7. Here I am drawing phrases from the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 19. ↩︎

  8. For Ursinus’s uses of the moral law, I. In nature uncorrupted, and II. In nature corrupted, see appendix to part 25, By the Law Is the Knowledge of Sin. ↩︎