Why then the law?

There is a close relationship between law and grace, and the understanding of this relationship is vital to a true appreciation of the gospel.

Sakae Kubo, Ph.D., is dean of the school of theology, Walla Walla College, College Place, Washington.

Grace is a most important concept in the New Testament. It is the quality of God that makes salvation possible for us. But we cannot truly understand grace aright unless we understand precisely its relation ship to law. Law and grace are very closely related. The right relationship of to the other is to a true appreciation of the gospel. It is not enough to see that law is opposed to grace as a method of salvation; we must also understand that law makes grace necessary, and grace upholds and establishes the law. Thus John Murray says: "It is not only the doctrine of grace that must be jealously guarded against distortion by the works of the law, but it is also the doctrine of law that must be preserved against the distortions of a spurious concept of grace." —Principles of Conduct, p. 182.

In order to understand this subject correctly we need to be very precise in the way we define the different aspects of law and grace and their relationship to each other in these respective aspects. From the standpoint of access or approaches to God law and grace stand in complete antithesis. From the standpoint of the sinner law stands as that which brings condemnation, though from the standpoint of a Pharisee, law is that which brings merit and self-justification. In neither of these cases is grace present. Because the sinner apart from Christ is weak in the face of the demands of the law, he cannot help but feel its condemnation. In despair, when he comes to Christ, God by His grace forgives him, delivering him from the condemnation of the law and gives him the guilt-covering robe of Christ's righteousness. Law in this sense made grace necessary. With out its condemnation for failure to fulfill its demands we would have felt no need for grace. But because grace is needed for our failure to keep the law, the validity of the law is upheld. From the standpoint of the Christian law no longer condemns, and through grace he seeks never to fall again to its condemnatory power by living in harmony with its di vine precepts.

It is difficult to understand how any one can say that the law has been done away with or that it has no validity for the Christian. All Christians admit that we need redemption because we are sinners. Christ saves sinners and saves us from our sins. But what makes us sinners? We are sinners because we have broken God's law. But some pro pose that since we are sinners, having broken God's law, in saving us God does away with the law. According to this view we no longer need to ob serve the law. The law is no longer valid. The law is something bad that must be put out of the way. Thus, on the one hand, the validity of the condemnation of the law is accepted. That it condemns us as sinners is valid. We are sinners because we have broken the law. The law's verdict is upheld. It is the standard of righteousness which we have failed to reach. It is God's standard which is infallible. Therefore we human beings stand justly condemned. On the other hand, when Christ died, He supposedly did away with the law. The law is supposedly expendable. The saved Christian supposedly has nothing to do with the law.

In the first instance the law's validity is upheld; in the second instance its validity is denied. If as a standard of righteousness the law is invalid now for the Christian, then it was also invalid before. If the law had no authority to condemn to begin with, if it was only an illusion, if only a false understanding, then in reality the human race was never sinful at all—the law having no validity. What Christ does in such a case is only to disclose this information. He only needs to tell us that the law has no validity; therefore we are not sinners at all. This is the kind of salvation that Christ brings if what they say is true.

"Sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). If this is so, then the law is indeed the standard of righteousness. If it is, then the death of Christ (grace) does not do away with it, but on the contrary affirms it all the more. Otherwise His death is in vain. In reality it is the death of Christ (grace) that establishes the law. If the law could have been done away with, then Christ would not have needed to die.

What has been done away with for the Christian is the condemnation of the law. This is what Christ does. He does away with the condemnation of the law, not the law itself.

This means that the law remains as the standard of righteousness. True, the Christian does not look at the law merely from the standard of the letter of the law alone. He seeks to fulfill also the spirit of the law. In fact he sees in the life of Christ the living law. He sees that the commandment "Thou shall not kill" does not simply mean the actual act of killing, or even that one should not hate one's brother. But more positively it means that one should sacrifice oneself for others. It means that one should do everything to save life, not merely physical but total life. In Christ, then, the Christian sees his standard of righteousness in its complete fullness. This goes far beyond the mere letter of the law.

From our discussion it is evident that Paul cannot mean that Christ brings a termination to the law. The New English Bible says, "For Christ ends the law" (Rom. 10:4).* The Greek word telos, as is the English word end, is ambiguous. We can mean "Christ is the end of the law" in the sense that The New English Bible brings out or in the sense that He is its goal. If it means "end" (termination) then it can only mean the law as an instrument, as a way of salvation. That is legalism. Christ ends man's vain attempt to achieve salvation through works.

