Grace and Love Validate the Law

Biblical Passages to Read: Romans 7:9; 2 Corinthians 3:6-7; Titus 3:5-7; Galatians 3:11; Ephesians 2:8; Romans 3:28; 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 2 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Timothy 6:12.

In chapters 6 to 8 of Dr. Greg Bahnsen's book, "By This Standard: The Authority of God's Law Today," we learned the trinitarian arguments about the continuing validity of God's law. In this chapter and the next, chapters 9 and 10, we will explore two additional arguments; this time from the other two ethical perspectives. Since the book focuses on the normative ("deontological") aspect of Christian ethics, the remaining two ethical arguments are the motivational (also called "existential") and consequential (technically known as "teleological"). In the summary of the present chapter, we will just confine ourselves with motivational ethics. 

The motivational perspective of Christian ethics is related to the influence of grace and love to our obedience to the law. Understanding this is so important especially these days where the mindset that the ethics of grace and love have canceled out the law of God is prevalent. This kind of thinking says Dr. Bahnsen is "unbiblical" and "antinomian" (p. 72).

The Ethic of Grace Validates the Law of God

Dr. Bahnsen repeatedly emphasized that it is a misconception to associate the argument of the continuing validity of divine law with salvation by means of our obedience to it. He has already established that no one can completely meet the law's demands for it is an expression of God's perfect character. And so salvation is based purely on God's act of grace and is received by faith. 

The law of God showed us that we are sinners and in need of a Savior. It shows the kind of life God requires from us, and that is perfect obedience. No man can fulfill such requirement except Jesus. And so only Jesus is qualified to save us from the power of sin. 

The Bible consistently teaches that those who experience the grace of God would now have the will, the desire and the power to keep the law of God. Grace is the backround for Christian obedience. And not only that, the operation of both grace and law cannot be separated in the new life. At this point, let me just enumerate the insights made by Dr. Bahnsen concerning the relationship between law and grace (pp. 73-76):

• God's grace operates within the parameters of His law-in justifying His people, God does not violate His own justice (Rom. 3:26). 

• God's law is gracious (Ps. 119:29). 

• Both grace and law support each other: the law promotes the fulfillment of God's promise (Rom. 5:20-21), and God's grace works to fulfill the law (Rom. 8:3-4). 

• When Paul says that we are saved by grace through faith, he immediately adds that as God's, workmanship we are expected to walk in good works ( Eph. 2:10). 

• Although it is popular today to look upon the law as an intolerable burden for modern man, the beloved apostle wrote that for the believer God's law is not burdensome (1 John 5:3).

• When the Psalmist reflected upon the loving kindness of the Lord, he longed to be taught His statutes and rose at midnight to render thanks for His righteous ordinances (Ps. 119:62-64).

• Moses viewed the giving of God's law as a· sure sign of his love for the people (Deut. 33:2-4).

• All of God's people, throughout both testaments, have a heart which longs to obey the commandments of the Lord, for the law is established against the background of God's mercy toward His people (for example, Ex. 20:2). 

• The first-hand experience of God's redemption is a strong motive for keeping the law (Deut. 7:10-11). 

• The grace of God, that is, brings men to exclaim: "I long for Thy salvation, 0 Lord, and Thy law is my delight" (Ps. 119:174). 

• Paul wrote, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Rom. 7:22). God's law, you see, had been graciously written upon his heart (Heb. 10:16). 

• In Romans 6, Paul discusses the implications of being under God's grace. He begins by asking whether we should continue in sin (law-breaking) so that grace might abound; his answer is a dramatic "God forbid!" (vv. 1-2). Those who have had their old man crucified with Christ, those who are united with Christ in his death and resurrection, those who have risen with Him must walk in newness of life, no longer in bondage to sinful living (vv. 3-11). So Paul exhorts us, "let not sin reign in your mortal body so that you should obey its lusts; neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness." Those who are saved by grace from the power of sin should be finished with violating God's law. Instead they must, having been made alive from the dead, present their members as instrumeI)ts of righteousness (vv. 12-13). Why is this? How can it be that we are obliged to obey the righteous requirements of God's law if we are saved by grace? Paul answers: "Because sin shall not have dominion over you: you are not under law, but under grace" (v. 14). Ironically, although many groups have used this declaration out of context to support release from the law's demand, the verse is one of the strongest biblical proofs that believers must strive to obey the law of God! Because we are no longer under the curse of the law and shut in to its inherent impotence in enabling obedience - because we are under God's enabling grace, not under law - we must not allow violations of the law (i.e., sin: 1John 3:4) to dominate our lives. It is in order that the righteous ordinance of the law may be fulfilled in us that God has graciously put His Spirit within our hearts (Rom. 8:4). "So then, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? God forbid!" (Rom. 6:15). 

• "The grace of God has appeared unto all men, bringing salvation, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age," for Christ has "redeemed us from every lawless deed" (Titus 2:11-14). 

• God's grace upholds His law. It is to be expected, therefore, that Paul would ask the following question and supply the obvious answer: "Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary we establish the law" (Rom. 3:31). 

• Faith which does not bring obedient works-that is, faith which is divorced from God's law - is in fact insincere and dead James 2:14-26). This kind of faith cannot justify a man at all. 

• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) is true to Scripture when it teaches that "good works, done in obedience to God's commandments, are the" fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith" (XVI:2). By saving faith, the Confession says, a man will yield obedience to the commands of Scripture (XIV:2). Genuine saving faith always is accompanied by heart-felt repentance from sin and turning unto God, "purposing and endeavoring to walk with Him in all the ways of His commandments" (XV:2). 

Conclusion: "We conclude, then, that the Christian's life of grace and faith is not one which is indifferent or antagonistic to the law of God. God's grace and saving faith establish the validity of the law" (p. 76). 

The Ethic of Love Also Validates the Law of God

Similar truth is applicable to the ethic of love. Instead of invalidating the law of God, love in fact endorses it. Let us see what Dr. Bahnsen has to say about this (pp. 76-77): 

• Because God has shown His love toward us, we are now to live in love to Him and our neighbor (Eph. 5:1-2; 1John.4:7-12, 16-21). On these two love commandments - toward God and toward our neighbor (as taught in the Old Testament [Deut. 6:5, Lev. 19:18])-hang all the law and the prophets, said Jesus (Matt. 22:37-40). Indeed, "love is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:10). But in the thinking of Jesus and the apostles, does this mean that Christians can dispense with the law of God or repudiate its details? Not at all. Moses had taught that loving God meant keeping His commandments (Deut. 30:16), and as usual Jesus did not depart from Moses: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15). 

• The love which summarizes and epitomizes Christian ethics is not a vague generality or feeling that tolerates, for instance, everything from adultery to chastity. John wrote: "Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments" (1 John 5:2-3). 

• Love summarizes the law of God, but it does not abrogate or replace it. As John Murray once wrote, "the summary does not obliterate or abrogate the expansion of which it is a summary."

• God's commandments give the specific character and direction to love as exercised by the believer. Rather than being a law unto itself (autonomous), love is a reflection of the character of God (1 John 4:8) and must therefore coincide with the dictates of God's law, for they are the transcript of God's moral perfection on a creaturely level. 

Conclusion: "God has loved us in that He saved us by grace through faith. Accordingly the Christian life ought to reflect the principles of grace, faith, and love; without them it is vain and insignificant. However, far from eliminating the law of God, a gracious ethic of faith and love establishes the permanent validity of-and our need for-the Lord's commandments" (p. 77). 

Source: Bahnsen, G. L. (1985). By This Standard: The Authority of God's Law Today. Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics.