GRACE, THE LAW AND SALVATION

 

“Go and sin no more”, is how the Lord Jesus resolved an apparent standoff between grace and the Law. The Jews arrested a woman they claim was caught in adultery and asked Jesus to sanction her stoning as is required under the Law of Moses. Jesus asked whoever was also without sin to commence the stoning, and none did. So, Jesus asked the woman to go and sin no more (John 8: 1-12).

So, both grace and the Law of Moses do not excuse sin. The contrast is that the Law requires immediate human intervention in things specified to be sinful, while grace emphasized room for repentance and for direct Divine retribution. The Bible records direct Divine interventions before the Law and in situations where people entrusted with the Law failed to justly to apply it.

The Law of Moses is actually God-given (Divine), meant to let people hold one another in check, and to elevate the morality (glory) of God’s people above that of their Godless neighbors. Surely, the people applying the Law also had faults that sometimes affected their handling of the Law, and that was largely what was ‘wrong’ with the Law.

The Law however was humanly irreplaceable until Jesus came. Under His reign, the Law is virtually useless as His disciples espouse morality that satisfies more than the Law’s requirements. Those outside His reign need to be regulated by the Law (and its multitudes of modifications and adulterations).

#BibleBriefs