by Jacob Ninan
This is one of the several issues about which there is confusion among Christians. Some do not make any distinction between life under the law and life under grace. Some believe that after grace came, law has become irrelevant. It appears that comparatively few people see things in balance. I would like to address this issue in three stages, describing the old and the new covenants, the tussle in the early church, and the confusion Christians face now.
The old and the new covenants
It is unfortunate that at some point in time, somebody named the section of the Bible with books that were written after Jesus came as the New Testament, and the earlier books as the Old Testament. Because of this, many don't think of the word 'testament' as referring to anything else. But the Old Testament actually refers to the covenant God made with the people of Israel through Moses, and so, let us refer to it as the old covenant for clarity. We see that this old covenant was not what God ultimately had in mind for people. He knew it was faulty from the time He introduced it, and so He had already prepared the new covenant in His mind, which He revealed later through Jesus Christ (Heb.8:13). So, why would God introduce something to the people knowing that it was faulty?It was because the spiritual level of the people of Israel was not yet able to handle anything bigger. These people had been slaves in Egypt for more than 400 years, and their knowledge of God was very limited. Just as we deal with children according to their level of understanding, God had to tailor His dealings with them according to their level. You remember how He allowed them to have many wives in those days and how easily they could divorce their wives, even though these were not what He really wanted for them. Jesus said that such things were allowed at that time because of the hardness of their hearts.
The old covenant consisted of commandments, including the Ten Commandments and many others. What God promised the people from His side was that if they kept the commandments He would bless them. On the other hand, if they deliberately disobeyed them, they would receive curses from God. This is the way the old covenant worked, as we can see from Deuteronomy chapter 28. People had to learn, usually the hard way, that they could not fool around with the commandments without suffering serious consequences. For example, even though the commandment was clear that they were not to do any work on the Sabbath day, one man went out to collect firewood, and he was stoned to death. We might think that this was very hard or harsh, but God was trying to teach people that what they were dealing with were His commandments and that they could not be taken lightly.
The intention of the old covenant was to teach people to get to know God and to fear, reverence and respect Him. This was also the way they were to understand the concept of 'sin' as disobedience to Him. The history of Israel under the Law showed that no one was able to keep the whole law, and it has also been written to teach us the same lesson. It is to people who know what sin is and who fail to keep the commandments and to avoid sin that the concept of grace is made known, through the new covenant. The new covenant is what God wanted to offer to everyone, not only Israel, in order to free them from their sins (Matt.1:21).
Under the old covenant, salvation was by obeying the commandments (Rom.10:5). But no one could be saved in this way because every single one of us has sinned (Rom.3:20,23). In this situation where no one could be saved, God now offers salvation as a free gift which none us deserves or for which no one can qualify (Eph.2:8,9). This is grace, or God's unmerited favour towards us.
But we need to understand how it was possible for God to offer this salvation to us who did not deserve it. As a righteous and just God, He could not simply overlook our sins. His justice demanded that our sins should be punished, and the punishment for sin is death, or eternal separation from God (Gen.2:17;Rom.6:23). He is able to offer this salvation freely to us because His Son Jesus Christ has died for the punishment for our sins in our place. Now we are able to go to God, acknowledge our sins, and receive salvation as a gift from Him.
Imagine what would have happened if God had straight-away introduced the covenant of grace to Israel without going through the old covenant first! Then they would not have understood what sin was, what its consequences were, and learned to fear to sin against God. It was likely that most of them would have treated sinning lightly, assuming that it did not matter too much if they disobeyed God. This is what Paul explains that the Law was a tutor (or guardian) to lead the people till they became mature enough to handle living by faith (Gal.3:23,24).
To a people who had failed to keep the commandments and experienced the consequences of sin, God came with the covenant of grace through Jesus Christ. Jesus took the punishment for our sins and now offers us free salvation through His unmerited favour (grace). But throughout the New Testament we can see that we can receive this salvation only if acknowledge our sinfulness and turn from sin to God. We can understand and appreciate it only when we truly see our sin and its consequences. Think of what is happening to many who have only heard about 'grace' and not about repentance from sin.
The problem which the early church faced
The church started on the Day of Pentecost with only the people of Israel as its members, and it was only later that God revealed to them that others from the rest of the nations could also receive this salvation and be counted equal to them. This was the plan in God's mind even when He selected a nation called Israel earlier to serve as a model to the others. These Israeli Christians at that time knew only a life under the Law, and it was very difficult for them to grasp the concept of grace. It took most of them a long time to learn and adjust to a life under grace. Many of them insisted that apart from faith, they should adhere to certain 'minimum' practices such as circumcision. When 'Gentiles' began to come into the church, it also became very difficult for many Jews to even mix with them. This is something we should understand if we have come into grace from different backgrounds such as a nominal Christianity or other religions. We too need to live under grace, understanding its proper meaning and giving up the old way of living under laws and regulations.Christians and the law
Many Christians seem to think that those who are under grace are not under any law, based on verses such as (Rom.6:14;8:2), without understanding the context. The real explanation is this. If we are under grace, it means that we have received this salvation freely from God as a gift, and not by qualifying for it by keeping the law. To be under the law, in this context, means someone trying to earn salvation from God by keeping the law and becoming good enough for Him. But no one can do that. But, to be free from the law does not mean that there is no law for Christians to keep!In fact, born-again Christians come under a far higher law than the Law of Moses. If we look at the law given by Moses to the people of Israel, we can notice that all the ten commandments, except the tenth, were about external behaviour. If we look at Deuteronomy chapter 28, we can also see that the blessings and curses were also of an external nature. But when it comes to the new covenant, Jesus explained that what God actually required was a holiness and righteousness inside, in our heart and mind. In other words, the holiness of what is going on inside us, away from the sight of other people, is what really matters to God. Jesus illustrated this by saying that it was not enough to avoid killing anyone, but we had to be careful about getting angry with anyone, because it was this anger and hatred that led to murder (Matt.5:21,22). He also talked about the need to avoid emotional adultery by lusting after someone even though we avoided the physical act itself (Matt.5:27,28). In other words, Jesus was emphasising the point that we should eradicate sin at the root itself (Matt.15:19). In this way, our righteousness should be better than that of the Pharisees and scribes of the days of Jesus who paid all their attention only to what could be seen by the others (Matt.23:5). In fact, He reprimanded those people saying that they should have cleansed their inside first and then their outside behaviour would have followed (v.26).