In recent years many Protestant scholars have upheld this point of view that Paul does not do away with the law through grace. Carl Henry affirms: "Since it is based on the nature and purpose of the changeless God, the Law can never be abolished, but remains for ever. Not even Christ abrogates the Law taken in this sense, nor is the Divine salvation of sinners by grace accomplished in violation of the moral law or in disregard to justice." —Christian Personal Ethics, p. 350. Charles Cranfield asserts: "For Paul, the law is not abolished by Christ. This thesis is stated in full awareness of the widespread tendency today, observable not only in popular writing but also in serious works of scholarship, to regard it as an assured result that Paul believed that the law had been abolished by Christ. This 'assured result,' like so many others, needs to be re-examined." —"St. Paul and the Law," Scottish Journal of Theology, 17 (1964), pp. 44, 45. Martin Lloyd-Jones writes: "We certainly are no longer under law but are under grace. Yet that does not mean that we need not keep the law. We are not under the law in the sense that it condemns us; it no longer pronounces judgment or condemnation on us. No! but we are meant to live it, and we are even meant to go beyond it." —Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p. 12.

One passage frequently cited to show that the law is no longer valid is Galatians 3. Let us look carefully at it. Paul presents the function of law in this pas sage in its relation to faith. First of all Paul shows that Abraham was saved by faith, and thus all who exercise faith are sons of Abraham. Then he contrasts the way of faith against the way of works. Since only by faith can a person be justified, the one who relies on works of the law is under a curse. The latter does not rely on faith but on achievement "—'He who does them shall live by them,'" (verse 12, R.S.V.).+ The Christian knows that works of law do not deliver him but place him under a curse. In fact, he knows himself to be a sinner and so under the curse of the law. He takes, therefore, the way of faith.

The promise of inheritance to Abra ham came 430 years before the law was given formally on Sinai. The primacy of faith is unquestioned. The law coming afterward did not in any way affect the promise. The method of salvation by faith remains valid. "This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void" (verse 17).

Why then the law? If the law in no way affects the promise, then why was the law given? Paul's answer is that the law was added "because of transgressions" (verse 19), that is, in order that there might be transgressions. It came to keep the promise alive by showing humans their need of the promise of the Saviour. Without a clear-cut standard even when sin is present, it is not explicitly pointed out. But when the law is published, sin becomes clearly recognized, identified, and visible. Thus Paul says in Romans 3:20, "Through the law comes knowledge of sin." Again he says, "Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet' " (chap. 7:7).

Actually Paul goes beyond this when he says that "law came in, to increase the trespass" (chap. 5:20). It not only makes us recognize sin as sin, but it makes us greater sinners. Prat defines the law from this point of view as "a barrier provocative to a perverse will" (Theology of St. Paul, p. 102). This "barrier" aspect Paul does not emphasize in Galatians 3 because he is trying to show how the law assists the promise. By pointing out the sin in us it keeps us aware of our need and thus keeps alive the promise of relief in Christ. The men of the Old Testament who had the promise had also the law—not as a new way of righteousness but as a way to be kept under restraint until faith should be revealed, that is, until Christ came. The law does not stand against the promises of God; it points out sin so "that what was promised to faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe" (Gal. 3:22).

The law worked with, not against, the promise. It could not bring life. It could not bring righteousness. But by showing the sinner his need of a Saviour it kept his eyes on the promise, which ultimately found its fulfillment in the coming of Christ. Since the promise has found its fulfillment, the function of the law to keep the promise alive is of course no longer necessary. However, the law still functions. It commands and demands. "It is only a light illuminating the intelligence without strengthening the will," as Prat states it. —Prat, op. cit., p. 103. It is still this in the Christian's experience, but through the grace of God his will is strengthened. He walks no longer "ac cording to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4). "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it can not" (verse 7). But the Christian who lives according to the Spirit is reconciled to God and submits to God's law.

One of the most misused verses is Romans 6:14: "For sin will have no do minion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace." Many have explained this verse to mean that since the Christian is under grace he is free from the law and need no longer fulfill it. But these fail to continue to read the next verse, which says, "What then? shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid" (verse 15, K.J.V.). Paul seems to be directly addressing himself to the very ones who would say that grace gives license to sin since the law has been removed. No, grace does not give license to sin; grace gives power to over come sin, to break the dominion and power of sin, and promotes its opposite, namely, righteousness. Being freed from sin, we are delivered to righteousness. Through God's grace we are servants of righteousness. Righteousness stands directly opposite sin. Sin is the transgression of the law. Then righteousness must be conformity to the law, that law which Paul calls "holy and just and good" (chap. 7:12), which is the standard of righteousness and sin. We have seen above how law defines sin; but if law defines sin in terms of transgression, it defines righteousness as conformity to it.

