Grace and Law- two systems to choose from

We can adopt three postures towards God. Only one of them is pleasing to God Himself. These are 'atheist', 'legalist' and 'contrite of heart'.

Firstly, we can deny God's existence or attempt to ignore Him completely.

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. (Psa 14:1 NIV)

There is no such thing as a righteous atheist. His attempts at righteousness will be a sham. The psalm spells out the truth about him.

Secondly, we can attempt to justify ourselves before Him. We try to prove our own goodness and worthiness to Him. This is normally by trying to get in His good books through an appeal to our own merits or our own good works.

Here we appeal, perhaps subconsciously, to some code of rules for conduct, published or otherwise, and try to convince ourselves that we measure up well to it, and are therefore deserving of God's favour or positive intervention on our behalf. This 'tit-for-tat' attitude is deeply embedded in our fallen nature. We are assuming God is after something from us to justify any favour or attention he gives us.

The Old Testament patriarch Abraham was given an unconditional promise of enormous scope in Genesis chapter 12 verse 7. This is indicative of the fact that God had decided to show him favour. Up to that point all Abra(ha)m had done was to take God seriously and walk with Him. In verse 7, there had been no bargaining or self-justification, just a promise from God out of the blue. Further unconditional promises would follow as Abraham walked imperfectly with God. Look at Genesis 14v14 and 15v1-7. These promises are simply statements from God to Abraham, saying without qualification that God would bless him in certain ways. These ways were obviously very substantial and far-reaching. Notice that the physical sign of covenant was given after the promise in Genesis 15, as a sign in response to Abraham's request for reassurance. It was not a condition of the covenant.

Later, under Moses and at Sinai, a conditional covenant was instigated. We refer to this as the Law, the Law of Moses. I believe that this was in response to the demands and expectations of the people, who failed to comprehend the unconditional covenant given to Abraham. We can therefore discriminate between the physical seed of Abraham and the spiritual seed of Abraham. The spiritual seed of Abraham is the Body of Christ, the true church. The physical seed is the Jewish nation, from which came the physical body of Christ Himself. One may be a physical descendant of Abraham by natural birth. One may be a spiritual descendant of Abraham by the New Birth, i.e. being born again. One does not have to be a physical son to be a spiritual son. You can be both of course.

We may acknowledge the existence of God, and His righteousness. We may then be tempted to try to measure up to Him in our own strength. We will measure ourselves and others according to some code of conduct, seeking to justify ourselves before Him and gain His favour. We will judge ourselves and others who do not measure up. We will become uncertain of our own standing before God. To live like this is to live under Law. The Law I am refering to may or may not be the law of Moses. For the Orthodox Jew it is. For others it may be some other written or, more likely, unwritten code of outward conduct. It could be the rules of a particular church or denomination. Whatever it is, we will fail to measure up completely.

The third approach to God is based only on faith in His love, goodness and mercy. The Bible does not tell us that sin was imputed to Abraham. In other words, God did not approach him by making an issue of failures and wrongdoings. Instead God took the initiative and simply made promises. Abraham for his part believed God was real and was talking to him,  and that He could be trusted. He then acted in line with these beliefs, albeit imperfectly. This way of realting to God is the way of grace. It is not that grace is first required from us. We believe that He is a gracious God. In other words, we have faith in His grace.

In reality throughout the Bible we can see that people attempted to commune with God on the basis of law or grace, or a combination. It is the same today. Even believers tend to appeal to Law at least some of the time. Abraham, and later David, approached God on the basis of His grace and goodwill and not their own imagined righteousness. This is how God wants it.

Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.    The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.     I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.    And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.   I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Luke 18:9-14 KJV)

Here Jesus penetrates to the heart of the issue. A contrite needy heart will be accepted before God. A self-reliant heart will not be. It is a question of innermost attitude. The correct, contrite innermost attitude will perceive Christ.

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32 KJV)


God wants to give us the Kingdom. We simply acknowledge that we do not deserve it. In our natural condition we deserve death. We acknowledge that we cannot attain to it unless He gives it to us. we realise that He graciously wants ot give the Kingdom to us. He wants to condition self-reliance and striving out of us; those things which we learnt through the influence of Satan. Then He intends to give us the Kingdom. What is the Kingdom in practice? It is to live by the Word of God and not by the wisdom and patterns of this world. We can experience the Kingdom within us firstly in this dark world. This dark world will then begin to conform to heaven everywhere we go. If we live like this, we will ultimately experience the Kingdom as physical reality also.