Paul clarifies that even though we are not obliged to keep the Mosaic Law, we are not to be without any law, but under the higher law called the 'law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus' (Rom.8:2). The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that God wants us to be pure even in our thoughts and intentions of our heart (Heb.4:12,13). This means not only what we say or do, but everything that is going on in us.
Immediately we can see the difficulty of living such a high standard of life. The solution is not to settle for an ordinary life and think that the blood of Jesus will keep washing away our sins. That is to treat the blood of Jesus as if it is a cheap thing. What we must realise is that under the new covenant, God has not only raised the standard of life, but He has also equipped us for that life. He will not only forgive us our past sins, but He will also give us a new heart (which happens when we are born again and regenerated, because of which our heart is now set in the direction of overcoming sin) and a new spirit in us (which is the Spirit of God helping us to overcome temptations and to do God's will) (Ezek.36:25,26).
Christians and their part in salvation
We must learn that there are three parts to this salvation from God. Justification is where God forgives us, credits the righteousness of Jesus to our account us and accepts us as His children. The next part is to help us to make this imputed righteousness ours in experience in our practical life. This is a slow process called sanctification that makes us more and more like Jesus. The final part is called glorification which instantly transforms our physical body into a spiritual body, which will happen when we meet with God in the life to come.Sanctification is the phase of salvation which those have been born again are currently going through. Technically, the word means 'to be set apart' or 'to be made holy'. Ultimately, God is the One who sets us apart for Himself in our body, soul and spirit (1Thess.5:23). But we too have a responsibility to submit every part of our life to Him and consecrate ourselves to Him (Rom.6:19). There is a starting point to this, as well as a daily, moment-by-moment aspect to this. The first is an act of consecration, and the second is an actual laying down of our life whenever we are tempted to do our own will (Lk.9:23). If we do not cooperate with God from our part in this process of sanctification, no real progress is going to be made.
There are different mistakes people make about the process of sanctification. One is to assume that if we have been born again, then God will complete what He has begun in us. The answer to this is to realise that God will never force us to do something against our will; we have to choose what we want. Just think what would have happened if it was entirely up to God to sanctify us! Then all of us would have become like Jesus immediately after we were born again. (Going back a little, if it was up to God entirely to save us, all the people would have been saved already!) The problem is the choice we have to make every time we are tempted – we can either deny ourselves and do what God wants, or choose to please ourselves, – and that will decide whether we are going to experience greater sanctification in our life.
Some people think that every part of salvation has to be from God and His grace, and that they cannot do anything for it. To mention anything about what their response to the grace of God should be, these people classify any thing anyone suggests they should do as works of the law. They forget words such as Php.2:12,13 and say that those do not apply to them. 2Cor.7:1 says that we have a part in cleansing ourselves.
Another mistake some people make is to assume that some special experience they had, such as being born again, baptism in water, baptism in the Holy Spirit, or some special revelation they have received from God, has already sanctified them completely. As a result, they are not active now to work out their salvation with fear and trembling! Some of them now imagine that they have entered into a state where they cannot fall again. As a result they stop taking up their cross daily, denying themselves, etc., to do the will of God. A variation of this is where people have experienced a level of transformation in their outward behaviour and they assume they have been fully sanctified. As a result they do not take heed to what is going on inside them with regard to their thoughts, intentions and attitudes. On the contrary, the closer godly people get to God, they begin to see themselves as unclean deeper inside. We see that as Paul grew in maturity, first he saw himself unfit to be called an apostle, as the least of the saints, and later as the worst of sinners (1Cor.15:9;Eph.3:8;1Tim.1:15).
From God's point of view, salvation is not just about forgiveness. The goal of the sin of Adam and Eve was to become independent of God by having the knowledge of good and evil within themselves. Now salvation is to get back to God and to be under His subjection in every way. This is not something that God will do for us, but what we have to choose. We make the first choice by admitting and confessing our sin and coming to Jesus as our Saviour. Then God gives us forgiveness and acceptance as His children. After that, during the process of sanctification, we learn to come under the authority of God, denying ourselves and doing the will of God in our body, soul and spirit.
Christians and traditions
The apostle Paul made a lot of effort to clarify to Christians that we are no longer in any bondage to religious practices that many others do such as keeping some days as special, celebrating festivals, avoiding certain foods and drinks, wearing only certain types of clothes, prescribing hairstyles, counting certain numbers as lucky or unlucky, counting certain times or days as auspicious or inauspicious, etc. All these people have arguments for their opinions and insist that others should follow them. Paul says in general that such things may have an appearance of wisdom or spirituality, but what we should look for is whether they help us forward in our salvation (Col.2:23). This is another direction in which freedom from laws and commandments takes us.Conclusion
Many Christians say they very much want to become like Jesus. First of all, let us check ourselves to see whether we have become any more like Jesus after we have been born again. Let us remember that to become like Jesus is to partake of His moral character, or in other words, to partake more and more of the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal.5:22,23). Peter warns us that if this is not happening, we may be blind and may have forgotten the value of this salvation (2Pet.1:9).