“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

(Romans 6:14)

Some would question whether the Grace of God in Christ Jesus alone is a sufficient rule by which the believer on Christ can truly live.

The apostle Paul clearly shows that sin (its curse, power, or consequences) SHALL NOT have dominion over the believer, NOT because of law preaching and legalistic rules, but because HE IS UNDER GRACE. The Grace of God not only has saved the elect sinner from the penalty and curse of the law, through the work of the LORD Jesus Christ, but from the power of sin, through the regenerating, sanctifying work of the Spirit of God, Titus 3:5-6.

The work of Grace does not change the law itself. The law is as holy, just, and good as God Himself, Romans 7:12. It is the revelation of His very character. Nor does the Grace of God lessen the claims of the law. The law is as eternal as the God Who revealed it. However, the law can never be satisfied by even our best attempts to obey it. It requires perfect obedience.

Therefore, to preach obedience to the law on our part, as the means of God’s blessing is neither Gospel nor Grace. On the other hand, to preach obedience to a relaxed, or less strict law, modifying it to attempt to make it attainable in any way, by our own efforts, is to propose salvation by sin, not by righteousness. To allow for imperfect obedience to a modified law is to totally dishonor the God Who established it and impugn His holiness. It would make God an unjust, compromising Judge, which He could never be. No! The demand of the law is absolute perfection. It is all or nothing! Either we are saved wholly by the law, or entirely without the law.

What the Grace of God has done, is not to change the nature of the law, but the believer’s relationship to it! The law remains inflexible and requires either perfect obedience, or eternal condemnation, Romans 3:19-20. The Grace of God answers the law’s just demands in the perfect obedience of Christ, the Substitute, Romans 3:21-25. Christ lived and died, fulfilling the precepts and penalty of the law, that God might be just and justify those who believe, Romans 3:26. Those who do truly believe are those sinners who, by the God-given Spirit of Grace, are made to see with Spiritual eyes, that Christ is the end (complete accomplishment) of the law for righteousness (justification before God), Romans 10:4.