Chapter 11 Victory Through Grace

Neither Sabbath-keeping nor Sunday-keeping will earn us a place in heaven. Salvation is not something we deserve as a payment or reward for anything we have done. Salvation comes as a free gift from Jesus, who bought and paid for it with His own precious blood. Please notice this passage from 1 Peter 1:18,19:

    Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
    but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."

The fact that we are saved by grace alone, "knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ . . . for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified" (Galatians 2:16), this fact should be abundantly clear to every Christian believer. Here is another beautiful description of the awesome price that Jesus paid to provide us with this transcendent experience of salvation by grace:

Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His (Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1898, 25).

Grace and law meet at the cross. Calvary brings us face to face with both. Law existed before sin existed – before there was any need for grace. Law can exist without grace. But, thank God, it doesn’t! Not since sin entered the world and God came searching for Adam.

Because there is sin, we need grace. The encounter at the cross is beautifully described in Psalm 85:10:

The grace of Christ does not expel righteousness. It expels sin. And "sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). Grace drives out lawlessness, and brings in lawfulness, which is obedience. The Apostle Paul explains how faith affects God’s law: "Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law" (Romans 3:31).

Before we discuss further the function and blessing of grace, we really need to look at the function and importance of law. We think of law as the complement of rules and regulations. It includes how things are, how things work, and how things should be. This is well expressed in these words by the National Football League hero, Jeff Kemp:

Sports also taught me that there are rules of life that I must heed. What would a football field be like if there were no sidelines, no end zones, no yard markers? What if the goalposts were moved in the middle of the game? What would basketball be like if the court had no boundaries and the player dribbling the ball had no limitations? What would keep him from running into the bleacher section? Who would say he needed to make a basket to score? What would a track meet be like? Who would determine the winners in a race if the officials threw away their stopwatches and turned their backs on the runners?

Without life’s rules – that is, without universally acknowledged truths – there is no form, no function, no way to prefer one kind of action or outcome over another ("Rules to Live by On and Off the Playing Field," Imprimis, July 1998, Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College. Jeff Kemp is Executive Director of the Washington Family Council.).

The whole physical universe operates according to very precise laws. There would be total chaos without them. Since God’s sovereignty is not based on physical power alone, but on character, He has established moral law that expresses His own goodness. And since His character never changes, that moral law never changes. God has taken the eternal, unchangeable principles of His own righteousness, and expressed them in ten beautiful commandments. These He stated in a clear, simple way in language that fits our human situation. These great commandments of love are so important that the Lord did not trust them to inspiration. He did not even dictate them, but wrote them with His own finger in stone. The first four articulate our duty to our Creator; the last six spell out our duty to each other.

We would do well at this point to give some attention to what the inspired writers of Scripture have said concerning the sublime nature of God’s law:

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple (Psalm 19:7).

The glory of God’s law is the theme of the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm119. Read it through slowly, thoughtfully, and with a heart full of prayer and praise. You will really enjoy the experience, and be blessed. Here are just a few statements from that Psalm:

For Your law is my delight (Psalm 119:77). All Your commandments are faithful (Psalm 119:86). Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day (Psalm 119:97). Great peace have those who love Your law, And nothing causes them to stumble (Psalm 119:165). And I will delight myself in Your commandments, Which I love (Psalm 119:47).

The following words are recognized as a prophecy of Christ’s attitude during his incarnation on earth. They show His high regard for the law of God:

I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart (Psalm 40:8).

God’s law is important as a part of the criteria by which we may judge the genuineness of any religious teaching. "To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isaiah 8:20).

The Apostle Paul, probably the most authoritative Christian voice in the New Testament, shows a perfect agreement with the Old Testament witnesses: "Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good" (Romans 7:12). It was always, and is always, perfect. It embodies holiness, and holiness is perfection. God did find fault with His covenant relationship with Israel. But the fault lay in the people, not in God or His law. This is explained in Hebrews 8:7-13. Notice that the law does not change under the new covenant. Rather, God writes the law in our hearts, which means that the law is closer to us than ever before.

