Knowing Grace...it takes Christ to know

Being under grace does not mean that it is okay to sin. God hates sin because it destroys the sinner whom He loves, so He gave His Son to save us from our sins. See Matthew 1:21 "And she will have a Son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

In Christ, that we are “dead to the law” is not because the law is no longer relevant. Romans 6:23 says “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” By dying in our place, Christ fulfilled the law for all who believe Him. He made a once for all atonement for all of our sins - past, present and future. See Hebrews 10:12 “But our High Priest offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time.”

In Christ, our obligation to the law which we can never fulfill on our own has been paid in full by Him. Think of this as what happens when a kind benefactor pays up the lifetime mortgage/debt on a house that a poor and homeless individual inherited from his equally poor parents who could not make a single payment towards owning the house when they were alive. (The effect of defaulting on our obligation to the law is death preceded by the symptoms of the curse of the law)

But Christ did not in any way come to diminish or discard the law. On the contrary, His death magnifies the law - only His sinless blood can fulfill its righteous requirements. All of our puny efforts at keeping the law (our own righteousnesses and attempts at being good people) are like menstrual rags (Isaiah 64:6.) Neither law-keeping nor good works can make anyone righteous in God's sight (Romans 3:20.)

The law does not grade on the curve. Deut. 28:15 says you have to obey all of the law in order to avoid its curse. James 2:10 says “For whosoever shall keep the whole law yet stumble at one point, he is guilty of all.” This means that under law, the one who only lied about his location on the phone is just as guilty as the child-molesting, rapist, fornicating, adulterous, murdering, terrorist killer. This is why the law-abiding Pharisees could not stone the woman caught in adultery to death. Because all have sinned, they were just as guilty as the woman.

The law does not say “I see that you are doing your best so I will give you a pass mark.” You have to do what it says 100% in order to become righteous by it. But Romans 3:20 says “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands…” The law cannot make anybody righteous.

But in Christ, we are not under Law but under Grace- undeserved, unearned, unmerited favour. The whole essence of the New Covenant that we have in Christ is justification (righteousness) by faith. God’s righteousness demands that every sin be punished to the uttermost and the wages of sin is death. He cannot bend the law for anyone because His word says“righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne.” Even we would be appalled if a human judge bent the rules for some people sometimes. But because God is love and He loved us so, He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die the death that we should die and make us righteous- even though we do not deserve it. In Christ, we are made righteous by His obedience, not ours. See Romans 5:19-

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

From the above verse, we see that committing acts of sin is not what makes people sinners. People are made sinners by Adam's sin. Everyone is born with this sin/old nature. Acts of sin are simply products of having the old nature that is inherited from Adam. This root (old nature inherited from Adam) activated by the law that many are trying to keep, is what causes acts of sin to proliferate. We see this in Romans 7:5-

“When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death."

Notice that it is the introduction of the law- e.g. Don't eat pork, love God, don't covet, etc, that arouses evil desires. The very law that people try to keep causes them to sin more. This ties in with Romans 6:14- “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” Under law is where sin has dominion over one. But somehow, many in the church have this verse backwards, striving to keep the law and thus giving sin free rein over their lives. The one who believes that it is his own obedience to the law that makes him right with God has been cut off from Christ according to Galatians 5:4-

“For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”

In the church today, the focus is on preaching keeping the Ten Commandments and doing good things as the path to getting right with God, when what is needful is ridding people of the old nature that was inherited from Adam. Christ died to rid us of this old sin nature. In Him, we are a new creation. God put our sin on Him so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, as it is written in 2 Cor. 5:21-

"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

When you receive the abundance of grace and believe that you are saved and made righteous by the obedience of Christ (Romans 5:19) and not your own obedience or your self-discipline and law-keeping prowess, you no longer have the old nature. You are dead to the law. Old things have passed away. No more curse. No more curse so no need for you to "break every generational curse of my mother's house." Christ redeemed us from the curse- Galatians 3:13. You are a new creation in Christ Jesus. It is not a process. It is immediate once you believe. And this is the result of right believing according to Romans 7:4-

"So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the One who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God."

Just as the sin nature produces acts of sin, as new creation with Christ as our righteousness, we get to bear fruit to righteousness, yet not us but Christ in us. Nothing to do with human effort. In Christ, we have the Holy Spirit to teach us all things.

Christianity isn't at all about obeying the law of Moses (human effort at getting right with God.) The law is not of faith. The letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Christianity is all about being led by the Spirit. The right thing to do according to the law is not always the Spirit thing to do. Jesus healed the sick on the Sabbath. The Torah prohibits this. Jesus paid temple tax. The Torah demands this. The woman with the issue of blood broke the law by mingling with the crowd in her bid to touch Jesus’ robe. If a sharp Pharisee had spotted her as she did this, she would have been stoned to death. Jesus called her action faith.

The “law is not of faith.” If one is keeping the law to get right with God, that one has no faith. And “without faith, it is impossible to please God.”

Grace too, like the law, does not grade on the curve. With Christ as your righteousness and not yours from keeping the law, God sees you as righteous through and through, even when you sin. This is where many religious people lose it and start to falsely accuse grace children of the same thing that their fellow religious people accused Paul of preaching during his time: They falsely accused Paul of preaching that it is okay to sin because of grace! See Romans 3:8. “And some people even slander us by claiming that we say, “The more we sin, the better it is!” Those who say such things deserve to be condemned.”

But according to Romans 5:17, this is THE ONLY WAY to live in triumph over sin: ″For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ.”

With the abundance of God’s wonderful grace and with Christ as your righteousness, you will not continue to sin or make silly mistakes because Christ lives in you and leads you on the path of righteousness. If you do make mistakes or sin, God will never punish you because Christ already took your punishment when He hung on the cross for you. See 1 John 2: 

“My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. 2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.”

And because He is the one who trains us up in the way that you should go, we don’t HAVE TO live right; we GET TO live right.

This is the logic of His word. “For the message of the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] to those who are perishing and spiritually dead [because they reject it], but to us who are being saved [by God’s grace] it is [the manifestation of] the power of God.” 1 Cor. 1:18.

There is something about the arm of flesh (human effort at getting right with God or doing anything at all) that always wants to be relevant in the story of our salvation. We are mere but beloved recipients in this story. Christ does it all.

It takes grace to know the truth that sets free; all who do have nothing to boast about of themselves. See Romans 3:27-28: "Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law."

IT'S ALL ABOUT JESUS- GRACE PERSONIFIED!