In this verse the term "under law" cannot mean living in obedience to God's law. As we have seen, it is the one who lives according to the flesh, who is hostile to God, who will not submit to God's law (see chap. 8:7). Clearly, living "under law," from the verse itself, must mean being under the dominion of sin. How is one under the dominion of sin? One is under the dominion of sin—"under law"—when he encounters the law without grace. Paul says, "When the commandment came, sin revived and I died [he had been under the complete domination of sin, under law]; the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me" (chap. 7:9-11).

It is through the law that sin maintains its mastery over the sinner. The weakness of the flesh cannot fulfill the demands of the law. Thus sin reigns as a tyrant.

In another connection Paul says, "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law" (1 Cor. 15:56). "If the flesh is sin's 'host,'" says Furnish, "then the law is sin's 'agent.'"—Theology and Ethics in Paul, p. 138. Without grace we fall helpless victims to sin, which gains its power through the law.

Because Paul here thus shows the close relationship between sin and law, it is easy to see why he can say, "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace" (Rom. 6:14). To be under grace, on the other hand, means to be under the do minion of righteousness. It is to encounter the law knowing "that the just requirement of the law . . . [has been] fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (chap. 8:4). It means that "there is ... now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (verse 1).

Paul has identified law and sin, and this could lead to misunderstanding. So he clarifies this point emphatically: "What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means!" (chap. 7:7). Then, in verses 8-11 he shows clearly that the real culprit is not the law but sin. Because of the weakness of the flesh sin has taken advantage of the law to deceive and to kill. In Paul's view, far from being an evil thing, "the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good" (verse 12). It was not the good law which brought death. Absolutely not! "It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin" (verses 13, 14).

This exonerates the law from any stigma. For Paul the law itself is holy, just, and good. He points his accusing finger not at the law but at the true culprit —sin.

In Romans 7 and 8 Paul describes our human condition in three levels. First occurs the time when we are "apart from the law" (chap. 7:9). Some look at this period as the age of innocence, when in childhood one is not aware of the law. According to the rabbis man had two impulses. At birth he received the evil impulse; but at 13, at bar mitzvah, when he became a "son of commandment," he received the good impulse. From that time on there is unceasing warfare be tween the two impulses. We can also understand this time as the time when one lives a life without restraints and without moral hangovers because he recognizes no external transcendent laws but becomes a law unto himself. He lives apart from the law.

The second stage comes when a per son encounters the law, acknowledges its demands as just, but has no power to satisfy them. In the first stage he lives apart from the law, but now he lives apart from grace and yet cannot escape the law. "When the commandment came, sin revived and I died" (verse 9). As we noticed above, not the law but sin is the real villain. Since I am sold under sin, I cannot fulfill what the law demands. I acknowledge its demands as just. I agree that the law is good; in fact, I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self. But because sin has control over me, I end up doing the opposite from what I want to do and from what the law demands. "Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me" (verse 20). Anyone in such a condition is wretched indeed!

There are two remedies to this situation. One is to look at the law merely from the legal and external point of view; in fact, to use the law as an instrument of merit, to justify oneself be fore God. Only when the law is brought down to the level where we can say, "All these I have observed from my youth," can some satisfaction come, however false and temporary.

But if we look at the law as it truly is—an expression of the character and will of God—and see that only love in its authentic form can fulfill it, then the sinner can only cry out, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (verse 24).

The remedy can only be Jesus Christ. ''For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (chap. 8:2-4).

Thus we arrive at the third stage, when sin in the flesh is condemned and the Spirit takes over and controls in place of the flesh.

From this discussion it becomes clear that the law is indeed holy, just, good, and spiritual. Sin exploits the law. And when we live apart from Christ, apart from grace, the law appears to be our enemy. Under grace we are freed from the condemnation and dominion of the law. We are freed, too, from law as a way of salvation. We now live through grace. And in so doing we at last live in true harmony with the holy, just, good, and spiritual law.

Notes:

From Acquitted! (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1976). Used by permission.
* From The New English Bible. © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970. Reprinted by permission.

+ All subsequent texts are taken from the Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise indicated.


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Sakae Kubo, Ph.D., is dean of the school of theology, Walla Walla College, College Place, Washington.

March 1980

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