Is There Tension Between Law and Grace? Titus 2:14.

My friend Blake writes on Facebook that the Ten Commandments are irrelevant to Christians today. What do you think?

I disagree. First, the obvious answer: nothing in the Bible is irrelevant. Second, there is something special about the Ten Commandments. First, God chiseled them on two stone tablets. After Moses broke the tablets in anger over the idolatry of his people, God had Moses carve a second set of tablets and on the new tablets God again chiseled the words of His ten commands. What we think of today as the Mosaic law includes 613 rules. Six-hundred and three rules were written on scrolls with pen and ink, and ten were set in stone.

SET IN STONE.

Clearly there was something different about those ten. My opinion is that those ten are God’s rules for all people. The remaining 603 were specific rules for God’s chosen people, the nation of Israel.

Nevertheless, Blake will argue Christians live under a New Covenant, that we walk in grace and we are freed from the law. I agree.

Romans 8:1 says, “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death.”

Elsewhere Paul explains, “all things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable” 1 Corinthians 6:12. All things are lawful because we are not under any law. Think of it this way: there is no law that a born-again believer can break and find himself out of fellowship with God. Because God has already forgiven a believer’s past, present, and future sins, it is not possible to return again to the status of a condemned lawbreaker. Blake is right: we walk in grace and are freed from law.

But we remain in the flesh.

As long as we live in the flesh, we must contend with our old sinful nature. As Paul wrote about his own struggles, “I do not understand what I am doing, for I am not doing what I want to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate” Romans 7:15.

If Paul the apostle struggled with his flesh, it’s a safe bet that Blake and I and everyone reading this struggles as well. As Christians, we contend, we battle, with our sinful nature. One thing that helps in that struggle is the TEN COMMANDMENTS. Knowledge of the law helps. It may not stop you from every sin. But knowledge of the law can help you choose the “lesser” of two sins. (Better to eat one cheeseburger than two, right?) Many will argue that the law gives sin a certain power—that when things are forbidden they become more tempting. That may be true in some situations.

But I believe the law plays a more important function: even when you are in the frenzy of temptation, sometimes the existence of the law helps you choose a smaller sin over a larger sin. (And no, all sins are not the same–that’s called “sin-leveling”* and it is an error.) Finally, consider the words of Paul:

“The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good” Romans 7:12.  The law is holy, righteous, and good. Do those sound like the words of one who considers the law to be irrelevant? No one writes more profoundly on GRACE than Paul. But Paul also affirms the beauty of the law.

Jesus redeemed us from the law. But more importantly, Jesus redeemed us from lawlessness.

“He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for Himself a people for His own possession, eager to do good works” Titus 2:14.

No one ever embraced grace like the Apostle Paul. No one spoke about grace with more depth or more enthusiasm. But Paul also calls the law holy, righteous, and good.

The Christian life is not one of embracing grace and rejecting the law. Instead, we can embrace both.

We understand the limited role the law plays in our lives. But we must honor this amazing gift God gave humanity through Moses. It’s not so much that God redeemed us from the law (though He did), but perhaps we should emphasize that God redeemed us from the uncivilized life of the lawless. “God redeemed us from all lawlessness.”

What some consider to be tension between law and grace may be resolved in the words of Jesus:

“Therefore, every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom treasures both new and old” Matthew 13:52.

That is, if you are an expert in the LAW (Old Testament) and then become an expert in GRACE (New Testament), you will be like a rich man who owns both new treasures and antique treasures.

New Testament Grace is amazing. But the Old Testament Law is holy, righteous, and good.

God delivers us from lawlessness: He gave us the law and He gave us His Son. We have Old Testament treasures that are relevant and that we must honor and embrace, and we have New Testament treasures that are relevant and that we must honor and embrace.

ΑΩ

• You can read more about Sin Leveling here: https://dadsdailydevotionals.com/2024/03/27/sin-leveling-luke-1013-14/

P.S. While reading over the words I recently have written here examining the Pauline epistles, I got the feeling I was bossy and legalistic, as though I were obsessed with forbidding behaviors, with making a list of DON’TS or Thou Shalt Nots. Is it me? Or could history’s greatest apologist for grace simultaneously be a great promoter of Dos and DON’Ts?

It’s not me. I am goal-oriented and filled with enough motivational-speaker energy to spend the rest of my life giving locker-room speeches. But I think this emphasis on good behavior comes more from the texts of Paul’s letters than it does from me. Paul would never put condemnation on a sincere Christian (he wrote Romans 8:1, after all—he KNOWS “there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ”). No one understood grace the way Paul did. Yet no one demanded good behavior the way Paul did. The truth is, Paul is concerned with the behavior of believers. These epistles are not simply doctrinal treatises explaining predestination and free will, or salvation by faith, or the Second Coming, or the heresy of the Judaizers. Paul wants his people to walk with Christ—and he is convinced their behavior matters.