A careful reading of Romans 8:3 shows that the weakness in Israel’s relation with God was in the flesh; that is, in His people. God sent His own Son, not to condone sin in the flesh, but to condemn sin in the flesh. Remember, "sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). It is sin that is condemned, not the law. Sin is condemned because it violates God’s perfect, unchangeable law.

The only way to escape "sin in the flesh" is to be "born of the Spirit." Then we "are not in the flesh but in the Spirit" (Romans 8:9). Jesus told Nicodemus, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). The Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:19-25 draws a sharp contrast between "the works of the flesh" and the "fruit of the Spirit." To live in the flesh is "to be carnally minded" (Romans 8:6).

Paul goes on to emphasize the contrast between carnality and spirituality in relation to the law. Please notice that he makes it clear that to please God we must be subject to God’s law:

    Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
    So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:7,8).

The Ten Commandment law of God is of the utmost importance. It is God’s standard of righteousness, the standard by which the Christian must live. We know this is true because the Bible says we are to be judged by that law. This truth is made plain in the book of James:

    For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
    For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
    So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty (James 2:10-12).

We know that the law referred to here is the Ten Commandment law because James quotes two specific precepts from that law. Now, it would be grossly unfair for the Lord to tell us we don’t have to live by the law, and then turn around and judge us by that law.

So far in this chapter we have seen that God’s law is good, that its great moral precepts are still in effect. We refer here to one conclusive Scripture that shows this law has not been abrogated, but is of a perpetual jurisdiction:

The works of His hands are verity and justice;
All His precepts are sure.
They stand fast forever and ever,
And are done in truth and uprightness (Psalm 111:7,8).

Since all of us are sinners, we could easily become despondent when we look at God’s perfect law. At this point we need the encouragement of one of the most comforting texts in all the Bible. That Scripture assures us that we are not under law but under grace. To minimize the risk of misinterpreting this text (Romans 6:14), we wish to include in our quotation the two verses that precede verse 14, and the two verses that follow it:

    Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
    And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
    For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
    What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!
    Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness (Romans 6:12-16)?

We can see from the verses that precede and that follow that beautiful assurance of grace that it is still possible for Christians to sin. God’s law is still in effect, "for where there is no law there is no transgression" (Romans 4:15). This agrees with what we have already found earlier in this chapter -- the law is still binding upon believers.

Since this is true, then what can it mean to be "not under law"? This means that we have been forgiven. God’s mercy takes away our guilt and cancels the punishment that we deserve for having violated His law. Grace acts upon us, not upon the law. It does not change the law in any way. It does, however, show that the law still stands. Otherwise, grace is not grace. The meaning then is that we are no longer under the condemnation of the law.

And we are "not under law" as a means of earning salvation. By the time Jesus came to earth, the Jews had come to regard the strict observance of the law as entitling them to a place in heaven. But this concept was their own perversion of God’s plan of redemption. No sinner has ever been saved by works. Adam the rebel, Moses the murderer, David the adulterer, and Manasseh the idolater were all saved by grace. Paul is saying that Christians are not under this erroneous Jewish idea of salvation by works, but that we are under grace. But then he makes it very clear that God’s law is still in force.

If God could have abolished His law, there would have been no sin, and therefore no need for a Savior. Jesus paid the penalty that was exacted by the broken law, proving beyond all question that God’s law cannot be repealed. Were there no law, there would be no need for grace. Without law, grace has no meaning. Nothing in this world is so precious to the Christian as God’s forgiving grace, which has freed him from the guilt of sin.

There is nothing in the Holy Scriptures so clear as the fact that God requires perfect obedience to His holy law. No variation from His strict requirements is permitted. But because of the love of Jesus, this does not frighten the Christian. His heart overflows with gratitude because he is "under grace." He knows he has not earned salvation, but still he has it. With a thankful heart he does his best to abide by God’s holy Ten Commandments – all of them. The committed Christian delights to do God’s will.

It is the earnest prayer of the writer that whoever reads this work will appreciate the forgiving and keeping grace of our Lord so much that he will determine to show his thanks by a willing acceptance of God’s law of love, including the blessing that is found in the observance of the original seventh-day Sabbath. The words of the old Gospel song are still true:

Trust and obey; for there’s no other way

To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version.
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