The Beauty Of Law And Grace

The law of God in the Old Testament, for all its rigorous demands and severe punishments, was an expression of God’s grace; this is precisely why Paul concludes that the law is ‘holy, righteous and good’ (Romans 7:12). Paul’s reasoning is that through the law we recognise sin as ‘sinful beyond measure’ (v 13), and only when we acknowledge the reality of sin will we be ready to receive the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is therefore a perversion to talk of ‘law or grace’ as if the two were mutually exclusive; we will not even find the phrase ‘law and grace’ in the Bible. Instead, we should always think of ‘the grace of law’; because law is grace. For this reason we may speak of ‘law and gospel’, for both the law­—which in the words of William Tyndale ‘asks and requires’, and the gospel—which Tyndale claimed ‘pardons and forgives’, are expressions of grace. Whenever God gave his people laws, he provided salvation through the offering of a sacrifice. That is grace. In God’s covenant, wherever there was law there was also gospel. In the New Testament, the good news of Jesus Christ is called, ‘The word of his grace’ (Acts 14:3) and ‘The gospel of the grace of God’ (Acts 20:24). For his part, Paul summarises the whole of the gospel in four words, ‘By grace … through faith’ (Ephesians 2:8).*

*Edwards, B. H. (2003). Grace: Amazing grace (7). Leominster, UK: Day One Publications.